Homophobia divides the working class, who can in turn be conquered.
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Homophobia
I don't often ask questions with regard to Marxism and Socialist Ideology.
I believe that's because I've already made my mind on the matter and have done enough extensive research to be aware.
Nonetheless, I haven't seen a materialistic perspective on homophobia and was wondering how capitalism reinforces homophobia?
Homophobia divides the working class, who can in turn be conquered.
It's hardly a real division, given that 3-5% of people are actually gay. Maybe if you count gays and LGBTQ allies then its larger.
I thought the standard response was that anything that distracts workers from the Marxist agenda was a capitalist ploy.
Conditions for freeing the worker from wage slavery and discrimination means the worker being able to pursue his/her own happiness and able to express his/her true identity via smashing the capitalist system that opposes such liberty were homosexuality is barely tolerated, is stigmatised and fails to recognise that human labour is human labour, regardless of class or sexual orientation. Workers united chief, not workers divided.
You'd also have to factor in the bisexual population, which brings the total to over a tenth of the population. Furthermore, you'd have to add in those that are bisexual that haven't admitted to being bisexual.
Some people (foolishly) believe that homophobia is so intimately tied up with capitalism and/or class society that socialism will automatically ensure its total disappearance. We should be careful to avoid this trap when considering the relationship between capitalism and homophobia, assuming any such relationship exists...
I agree with the above, homophobia is a remnant of our xenophobic nature and can only be cured with open mindedness.
You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. - Max Shuemaker, Network
It's not so much dividing the working class. As stated already, gays make up at most 5% of the population. Even if you factor bisexuals, you still end up with a relatively small group.
What homophobia does is distract the working class from class consciousness and class struggle with useless bullshit. It's like how Americans are seemingly more obsessed with gay marriage and abortion than policies which directly affect their livelihoods (public health, education, etc).
Hatred and fear of homosexuality in the West stems from religion, specifically; the Abrahamic faiths.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
I think one of the main sources of modern North American homophobia is to be seen in the upholding of a specific type of bourgeois familial life since the mid-19th century, along with the ideology that this type is the "building block" of society. This is connected to calling it "family values". This also extends to Britain certainly and other parts of Europe. There's that famous passage where Engels (IIRC, maybe it's Marx) notes how every level of society in Britain is "bourgeois", including the royal family, where Victoria and Albert certainly tried to put this new model of family on top of the dynastic rutting of old.
The point I'm trying to make is that homosexual behaviours and their outlets (the concept of identity or orientation came first with the Uranians) was placed far more firmly outside of society with this model. So, that new model family, connected to the rise of capitalism, may provide some connection between capitalism and homophobia. If you have access to article databases, this is the sort of thing that has quite a few articles.
Kudos! That's what I was looking forward to as an answer. Now I have somewhere to begin for researching the matter.
See; Genesis: 19, Levicticus 18:22, Levicticus: 20:13, 1st Romans: 26-27, 1st Corinthians: 6:9-10, 1st Timothy: 1:9-10, Jude: 1:7.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
I agree that Homophobia is probably connected to capitalism. If you look at the DPRK there is a very progressive view towards homosexuality, people are not openly homosexual but the government also does not discriminate against it. I think this is the correct socialist stance.
"Due to tradition in Korean culture, it is not customary for individuals of any sexual orientation to engage in public displays of affection. As a country that has embraced science and rationalism, the DPRK recognizes that many individuals are born with homosexuality as a genetic trait and treats them with due respect.
Homosexuals in the DPRK have never been subject to repression, as in many capitalist regimes around the world. However, North Koreans also place a lot of emphasis on social harmony and morals. Therefore, the DPRK rejects many characteristics of the popular gay culture in the West, which many perceive to embrace consumerism, classism and promiscuity."
You seem to be implying that there is something about being gay/gay culture that is negative for society at large. That's fairly homophobic, especially considering that what you view as being so progressive is essentially a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for the entire society.
Not to mention of course, I don't see what's wrong with promiscuity. Safe sex != no sex/little sex.
Also, you should be banned for homophobia.
[FONT=Arial]“Whoever labours becomes a proprietor... And when I say proprietor, I do not mean simply (as do our hypocritical economists) proprietor of his allowance, his salary, his wages, – I mean proprietor of the value he creates, and by which the master alone profits... The labourer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right in the thing he has produced.”[/FONT]-Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?, pg. 123-4
No I don't think there is anything wrong with being gay, just that Korean society looks down on open display of affection, and the western gay culture which seeks to openly flaunt homosexuality. These kind of displays are not accepted in Korean culture, or for that matter Chinese. The most that you would see is perhaps a heterosexual couple holding hands in public.
Right, because homosexual couples shouldn't display affection because it would disintegrate social harmony and morals. You're really failing to explain, to me at least, how these views aren't reactionary. You create a different standard for gay couples, than you do for heterosexual ones.
[FONT=Arial]“Whoever labours becomes a proprietor... And when I say proprietor, I do not mean simply (as do our hypocritical economists) proprietor of his allowance, his salary, his wages, – I mean proprietor of the value he creates, and by which the master alone profits... The labourer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right in the thing he has produced.”[/FONT]-Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property?, pg. 123-4
I do agree he's regressive. However, I don't think he's being homophobic. He's stating that not even heterosexuals show affection in China and Korea (I.e. Asian Culture is different than Western Culture.) Nonetheless, North Korea's approach is, in effect, a Don't Ask, Don't Tell Method.
Exactly, the only kind of public affection you see in Korea is couples holding hands in public, and even that is not often seen. North Koreans simply don't welcome the kind of in your face homosexuality sometimes seen in the west.
That would almost be convincing if it weren't for the fact that European homophobia predates the spread of Christianity. The Vikings, for example, used forced male-to-male intercourse as a means to 'humiliate' enemies, including opponents in battle, by 'emasculating' (sp?) them. And they weren't Christian, but still, for some reason or another, found homosexuality humiliating.
An interesting comparison I point out is that, in Judaic literature, the way of Sodom is 'what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine,' namely, greed. The fact that 'sodomy' refers to something rather different, namely, 'deviant' sexual practices, suggests that pre-Christian society carried certain prejudices into Christianity, in arbitrarily picking one of the countless 'sins of Sodom' to elevate above the rest as 'sodomy.'
It is true, however, that pre-Christian Europe was perhaps more tolerant of homosexuality, inasmuch as in some/many cultures (both inside and outside Europe), only the receiving party would be considered 'effeminate' and thenceforth ridiculed, as the giver would still be considered to be fulfilling a 'masculine' sexual role. I am not immediately aware of ANY European culture that traditionally accepted playing the 'passive' role in homosexual intercourse without, at the very least, the loss of honour. But if that's your idea of a non-homophobic society, then...well...
forced closeting is homophobia and since you are already on probabtion being restricted i'm not going to bother with a infraction, banned
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater?
Here at least We shall be free
