Contempt: The Secret Sauce That Turns Fear Into Hate

Since Novemberof 2016 I keep my remote in hand whenever I’m watching the news. I have a pretty good track record now of muting before our current President can utter a word. Why? I cannot stand the tone of contempt that gets wrapped up in fear mongering, blaming and distracting. When reporters try to convey what has happened, they don’t include the habitual context that considers vast swaths of our population as permanently inferior, the dripping sarcasm, the many resting sneer faces of everyone in the administration. Reporters have turned themselves into pretzels trying to stay impartial and to communicate something approaching facts (that’s a whole other big issue due to “alternative facts”) while maneuvering around the insistence that whole populations are inferior, period.

Gaslighting, convincing others that they aren’t experiencing what their senses are confirming, is much easier when the tonalities and acid-etching of contempt aren’t explicitly named and pointed out repeatedly. If you read instead of hear, “that was helpful” you might not register the sneering tone or the pursed lips that convey contempt.

Here are some interpersonal examples of contempt:

• contracting, stopping breathing or getting faint with a certain tone of voice that someone uses when speaking about certain people and not others

• people interrupting you when you’re speaking, or talking more loudly/slowly when they respond

• wondering if you are actually invisible, or if people are just choosing not to include you

• repeatedly having your expression interpreted, ignored or completely redefined

What is contempt and why is it so insidiously dangerous?

When you hold something or someone in contempt, you diminish and dismiss them. You make them less than, not equal, not capable. Not like you. You withhold respect, regard and true connection so that you can sit higher on the power ladder, even if that means climbing on their heads to elevate yourself.

What is contempt, and why do we need to face and wrestle with this moldy old attitude?

Making others less than sits at the center of contempt. Looking down on another person, being convinced that you/re being dissed, dismissed and not getting your fair share because others are taking yours, are all examples of contempt.

Contempt + fear = hate

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.” Hannah Arendt

We are experiencing a wave of contempt from the administration that sweeps over facts, established precedents of caring and inclusion, organizations that save lives all over the world, people of different color, backgrounds and language, and so much more, all at once. It seems that the intent is to get people to get down and stay down, or to join in spewing contempt (“owning the libs”) or to just give up in the face of relentless contempt spittle.

My job, and yours if you value freedom, collaboration and planetary survival, is two-fold:

One: examine your inner contempt and make new commitments and actions that turn contempt into curiosity and connection.

Two: Develop such deep authority and uncompromising embodiment (thank you Jesse Buckley for your performance and description of Agnes in Hamnet) that your presence invites authenticity and interrupts these power-over plays.

I’ve been considering contempt and what to do about it for some time, and current events invite us all to dissolve contempt as highest priority approaching the fall and elections.

Years ago I held a slippery form of contempt with Gay, thinking that he always criticized me (he’s the one in contempt, nyah nyah). I spent a lot of time defending and counterpunching,

Then one day dreamed up a new commitment:

I am willing to see you as my ally. I commit to experiencing you as an ally, on the same team.

Simple, eh?

Here’s the front line report: it took me several months of noticing and recommitting to create a new experience when I THOUGHT criticism was happening. And I wasn’t always graceful in my response. But I continued recommitting, which involved feeling lots of feels, exploring where I learned to view feedback as criticism, curling up in victim, huffing and puffing, and other forms of theater. And something shifted in my physiology, in my perception, in my willingness to let another human in through my defenses. I knew I’d shifted when Gay would say “I notice…” and I felt curious rather than clenched, when I turned toward rather than cringing.

I invite you to create a willingness, a commitment, that allows you to expand to consider others as fellow humans. Something like: I am willing to see you as a fellow human on the planet we share. Then get ready to explore, excavate ancient prejudices, love your contempt, breathe and move with the waves, all that.

I’ll be back with more and would love to hear how you are transforming contempt into rich presence.

Let me know any questions,

Thanks!
Katie