On Contempt
Every so often, I get the urge to write a new essay. Usually, this occurs when I am trying to work through an idea, concept, set of stories and a short post will not sufficiently get at the heart of the topic. (And, besides, my mind and creativity work best in non-fiction.) This particular essay surrounds three incidents, all unrelated, that spoke to me on the topic of contempt, conveniently placed behind a cut tag because I'm courteous like that.
On Contempt
I have been musing on a particular proposition (or perhaps a set of linked propositions) for the last few days; the idea that there can be no healthy community/relationship if there is contempt. And just as contempt breaks the possibility for productive interaction, compassion and empathy build the potential for the same.
But first, allow me a small digression to illustrate how I got here in the first place. I recently moved to Rainier Beach and have somehow managed to befriend a fellow bus rider, an elderly Chinese woman who speaks perhaps a handful words in English. My non-existant Chinese language skills have left most of these conversations hanging after the obligatory "hello" and several head nods but the interactions are friendly in a neighborly sort of way. Admittedly, I am a bit protective of this woman and often will yield my place in line so she can have a chance at one of the few seats remaining after the horde of teenagers at our stop has pushed and shoved their way into the bus. So one morning, after this woman was berated by a particularly surly bus rider for motioning (instead of asking) for a seat, I explained to this patron (in my most dulcet tone) that her antagonist was not really intending to be rude nor acting superior, she simply did not have the language to communicate what she needed.
I came out of the situation feeling oddly unsettled. Although I have no regrets for what I did to shift the surly patron's frame of reference (anger was replaced by regret almost immediately), I wonder just how easy it is to fall into that same contempt trap; to find ourselves in a situation that is so true to our constructed reality that it causes us to overlook the potential complexity of the situation at hand. In point of fact, it was only incidental that I had had a stilted conversation with the elderly woman a week or so earlier and, thus, had any reasonable knowledge her language ability myself. If this woman had not attempted a conversation, could I have reasonably accepted the surly patron's version of reality at face value or, at the very least, not risked publicly questioning it?
I was reminded of this story when, few days ago, a link made the rounds of some of my pagan Facebook friends. The news story related the tale of a pagan employee at a national chain retailer who, despite having her vacation approved a year in advance, was dismissed when her manager learned that the time off would be spent celebrating a pagan holiday. The manager in question stated that he would not have a "devil-worshiper" on staff - demonstrating in one motion his prejudice and his gross ignorance, both of which were aptly noted in the comment thread. More interesting, from a cultural standpoint, was the fact that the individual who posted the link and a good portion of the comment string (following his lead) read this story as another example of prejudice from modern Christianity (especially the right-wing, evangelical type) against paganism. Yet, the article never actually mentioned the manager's religion, Christian or no; nor was his religion, in point of fact, particularly relevant to the story. The manager could have been a rabid atheist or an insensitive muslim and still acted with the same gross prejudice with the same unfortunate outcome.
The reading of Christianity into the story, true or no, fit into a very familiar and recognizable cultural framework. Many of my pagan friends have, unfortunately, experienced prejudice first hand from misguided Christians or have themselves been the misguided Christians spewing prejudice prior to their pagan conversion. And, indeed, the religious persecution genre is as old as Christian history (pagans burning Christians, Christians burning pagans, invectives [some admittedly rather humorous] from the first century onwards, etc.) and is assumed with similar vehemence on both sides of the Christian-Pagan divide. To this day, a particular branch of evangelical Christians place themselves narratively in the role of the martyred minority, despite all contradictory evidence, and use this role to make all sorts of extravagant claims (the "war against Christmas" being one of my favorites). Although this frame of a Christian-Pagan divide fits a shared cultural understanding of religious persecution and cultural prejudice, calls for a "pagan boycott" of Bed Bath and Beyond (the corporation in this case), while admirable, framed the incident as distinctly pagan, shadowing the fact that this is broadly an issue of religious freedom that should give us all pause. Religious bigotry and corporate intolerance are philosophically untenable, whatever your religious affiliation.
