I have phobiaphobia. And the followup to that is phobicphobiaphobia. Can I add those to the list?
“I have phobiaphobia.”
I think fear of irrational fears is entirely rational. My problem is my fears are entirely rational.
The last two Fortune 500 companies I worked for, for instance, gradually became insane. Both outlawed telling jokes as a firing offense. They had fears, not entirely irrational, that the company could be sued if somebody said they were offended. (That someone had to be a member of a protected class and could not be any combination of white, male, or Christian.)
My favorite incident was when I was called into a VP’s office and informed the conversation I had at lunch about concealed carry with a machinist who made his own guns was deemed offensive. He had quashed the reprimand as I was too high up to reprimand and HR could not reprimand just the machinist. I pulled out the list of banned subjects, which was quite complete and explicit and pointed out guns, concealed carry and related subjects were not on it. In total frustration he said something like, “You’re a smart man. You can look at the list and guess on what the unlisted but equally bad topics would be.”
I fear Political Correctness. It is not a phobia, as it can lunge at and devour virtually anyone without warning. At my former employer I was reprimanded for breaking an unpublished and unreleased rule stating that, “If a statement is overheard by an uninvolved third party and that party deems the statement racist, homophobic or sexual harassment that statement is, by definition racist, homophobic or sexual harassment.” I emailed the company lawyer and pointed out how their application of this rule opened the company to unlimited liability and they reversed themselves.