Beware Contempt!

How We Have Created a Contemptuous Culture, Implications for Wellbeing, and the Anti-dote

“the feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration”

I have been meditating and musing lately on the theme of contempt. It struck me that our society has become one based on contempt, and that this is at the root of many of our modern ills. Indeed, I would go as far as to say we created a contemptuous culture for ourselves.

“a strong feeling of disliking and having no respect for someone or something”

Harbouring and hanging on to contempt is another one of those mindsets, and states of being, which, like resentment, and chronic fear, anger, envy, or hatred, is undoubtedly negative for our health and well-being, and makes chronic symptoms worse. This is because it exiles us from the states of calm relaxation in which our bodies and brains need to spend time in order to detoxify and address inflammation.

“the act of despising : the state of mind of one who despises ; the state of being despised”

Yet being on the receiving end of overt or passive-aggressive contempt also has a strong negative impact on our well-being too, because it puts our Nervous \System into defensive states or modes, in which again we cannot detoxify, and which are inflammatory. This sets off or triggers our innate “socioception” - our sense of danger or safety emanating from other people - into a “threat” mode, which is toxic if maintained long term.

Ancestrally, contempt would be precursor to not getting our needs met by the tribe, and eventual ostracization, which would have been tantamount to death. Experiencing contempt thus tends to put us in to our defensive fight, flight or freeze instincts, or, especially when there is a power imbalance, into unhealthy fawning or appeasement modes.

The Fawning and Appeasement Survival Responses

I have heard many a relationship expert say that once one or both of the partners in a romantic relationship starts feeling and displaying contempt for the other, there is no hope that the partnership can be saved, or ever be salvaged, and this signals that the mating game is over for that couple.

“the feeling with which a person regards anything considered mean, vile, or worthless”

The above themes gel with my own experience, in hindsight. At the time of my diagnosis, I was in a very toxic marriage, where my then-wife displayed nothing but utter contempt for me, so that I was always on the defensive and shutdown in my own home, and hence had no safe space into which to retreat. Looking back, I see now this was a significant factor in my own descent into disease.

Indeed, having talked now with very many folks with chronic illnesses around the world, I can say that a toxic relationship, especially being on the receiving end of abject contempt, is a common theme in the lead up to diagnosis.

“lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike”

On a societal level, there appears to me to be a pandemic of contempt, especially in regard to our relationships with our institutions.

For example, these days we tend to have contempt for our politicians, especially those of the “other side”, which is encouraged and egged on by those of “our side”. However, the politicians, the elites, the powers-that-be, the WEF types, etc., have also become increasingly overt in their utter contempt for the electorate, and the common people.

The increasingly blatant corruption is a major manifestation and display of total contempt, as is the surveillance and desire to control everything we do, say, and think, the foisting on us of things we never asked for and don't want, using the profits from our own time, energy, and labour (taxes) to do it. The 15 minute cities, the Central Bank Digital Coupons, the exploitation and indoctrination of our children, the manufactured austerity, and so forth.

This is now backfiring on them, as they have woken too many people up with their overt displays of contempt, and so have they have driven us, in turn, to be increasingly contemptuous of them, and in this war of mutually assured contempt, they are greatly outnumbered.

Why the Need to Control Other People is a Self-Defeating Behaviour

Likewise, Big Corporations are increasingly contemptuous of the customers, through externalizing harms on us, conning, fooling and cheating us. Universities are increasingly contemptuous of their students, healthcare providers of their patients, …

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, just like for romantic relationships, these displays of contempt by our institutions means our relationships with them cannot survive, and there is now no way back. So we need a divorce, and to forge new partnerships with alternative systems which are based on mutual respect.

“disapproval tinged with disgust”

We need also to take responsibility for our own parts in creating the culture of contempt, which starts with how we treat and behave towards our own selves. Whenever we eat the junk food, pander to our addictions, neglect our bodies and brains, troll others on social media, these are acts of self-contempt. Whenever we buy into contemptuous ideologies, and fall for the divide and rule tactics of those in positions of power, such as engaging in identity politics, we are supporting and furthering the cause of contempt.

This is where the real danger lies, because contempt is the seed for othering, dehumanizing, and scapegoating, which can lead to very dark places, especially because contempt is strongly connected with disgust.

Connections Between the Behavioural Immune System and Dissociation

So what is the answer? My mediations and musings lead to me to this: the solution is grace.

“courteous good will”

Grace is both an antonym and anti-dote for contempt.

“a willingness to be fair and to forgive”

So I am thinking we need to re-order our society, starting with ourselves, then emanating in ever increasing circles, to create a State of Grace.

"generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved”

I feel we will need to become graceful in our own lives, then to extend grace to as many of our fellow humans as possible, reserving judgement for the truly bad apples and evil ones, so we can feel the safety in the huge numbers we really have, against the very small numbers of sociopaths and psychopaths who want to control everything because they can feel nothing but contempt.

“a thoughtful way of behaving”

Grace brings us all home to those calm, relaxed states, in which we can detoxify and address the inflammation that has built up in all our brains and bodies from the sea of contempt we currently swim in.

To my mind, we will need to be create graceful new institutions, built on the foundations of well-earned mutual respect.

“beauty or charm of form, composition, movement, or expression”

I believe we will need to explicitly value grace and gracefulness as virtues.

“a way of moving [forward] that is smooth and attractive and that is not stiff or awkward”

Indeed, we will need to embody grace, in order to cure ourselves of our cultural contempt.