It is, in fact, the same philosophical argument that Dan Savage employs when he reminds heterosexuals that LBGTQ issues are sexual rights issues that directly impact the lives of us all. Sex is political writ large, just as religion. We recently had a display of this with I-71, a voter referendum that threatened to take away the rights granted to domestic partnerships by the Washington state legislature. The voters, luckily, upheld domestic partnership rights but by an all too slim margin. What surprised me in these "debates" was how much fear pervaded the discussion. Cries of, "this is one step away from gay marriage" or "this is just a plot to force a homosexual curriculum in our schools" descended from traditional marriage proponents. Although the referendum did not speak to either marriage or education as such, it was as if marriage proponents thought that their own institutions could be watered down by full inclusion.
But, as we all know, political rights (religious, sexual or otherwise) are not a finite object. You do not loose or dilute your own rights if you give rights to others. My marriage to my husband does not become any less of a marriage because more heterosexuals get married every day. Just because these new couples are can now file a joint tax return or visit each other in the hospital doesn't mean that somehow that there is such a dearth of rights for me, that I will have to queue up a la communist Russia to receive my fair share of marriage benefits. The absurdity of this example demonstrates that the fear is cultural, rather than practical. Expanded inclusion causes us to redefine and expand the boundaries of our potential community, forces us to redefine "normal" (recast our frames, if you will) and to discard the prejudices and contempt that hold us apart.
I had empathy for the surly patron of my first story partially because I saw some of my own character flaws reflected in her. I can be quick to anger and I can, at times, assume the worst about people. These flaws, if gone unchecked, are self-reinforcing; creating frames that are mutually unintelligible and, thus, denying the possibility of meaningful communication. This conglomeration of flaws closes my mind and my heart to the potential of particular individuals and, at their culmination, breaks down the foundation of my relationships with them. In all fair defense, it is this same mechanism that has allowed me to separate myself from some particularly painful and even emotionally abusive relationships/friendships and still keep my relative sanity and sense of self-worth. The problem is channeling this righteous indignation to justified situations and having sufficient compassion and empathy to remain fair and self-reflexive of my own position.
So what is to be done? In my own life, I have attempted to push myself toward greater compassion and understanding; stepping away from my anger long enough to contemplate empathy and challenging myself to view the world from the perspective of my antagonists. This perspective, combined with a greater number of people who I can trust to call me out on my shit has meant that my temper and compassion have both improved markedly. Moreover, a simple awareness of the frames that I employ has served to discharge some of their power. Learning the ways in which we are prejudiced and hold others at bay (because, face it, we all have our prejudices), can cause us to look more critically at our own actions and can foster the vary compassion necessary to re-imagine our communities and relationships.
On Contempt
I have been musing on a particular proposition (or perhaps a set of linked propositions) for the last few days; the idea that there can be no healthy community/relationship if there is contempt. And just as contempt breaks the possibility for productive interaction, compassion and empathy build the potential for the same.
But first, allow me a small digression to illustrate how I got here in the first place. I recently moved to Rainier Beach and have somehow managed to befriend a fellow bus rider, an elderly Chinese woman who speaks perhaps a handful words in English. My non-existant Chinese language skills have left most of these conversations hanging after the obligatory "hello" and several head nods but the interactions are friendly in a neighborly sort of way. Admittedly, I am a bit protective of this woman and often will yield my place in line so she can have a chance at one of the few seats remaining after the horde of teenagers at our stop has pushed and shoved their way into the bus. So one morning, after this woman was berated by a particularly surly bus rider for motioning (instead of asking) for a seat, I explained to this patron (in my most dulcet tone) that her antagonist was not really intending to be rude nor acting superior, she simply did not have the language to communicate what she needed.
I came out of the situation feeling oddly unsettled. Although I have no regrets for what I did to shift the surly patron's frame of reference (anger was replaced by regret almost immediately), I wonder just how easy it is to fall into that same contempt trap; to find ourselves in a situation that is so true to our constructed reality that it causes us to overlook the potential complexity of the situation at hand. In point of fact, it was only incidental that I had had a stilted conversation with the elderly woman a week or so earlier and, thus, had any reasonable knowledge her language ability myself. If this woman had not attempted a conversation, could I have reasonably accepted the surly patron's version of reality at face value or, at the very least, not risked publicly questioning it?
