The Christmas season wouldn’t be complete without Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch. What do these two notorious characters from Christmas fiction have in common that we might all need to check for in ourselves? Is it greed, or stinginess, or selfishness, or meanness? I think we can sum up the trait shared by Dickens’ antagonist and Dr. Seuss’s mythical green grump in one word: contempt.
Contempt is defined as “the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.” Both Scrooge and the Grinch view Christmas with disdain, and not just the holiday with its characteristic excess and materialism, but the people who celebrate and participate in it. Imagine mentioning Christmas to the Grinch, or asking Scrooge to take off early from work for a holiday party, and you can picture an identical eye-roll and muttered “Bah, humbug.” As is always the case with villains, real or imagined, there’s a backstory that explains what transpired to make them bitter and angry and scornful.
Unfortunately, contempt, such as we see in Scrooge and the Grinch, isn’t limited to fictional villains, it’s pervasive in our modern culture.
Former president of the American Enterprise Institute Arthur C. Brooks describes a toxic “culture of contempt” in his 2019 book “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.” It’s not enough to simply disagree with someone, have opposing points of view, or even belong to different groups. Our culture of contempt has brought us to a place where now anyone who disagrees with us on any topic is reduced to a subhuman level and subjected to insults, name-calling, and even physical assault.
The next time you read, hear or see something that’s antithetical to your views and feel your lip curl in a derisive sneer, your eyes start to roll like a 13-year-old, and some parroted insult you heard on talk radio or cable news slip off your tongue, that’s contempt.
It’s so easy (read: lazy) to have contempt for people we disagree with, for people who look or live or speak or act differently than we do. It’s far easier/lazier to call someone a deplorable or a snowflake or a sinner than it is to listen, understand, tolerate, compromise, or — heaven forbid — change your perspective.
But here’s the thing… contempt is bad for us, personally and collectively.
Besides the obvious detrimental effects on relationships (Marriage and family expert John Gottman says contempt is one of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” when it comes to impending divorce.) and social connection (ol’ Ebenezer wasn’t exactly the life of the party) contempt is bad for our physical and mental health as well.
A 2022 Psychology Today article states: “The adrenaline of contempt often masks depression by temporarily increasing energy. The trouble is, you have to stay contemptuous most of the time to avoid the crash back to a depressed mood.”
Contempt also weakens the immune system, causes chronic exhaustion, and, “Because it creates a dysphoric consciousness, substance abuse is common in those who suffer from contempt.”
Gee. I think I’ve met those people. And from time to time, I’ve been those people.
So how do we fix it? What’s the antidote to this toxic poison? In all likelihood, no reprimanding ghosts are coming to rebuke us in our dreams, nor a Cindy Lou Who that will tolerate us long enough for our hearts to grow bigger.
Brooks outlines five rules:
1. Stand up to the man. Refuse to be used by the powerful.
2. Don’t attack or insult. Don’t even try to win.
3. Never assume the motives of another person.
4. Be part of a healthy competition of ideas.
5. Disconnect from unproductive debates.
And if you can’t remember those, try simply being warm-hearted, grateful, and kind. Cultivate that attitude of gratitude, even for and about people you disagree with. It’s hard to be contemptuous and grateful at the same time, lessons Scrooge and the Grinch eventually learned, too.