We live in a very fearful age. In addition to those of the more traditional variety, we now also have political and intellectual phobias. In what some have hailed as a major breakthrough in the intersection of psychology and politics, the modern Left has discovered that in addition to being wrong, those who disagree with them are most likely also crazy and irrational. Classifying political disagreements as phobias is a very useful strategy as it immediately discredits one's opponents, mitigating the need to debate with them as intellectual equals. Conservatism becomes something to be treated, not argued against.

It seems that with enough diligence and creativity, almost anything can be turned into a phobia. We are all familiar with homophobia, the delightful neologism that ushered in this distasteful era of pop-psychology infused political discourse. Despite the rather confusing nature of this appellation (are homophobics afraid of men, sameness, gays, or all three?) homophobia is now perhaps the most well known psychological disorder/political position. Never mind that most homophobics are not actually afraid of gays, per se, nor are they particularly irrational in the stances they take. After all, dislike and fear are fundamentally different concepts. Dislike is not even a requirement for homophobia; political opposition is all that is necessary. Apparently, that fact that I oppose gay marriage (for the record I also oppose straight marriage, but I'll save that for another column) is enough to make me a homophobic, however tolerant I may be in my personal life.

Recently, The Salient uncovered yet another phobia lurking in the neocon's heart, Islamophobia. These charges were leveled by the Islamic Student's Association in response to our decision to run the now-infamous Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Clearly, this was a controversial decision and may well have offended some members of the Harvard community. Nevertheless, charges of "Islamophobia" are preposterous. The cartoons were published to make a serous and relevant point. Deriding the content of the conservative opposition to extreme Islam as a mere phobia is belittling and misleading. If one were truly phobic of Muslims, the last thing one would do is publish a series of cartoons with a proven track record of provoking them. Another subtly overlooked in the ensuing calls for tolerance and understanding is that a phobia is only a phobia if the degree of fear is unwarranted. Since significant contingents of the Islamic world have proved to be unremitting and violent enemies of the West, a modicum of fear of Islam is prudent, not phobic.

Notably, no liberal position is ever described as a phobia. In the spirit of our new phobia-centered discourse, I would like to name a few contenders for liberal phobias. Clearly dubyaphobia should make the list. This one might actually be a phobia; Bush's opponents paradoxically view him as an imbecile and an evil genius, and the crimes of which they accuse him truly are terrifying. Halliphobia, or fear of Halliburton in particular and major corporations in general is also a fairly obvious contender. In its excessively strict devotion to secularism, the left does exhibit signs of theopobia or perhaps papaphobia (fear of the Pope). As for people concerned with the gap between the rich and poor? They must be plutophobics (those who fear wealth). As being labeled a phobic is generally used as a slander against political opponents, one might infer that liberals are phobophobics.

These examples may seem ridiculous, and indeed they are. But it is not less ridiculous to label Catholic opposition to gays in the priesthood as a phobia, or to accuse newspaper editors interested in free expression of being phobic of an entire religion. This absurd and puerile name-calling is indicative of the reluctance of liberals of engage in open debate. Now, I could cynically claim that this due simply to the weakness of their positions on most issues. However, it is also possible that they suffer from allodoxaphobia or cenophobia (fear of opinions and ideas, respectively) and are thus rendered unable to respond to conservative criticisms. At least they do not suffer from neologophobia.