America: Living Under Spells of Contempt and Idealization

Contempt hangs heavy over us in our psychic skies, a false sun with great gravity, whose purpose is to mislead, and in misleading, lead us to a world of hate, violence, and the death of our human bonds.

Contempt leads us to hate ourselves. Contempt proclaims its supremacy, and from that vantage, judges all. In its eyes, all have come short of its self-proclaimed, imagined glory. Contempt solidifies its identity by withdrawing into narrowness. It becomes incomprehensible and untenable outside its border walls, thus demands that all conform to its self-serving boundaries, or risk all harms. Punishment. Exclusion. Blame.

Contempt pushes out, pushes down, and subordinates, and always leaves out those for which it cannot account, those with whom it cannot contend.

Contempt betrays. Contempt forsakes. Contempt misunderstands. Contempt acts on pat understandings of complexity beyond its ken. We are left contemptible in its wake of judgment, withdrawal, and cruelty.

Contempt is masterful at making outcasts and scapegoats, to fortify itself, draw itself to formidable heights, which are always, upon examination, the low points of human history and consciousness.

We are at the nearly impassable precipice of such a low point, but I fear we are not at the nadir. We must pull ourselves out, with insight first, and then action.

Contempt sits on throne, with crown and rod. A King. Monarch above us all. Content only with permanent authority and rules that favor its sovereign command. Contempt shoots the messengers, and plugs our ears from hearing.

Is our play enough to catch the conscience of the King?

Will we someday view Contempt as a great yet terrifying teacher? Will it always view us as perpetually failing students? Will we continue to be its victims?

Is Contempt the unsatisfiable parent of our psyche, an eternally disapproving and inescapable god?

People with mental health challenges experience prejudice, stigmatization, and contempt, leading to self-contempt and increased suicidality.

Philosopher and bioethicist Yolonda Yvette Wilson writes, “the very foundations of medical discovery, diagnosis, and treatment are built on racist contempt for Black people and have become self-perpetuating.”

Contempt takes our lives.

Contempt is a gaslight that despises our very humanity: our vulnerability, our youth, our distress, our insecurity, our doubt, our indescribable, incredible, multiform, creative, beautiful and awe-inspiring processes of change and growth and adaptation. Contempt despises the possibility that we will outgrow it entirely, and when we look back, be ungrateful that it was ever amidst us.

Contempt has us under its despising spell, and erects a dangerous cartoon Ideal. In our love of this mirage, we think we can avoid persecution, and instead, embolden punishment of those whom the Idealized Mirage criminalizes and holds in its jailhouse of Contempt. The Idealized Mirage says they deserve it, and the followers of Contempt nod their heads in assent.

American politics is the our most current example of the power of the spells of Contempt and Idealization. But these spells play out in religions, couples, families, cults, organizations, and in our own psyches, as we sort out our identities and relationship to authorities, “higher powers,” spiritual figures, gurus. Contempt has been shown to impact the immune system. The majority culture’s contempt of “the other” can become baked into institutions and ideologies, causing great harm.

Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 papal bull is prime example of the creation of a Christian Ideal holding non-Christians in contempt and subject to theft of their humanity, land and resources.

“The Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be ‘discovered,’ claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.” This ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion. In the US Supreme Court in the 1823 case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held ‘that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands.’ In essence, American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished.”

This bull became the doctrine of discovery in international law, and found its way into the creation of American Empire and hegemony. Even today, some Christians find fulfillment in converting others to their views, a form of cultural imperialism.

The Doctrine of Discovery is a Doctrine of Contempt and a gaslight of idealization in a religion.

The doctrine of original sin (“all men are sinners”) holds humanity in Contempt, proposing a religion as the solution for the resulting shame. These doctrines of Contempt create and amplify sexual and racial paranoia, and grant power to the most paranoid and manipulative leaders among us, convinced of their paranoid “truths.”

There is controversy over the Doctrine of Discovery now. Representatives of First Nations in Canada, among others, have called for an official apology and denunciation of the Doctrine from Pope Francis. Others claim that the Church washed its hands of the matter long ago. The latter group tends towards Idealization, not recognizing the Contempt that spilled from it. (See references.)

The spells of Contempt and Idealization are inherently schizogenic. They create an antagonistic split of acceptability: all or nothing, black or white, us versus them. Accept me and reject all others. Subordinate and silence all parts of oneself that challenge the spells. Hide every part of yourself that doesn’t conform. Fit in. Be spellbound.

Can we break the spells, and see ourselves and each other more clearly? Can we rub the mirage of the false sun from our eyes, and find the true gravity of love, compassion, and common humanity? Can we create safety and well-being for our complex identities and our essential needs to belong, create, and nurture? Can the dance of Contempt and Contemptible turn to Compassion instead?

Our future depends on this struggle, what song we sing to awaken from the spells.

© 2022 Ravi Chandra, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.