1 Boring Old Man

con·tempt (kn-tmpt) n. The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless; scorn. The state of being despised or dishonored; disgrace. Open disrespect or willful disobedience of the authority of a court of law or legislative body. [Middle English, from Latin contemptus, past participle of contemnere, to despise. See contemn.]

Contempt is a destructive emotion – the key word in the definition being ‘worthless.’ A person feeling contempt has broken the human connection with another and turned them into a thing – a bad thing. Maintaining the empathic connection with others can be hard work, the work of being civil-ized – so we watch grade B movies where the contemptuous bad guys can justifiably be held in comtempt and blown away.

We see a lot of contempt these days. It’s the daily stuff of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter who delight in contemptuous Liberal bashing, and we respond in kind. We experience Osama bin Laden and his Terrorists as contemptuous, and we hold them in contempt as well. It is, in fact, impossible to argue with a person in the throes of comtempt. Karl Rove, in his speech to the New York Conservatives said:

But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be” to “use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States.”

I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Moderation and restraint is not what I felt – and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will – and to brandish steel.

His speech illustrates the how contempt works. It allows one to simplify the other to absurdity and dismiss them as worthless. The distinction between Conservatives and Liberals is absolute. Liberals are all represented by Moveon. Rather than a caution to avoid going off half-cocked, the Moveon petition was a call to respond to the 911 attack with "understanding and therapy" – the wrong thing to do. Conservatives wanted to "brandish steel" – the right thing to do. Liberals are bad. Conservatives are good.

While simplification of the other side is the stuff of political discourse, the Bush Administration has attained a level of contemptuousness that reminds me of the sickest element in the segregationist south of my childhood – the racist rhetoric of the KKK, the White Citizens Councils, the sheriff and deputies of Philadelphia Mississippi. The snarling contempt of Bush and Cheney, and the dismissive contempt of Rumsfeld and Rove are regular images on our nightly news. They’ve created an atmosphere in our political arena that rivals the contemptuousness of the Terrorist Jihadists, and it’s led them to ignore the advice of the more level heads in our government and the world. This week, it led them to ignore our Constitution. We can deny the rights of our prisoners of war and other detainees because they are no longer human beings. We can ignore the courts because they are "runaway judges." We can invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein is, as Bush put it, a "bad man" – part of the "axis of evil." We can lie to the American people because they "won’t get it."

Contemptuous people lose the ability to evaluate what they’re doing. After all, they’re fighting evil. The biggest danger for those of us who see the Administration as out of control and on a path to nowhere is to treat them with the same level of contempt. They aren’t demons, they’re just not the kind of people who ought to be leading anyone, anywhere. They rule and are ruled almost entirely by contempt, and are neither psychologically nor morally up to the tasks at hand…