England, Our England: Notes on D. H. Lawrence's Oikophobia

D. H. Lawrence by Fabrizio Cassetta (2015)

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It begins, writes Lawrence, the moment you set foot back in England: "The heart suddenly, yet vaguely sinks."

He would, I suspect, dismiss talk of oikophobia. For Lawrence explicitly says that what he experiences when arriving home is not fear, but, rather, a form of dismay; not least at the inoffensive nature of everyone and everything and the "almost deathly sense of dulness" that overwhelms even the gayest of spirits.  

England is the easiest country in the world to live in and full of the nicest people:

"But this very easiness and this very niceness becomes at last a nightmare. It is as if the whole air were impregnated with chloroform or some other pervasive anaesthetic, that [...] takes the edge off everything ..."

Ultimately, England is simply too cosy for Lawrence's liking; mildly warm and reassuring like a bedtime drink.

It's important to note, however, that Lawrence doesn't say this in order to jeer or look down on his fellow countrymen. In fact, it pains him to admit how England makes him feel: for "to feel like this about one's native land is terrible" - particularly when the bit of England that depresses him most is his hometown.

Eastwood, he says, fills him with "devouring nostalgia and an infinite repulsion". Which is pretty much how I feel too, when walking around Harold Hill; on the one hand, I want it to be exactly as it was when I was a child and on the other I want it to be razed to the ground.

In other words, oikophobia is an ambiguous condition that can give rise to violently conflicting feelings within the same breast; something that those who, like Roger Scruton, politicise the term and use it as a concept by which to attack those whom they regard as insufficiently patriotic fail to appreciate.

Thus it is that oikophobes like Lawrence, who set off on savage pilgrimages around the world in order to escape the familiar confines of home and experience otherness in far away lands amongst alien peoples, often end by concluding:

"I do think [...] we make a mistake forsaking England and moving out into the periphery of life. After all, Taormina, Ceylon, Africa, America - as far as we go, they are only the negation of what we ourselves stand for and are: and we are rather like Jonahs running away from the place we belong."


See:

D. H. Lawrence, 'Why I don't Like Living in London' and [Return to Bestwood] in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22 and 13-24. 

D. H. Lawrence, letter to Robert Pratt Barlow, 30 March 1922, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), letter 2480, pp.218-19.  

Readers interested in a related post on oikophobia and Roger Scruton's political redefining of the term, should click here. 

Oikophobia

Home is made for comin' from, for dreams of going to

Which with any luck will never come true.

I. Confessions of an Oikophobe

Oikophobia - from the Greek, oikos, which refers to the three distinct but related concepts of home, household, and family, and phobia, meaning fear and loathing - is a term used within psychiatry, literary studies, and political philosophy.    

In the first of these fields, psychiatry, it identifies a deep-seated aversion to the vita domestica as it unfolds within a physical space, including the everyday objects and household appliances that are commonly found in the home: including, for example, cookers, carpets, and curtains.

Whether such a phobia is irrational, is debatable; to my mind it seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think disliking the saccharine stupidity and bourgeois vulgarity of home, sweet home is symptomatic of mental illness - it's surely a sign rather of cultural nobility (that is to say, artistic and intellectual superiority).

Thus it is that many poets have a romantic and nomadic desire to wander in far away lands and escape the ever so 'umble confines of home; including married life, regular employment, and onerous social duties (such as putting the rubbish in the correct recycling bins). To long to flee along the open road or roam outside the gate, is so closely tied to the creative impulse, that one is almost tempted to describe modern art and literature as inherently oikophobic.   

II. On the Politics of Oikophobia

Thanks to conservative philosopher Roger Scruton, however, the term oikophobia has recently taken on a new and negative meaning within reactionary political circles; now oikophobes are regarded as self-hating, left-leaning liberals who despise or feel ashamed of their own culture, history, and society.

Scruton argues:   

"This repudiation of the national idea is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the Second World War, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political elites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognized: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours'. I call the attitude oikophobia - the aversion to home - by way of emphasizing its deep relation to xenophobia, of which it is the mirror image. Oikophobia is a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes. But it is a stage in which intellectuals tend to become arrested."*

Scruton's weaponised and anti-intellectual political usage has been taken up by other commentators with an alt-right axe to grind. They argue, for example, that oikophobia is particularly prevalent on university campuses and is a chronic symptom of political correctness, informed by the work of such thinkers as Foucault and Derrida, who express contempt for ideals of love, loyalty and longing for Ithaca, preferring instead, say their critics, to affirm a kind of rootless nihilism.        

I'm not saying there's no truth in this - only that it's often spoken by the kind of ugly, flag-flying individuals that I'm never going to feel at home with. 

* Roger Scruton, speaking in Antwerp, on 23 June 2006: the text of this speech appears in The Brussels Journal (24 June 2006) and can be read by clicking here.  

For a related post on D. H. Lawrence's experience of oikophobia in terms of devouring nostalgia and infinite repulsion for his hometown of Eastwood and for England in general, click here.