What the heck is a PHOBE anyway?

This is the 3^rd talk in this series called “Speaking Truth Matters”.

Words communicate ideas. Untruth fogs the issues and will at some point result in a variety of suffering or unhappiness. To navigate life we need a compass that points to knowledge or truth.

There has been a trend since the late 1960’s to use language/words to manipulate people and cover what is true.  This was the domain of the “spin-doctors”.  One example of the trend is the rampant use of the term phobia to herd people onto a particular side of an issue.

So what the heck is a phobia anyway? The accepted definition of phobias is “an intense, illogical, or abnormal fear of a specified thing.”  It is a diagnosable psychiatric condition, a mental health issue.

What you have are people who may not be qualified and certified mental health professionals but yet are handing out a mental health diagnosis by branding people as this-phobic or that-phobic.  It is fundamentally dishonest. This qualifies as using manipulative speech to shape an argument instead of just debating the issue on merits.

The spiritual understanding is that sound vibration can liberate or it causes further material entanglement and suffering.  To live in this world as a spiritual practitioner, we should use language in a straightforward and truthful way, and be guided by compassion, tolerance, non-violence, and love.