contempt

As many are aware, my one resolution for 2020 was to read more books. I am grateful to share that (with an unfortunate shout out to the pandemic) the goal has been wildly reached and truly enjoyed.

It’s been fascinating and fun (and sometimes totally kicking my butt) to read from a variety of authors; from Marc Brackett to Jodi Picoult to Wladyslaw Szpilman, Shelby Steele, Latasha Morrison and Jojo Moyes, it’s been a profitable, diverse, eye-opening journey indeed. It helps to listen and learn from persons who don’t think just like “me.”

Take merely my notes from the current chapter I’m in, as written by Jon Tyson. He speaks of what it means to honor — to “recognize the value someone possesses and esteem that person rightly.” However, to honor means to resist contempt. And yet…

“… This culture is one of dishonor and contempt. A harsh one of both brutality and backlash. We show contempt for those who don’t agree with our political views, contempt for those with different religious views, contempt for the rich, contempt for the poor, contempt for those family members who always seem to be embarrassing and causing trouble…

Contempt is the feeling that someone else is beneath consideration, worthless, deserving scorn…

‘What  is left when honor is lost?’ Publilius Syrus, a writer in the first century BC, asked of his age.

Our age can provide the answer: contempt.

Many have talked about the anger in our culture, and there is evidence of that all around, but maybe we have misdiagnosed the kind of anger we are dealing with. All communities deal with conflict at various levels and disagreement about topics that range from human sexuality to urban planning. But what we are dealing with seems to be deeper than that…

Contempt is causing us to dismiss entire segments of society, and it is destroying the social fabric of our lives…

Sebastian Junger documented the grief that veterans often feel upon returning to America after serving in the military overseas. In ‘Tribe’ he wrote, ‘We live in a society that is basically at war with itself.

People speak with incredible contempt about—depending on their views—the rich, the poor, the foreign-born, the president, or the entire US government. It’s a level of contempt that is usually reserved for enemies in wartime, except that now it’s applied to our fellow citizens. Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker…’

With the rise of contempt, the clock on respect and civility seems to be running out…

The toxic power of contempt lies in its devaluation of others…”

Tyson continues by parsing out the difference between resentment, anger, and contempt. Relying on the expertise of widely-quoted, University of Texas philosopher, Robert C. Solomon:

“Resentment is anger directed toward a higher-status individual. Anger is directed toward an equal-status individual. Contempt is anger directed toward a lower-status individual.

Contempt categorically devalues people and justifies its anger. This creates a dynamic of power and superiority from which most relationships never recover. Every exercise of power incorporates a faint, almost imperceptible, element of contempt for those over whom the power is exercised. One can dominate another human soul only if one despises the person one is subjugating. When contempt becomes the operating system of a society, disdain can become dangerous. All atrocities, including the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, started by lowering the value of others and justifying the right to dismiss and ultimately destroy them…”

Friends, I think this is tough. I also think this is incredibly relevant.

Allow me, therefore, to simply ask questions of “me,” so as not to implicate anyone else…

Who am I dismissing? 

Who am I looking down upon, acting as if I am somehow superior?

And one more… if I’m brave enough… 

Where have I allowed my anger to fester when the God-honest truth is, it’s really contempt?

Respectfully…

AR