I was reminded of this story when, few days ago, a link made the rounds of some of my pagan Facebook friends. The news story related the tale of a pagan employee at a national chain retailer who, despite having her vacation approved a year in advance, was dismissed when her manager learned that the time off would be spent celebrating a pagan holiday. The manager in question stated that he would not have a "devil-worshiper" on staff - demonstrating in one motion his prejudice and his gross ignorance, both of which were aptly noted in the comment thread. More interesting, from a cultural standpoint, was the fact that the individual who posted the link and a good portion of the comment string (following his lead) read this story as another example of prejudice from modern Christianity (especially the right-wing, evangelical type) against paganism. Yet, the article never actually mentioned the manager's religion, Christian or no; nor was his religion, in point of fact, particularly relevant to the story. The manager could have been a rabid atheist or an insensitive muslim and still acted with the same gross prejudice with the same unfortunate outcome.
The reading of Christianity into the story, true or no, fit into a very familiar and recognizable cultural framework. Many of my pagan friends have, unfortunately, experienced prejudice first hand from misguided Christians or have themselves been the misguided Christians spewing prejudice prior to their pagan conversion. And, indeed, the religious persecution genre is as old as Christian history (pagans burning Christians, Christians burning pagans, invectives [some admittedly rather humorous] from the first century onwards, etc.) and is assumed with similar vehemence on both sides of the Christian-Pagan divide. To this day, a particular branch of evangelical Christians place themselves narratively in the role of the martyred minority, despite all contradictory evidence, and use this role to make all sorts of extravagant claims (the "war against Christmas" being one of my favorites). Although this frame of a Christian-Pagan divide fits a shared cultural understanding of religious persecution and cultural prejudice, calls for a "pagan boycott" of Bed Bath and Beyond (the corporation in this case), while admirable, framed the incident as distinctly pagan, shadowing the fact that this is broadly an issue of religious freedom that should give us all pause. Religious bigotry and corporate intolerance are philosophically untenable, whatever your religious affiliation.
It is, in fact, the same philosophical argument that Dan Savage employs when he reminds heterosexuals that LBGTQ issues are sexual rights issues that directly impact the lives of us all. Sex is political writ large, just as religion. We recently had a display of this with I-71, a voter referendum that threatened to take away the rights granted to domestic partnerships by the Washington state legislature. The voters, luckily, upheld domestic partnership rights but by an all too slim margin. What surprised me in these "debates" was how much fear pervaded the discussion. Cries of, "this is one step away from gay marriage" or "this is just a plot to force a homosexual curriculum in our schools" descended from traditional marriage proponents. Although the referendum did not speak to either marriage or education as such, it was as if marriage proponents thought that their own institutions could be watered down by full inclusion.
But, as we all know, political rights (religious, sexual or otherwise) are not a finite object. You do not loose or dilute your own rights if you give rights to others. My marriage to my husband does not become any less of a marriage because more heterosexuals get married every day. Just because these new couples are can now file a joint tax return or visit each other in the hospital doesn't mean that somehow that there is such a dearth of rights for me, that I will have to queue up a la communist Russia to receive my fair share of marriage benefits. The absurdity of this example demonstrates that the fear is cultural, rather than practical. Expanded inclusion causes us to redefine and expand the boundaries of our potential community, forces us to redefine "normal" (recast our frames, if you will) and to discard the prejudices and contempt that hold us apart.
I had empathy for the surly patron of my first story partially because I saw some of my own character flaws reflected in her. I can be quick to anger and I can, at times, assume the worst about people. These flaws, if gone unchecked, are self-reinforcing; creating frames that are mutually unintelligible and, thus, denying the possibility of meaningful communication. This conglomeration of flaws closes my mind and my heart to the potential of particular individuals and, at their culmination, breaks down the foundation of my relationships with them. In all fair defense, it is this same mechanism that has allowed me to separate myself from some particularly painful and even emotionally abusive relationships/friendships and still keep my relative sanity and sense of self-worth. The problem is channeling this righteous indignation to justified situations and having sufficient compassion and empathy to remain fair and self-reflexive of my own position.
So what is to be done? In my own life, I have attempted to push myself toward greater compassion and understanding; stepping away from my anger long enough to contemplate empathy and challenging myself to view the world from the perspective of my antagonists. This perspective, combined with a greater number of people who I can trust to call me out on my shit has meant that my temper and compassion have both improved markedly. Moreover, a simple awareness of the frames that I employ has served to discharge some of their power. Learning the ways in which we are prejudiced and hold others at bay (because, face it, we all have our prejudices), can cause us to look more critically at our own actions and can foster the vary compassion necessary to re-imagine our communities and relationships.