Xenophilia or xenophily is the love for, attraction to, or appreciation of foreign people, manners, customs, or cultures. It is the antonym of
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
or xenophoby. The word is a
modern coinage from the Greek "xenos" () (stranger, unknown, foreign) and "philia" () (love, attraction), though the word itself is not found in
classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
.
In biology
In biology xenophily includes, for example, the acceptance by an insect of an introduced foreign plant closely related to the normal host. Xenophily is distinguished from
xenophagy
Xenophagy (Greek "strange" + "eating") and allotrophy (Greek "other" + "nutrient") are changes in established patterns of biological consumption, by individuals or groups.
* In entomology, xenophagy is a categorical change in diet, such as an h ...
(or
allotrophy), and is less common than
xenophoby
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
. Early 20th-century
entomologists incorrectly concluded that the evolution of the glandular terminal disk was a function of xenophily, following its discovery in
myrmecophilous
Myrmecophily ( , ) is the term applied to positive interspecies associations between ants and a variety of other organisms, such as plants, other arthropods, and fungi. Myrmecophily refers to mutualistic associations with ants, though in its ...
larvae.
In culture
Cultural appreciation refers to attraction or admiration towards one or more cultures which are not one's own. Individual examples are usually suffixed with -philia, from the Ancient Greek word ''philia'' (φιλία), "love, affection".
Cultural xenophilia according to some sources can be connected with
cultural cringe
Cultural cringe, in cultural studies and social anthropology, is an internalized inferiority complex that causes people in a country to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries.
It is closely related to the conc ...
. It may also be area-specific, such as led the Romans to believe that Greeks were better than Romans at music, art and philosophy, but evidently not better at military matters.
In politics and history
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
, in his 1796
Farewell Address, described having allegiance to more than one nation as negative:
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.[ Wikisource:Washington's Farewell Address]
In fiction
The film ''
Watermelon Man'' centers in part on a white man trying to have sex with a white woman he works with. His efforts fail until he is magically turned into an African American, at which point she is more than willing to sleep with him. It is only the following day that the protagonist realizes, to his horror, that the woman is a xenophile and only had sex with him because of his race; she had no interest in him as a person.
See also
*
Allophilia
*
Allosemitism
Allosemitism is a neologism that encompass both philosemitic and antisemitic attitudes towards Jews as the Other.
Origin of term
The term was coined by Polish Jewish literary critic Artur Sandauer and popularized by the Polish Jewish sociologis ...
*
Colonial mentality
A colonial mentality is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by people as a result of colonization, i.e. them being colonized by another group.Nunning, Vera. (06/01/2015). Fictions of Empire and the (un-making of imper ...
*
Cultural appropriation
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Exoticism
*
Intercultural competence
Cultural competence, also known as intercultural competence, is a range of cognitive, affective, and behavioural skills that lead to effective and appropriate communication with people of other cultures.Deardorff, D. K. (2009). ''The Sage handbook ...
*
Mongrel complex
"Mongrel complex", or alternatively "mutt complex" ( pt, complexo de vira-lata, lit=street dog complex, mutt complex), is an expression used to refer to a collective inferiority complex reportedly felt by many Brazilians when comparing Brazil ...
*
Negrophilia
*
Neophile
Neophile or Neophiliac, a term popularised by cult writer Robert Anton Wilson, is a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty. The term was used earlier by Christopher Booker in his book The Neophiliacs (1969), and by J. D. ...
*
Racial fetishism
*
Xenocentrism
Xenocentrism is the preference for the cultural practices of other cultures and societies, such as how they live and what they eat, rather than of one's own social way of life. One example is the romanticization of the noble savage in the 18th-cen ...
References
{{Authority control
Admiration of foreign cultures