The nameless epidemic

For some reason, I get a little testy when I hear the word “phobia” thrown around where it isn’t really appropriate. Several people I know have claimed to have a “phobia of heights” or a “phobia of fire”. I usually ask those people: Are you afraid of heights, or are you afraid of falling? Are you afraid of fire, or are you afraid of getting burnt? Usually, people would say that they were afraid of falling, or of getting burnt. I would then think that if they could rationalize the fear, it wasn’t a phobia. Just a petty case of “to-may-to/to-mah-to”? After some reflection, I think maybe not.

I’m not one to accept things without rationalization easily, but I do acknowledge the existence of phobias. I have some phobias myself that I can’t make sense of for the life of me. For example, I am afraid of reptiles, especially lizards. I do wish this was as simple as being afraid of being bitten or poisoned by those nasty creatures, but it isn’t. My fear has escalated to the point where the mere sight of a picture of a lizard, or even the mention of the word “lizard” makes me very uncomfortable. Heck, I can’t even open mail from GEICO with the mascot on the envelope without experiencing shivers down my spine. This fear of reptiles is definitely not a rational fear of getting hurt. They call it Herpetophobia. Whatever. I call it annoying. I know I also have at least one phobia that does not have a fancy name. I am scared of… big fonts. Strangely, big letters rattle me. I lose my head whenever I see the enormous Bed, Bath and Beyond sign at the storefront. I drive like a moron and get honked at whenever I see road signs that are bigger than normal (or lower than normal, giving the illusion of size). The point is that irrational fears do exist.

I have a theory as to why some rational fears tend to get perceived as phobias. My theory is that there is a particular fear that is prevalent, but not totally acknowledged. That fear is the fear of irony. I stumbled on this theory when I was thinking about superstitions. I have always believed that superstitious beliefs had their roots in perfectly unsuperstitious logic that was relevant at some point in time. I love thinking about myths and superstitious beliefs and trying to figure out how they came about. For example, I imagine that people started associating twitchy eyes with impending catastrophes because they were probably once an indicator that there was a lot of dust in the air caused by approaching invaders on horses. Eventually, I started thinking about why saying inauspicious things was taboo. I couldn't figure out why people would ever believe that there was a causal effect between saying inauspicious things and something untoward actually happening. That’s when I thought that maybe people were just afraid of irony. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I have personally seen people’s sadness surrounding an untoward event intensify when there is some irony surrounding it. I can therefore imagine that people are afraid to say anything that could introduce irony into the situation in case something were to actually happen. This leads me to think that rather than believing that saying inauspicious things could cause catastrophes, people are just afraid of the risk of intense regret that they would have to face in case what they say actually happens.

Although I have not personally known anyone to openly acknowledge this fear of irony, I think that people are aware of it at least on some level. Writers and filmmakers definitely exploit this fear to create heart-wrenching dimensions to their work. Would Steve Irwin’s death have been played up by the media as much if he weren’t an adventurer who had died during an adventurous pursuit? Would the Million Dollar Baby have been the same without the “Fly there, drive back” moment? Insurance companies also seem to prey on the fear of irony. Surely, insurance companies don’t expect clients to manage their risk based on daily activities and choose a policy accordingly. Neither do they expect clients to choose policies based on the practical value of how much they would need and how much they could claim during which events. Insurance policies are marketed as a “just-in-case” commodity to instill a fear of the irony of refusing coverage for a certain event that ended up taking place. It was interesting to think about how the fear of irony could take the form of superstition, creative expression, and even risk-averse sensibility and still never be explicitly identified.

If my theory is true, then the fear of irony is sometimes the insidious villain that makes phobias out of fears that would otherwise be completely rational. The fear of the irony of actually getting burnt despite being fully aware of the dangers of fire could turn a totally rational fear of fire into a phobia. I finally understand my testiness about the semantics surrounding the word “phobia”. I guess I was just afraid that being flexible about the definition of "phobia" could expose a fear of irony that could possibly spawn more phobias that I didn’t really need. Some would term this Phobophobia, the fear of phobias, but based on this much rationalizing, I think we can safely rule that out.