Contempt
I've been thinking about this and reading up on it off and on for years. I took a course on relationship psychology that briefly mentioned it, one paragraph. Which seemed strange since it called the emotion "deadly".
One of the first things I found was lots of information on how to spot it. It's really quite simple. It's this look :
It may be flashed for just a second, so you might not always spot it, but it's instantly recognizable when seen and always indicates the inner feeling of that person.
But what I was really looking for was how it was engendered, how it worked in relationships and what the outcomes were.
My research was the surprisingly common descriptions on the web (look it up), and casual interviews with many people. I brought up the subject a lot in coffee shops and I think some folks started wondering about me. I found two broad types of people, those who didn't know anything significant about contempt, and those who were angry at someone in their past because of it.
Those who experienced it directed at them often knew the common knowledge which I had found on the web. They were offended by it but had not thought about it much. Of course, few people have thought about it as much as I have... so maybe I shouldn't judge.
The interesting people were those who didn't even know the word or at least couldn't define it and had not seemed to experience it.
A few minutes of conversation often disclosed that they had felt contempt for several or many people, but didn't think it had ever been directed at them. Their ex's were "skanks" or "SOBs", their bosses were "scum" and various friends turned out to be "idiots". Social groups they didn't like were evil, people in power over them were corrupt, and one even called her young son a "monster". Although I didn't press the issue, they never seemed to pick up on the fact that I was asking about people having contempt for them, not people they had contempt for. This unselfconsciousness was interesting to me.
It's possible that many people have had contempt for them but they did not and perhaps cannot recognize it.
What I ended up thinking can be condensed into three situations. When someone in your relationships shows contempt for you, it can be either :
You may be contemptible. It's a consideration. I fell into this category with my first ex-wife. I was an active alcoholic and drug addict, I cheated many times, and while never violent or abusive, I was unpleasant in my neglect of the relationship. I deserved the contempt. I got offended and stalked out, never to darken her door again, but I was in the wrong.
They are people who often have contempt for others, and you are just nearby. One of my ex's turned out to be a bigot. She hid it well, but I caught it a couple of times directed at others, and when I said something it was directed at me. Fortunately I knew what was coming and so I made plans. This is something everyone should look out for. Because -
They may always have contempt for everyone, and they are only with you to use you. These are sociopaths. If someone shows you contempt (see images) and then says that they love you... Quick, secretly make plans to escape. They consider you fair game. You are not quite as human as they are and so they will be (in their minds) justifiably angry if you attempt to stop being used by them.
Because in the final analysis that is what contempt is. A firm and convinced belief that another person is less human, less deserving than they are. This is why the unselfconsciousness shows up. They don't consider their own state because they already know they are better than everyone. Not just better, but "of a better category". They are real, they count. You do not.
Remember, this is those who show contempt and try to hide it. That's the important part. That is wherein they are using you. They think that if they can hide their contempt, they can still get something out of you.
In hiding their contempt, and trying to use you - in a sort of instant karma - they become contemptible.
Well, not less than human, that would be someone's own evaluation of another to that degree, but having scorn or to despise someone for having wronged us is something most people have gone through in life. I'm not saying to hold onto it. But when we are wronged, we don't like the one doing it lol... I wouldn't put contempt in the same description you gave it, but I get what your saying that some think that way in their scorn or contempt of others, even for no legitimate reason of them harming anyone.
What about people going to their own experience of contempt to others because we only know our own emotional state and not always that of others, so they didn't have any experience of someone else being contemptuous of them. We could automatically associate recognizing having wronged someone as producing contempt. I suspect plenty of people here have contempt for me despite having been the target and not targeted others.
It was an interesting read. Thanks for your post on it.
Anger at being wronged is a completely different thing, even hate is not the same. Contempt literally means placing someone in a lower category. Denying their worth, considering them intrinsically vile. Once you recognize the facial signal, you can't miss it. Most people register it subconsciously anyway, but knowing the sign lets you deal with it.
Thanks for your comments!