{"id":3808,"date":"2010-10-14T22:51:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T05:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=3808"},"modified":"2010-10-14T22:51:39","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T05:51:39","slug":"contempt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2010\/10\/14\/contempt-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Contempt"},"content":{"rendered":"

When respect dies, contempt takes its place.<\/p>\n

That’s a theme taken up by, say, movies<\/a>, which analyze the relationship between lovers (when, for example, the relationship is breaking down).<\/p>\n

But having fallen more or less out of love with a non-human entity<\/em> – let’s call it a place – I’ve noticed that the horrible alchemy does its work to disenchant us humans in all sorts of ways.<\/p>\n

In my sphere, I can no longer respect the local political leadership I see. I can no longer respect the status quo of where I live, its economy, its habits, its image. Most bitingly of all, I can no longer respect the potential<\/em> of the place I find myself in. These days, the word potential, when applied to where I live, makes me want to run. Away.<\/p>\n

If I want some comedy around the tragedy of disenchantment, I think of Dylan Moran warning us about the dangers of “releasing” potential<\/a>: “Don’t do it! Stay away from your potential. You’ll mess it up, it’s potential, leave it. Anyway, it’s like your bank balance – you always have a lot less than you think.”<\/p>\n

Of course Moran leverages cynicism to craft brilliant stand-up comedy – his skit shows how cynicism is a variant of contempt. In either case, what was there before (respect – even love) lies wounded.<\/p>\n

When respect dies, contempt comes alive.<\/p>\n

It’s an art<\/em> to push contempt away, it takes a muse and fresh eyes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At this point, though, contempt is in the kitchen, cooking up a storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When respect dies, contempt takes its place. That’s a theme taken up by, say, movies, which analyze the relationship between lovers (when, for example, the relationship is breaking down). But having fallen more or less out of love with a non-human entity – let’s call it a place – I’ve noticed that the horrible alchemy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1242],"tags":[20158],"class_list":["post-3808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just_so","tag-contempt"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3808"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3825,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3808\/revisions\/3825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}