Just a short one ‘cos it’s been on my mind.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the Black Star Film Festival in Philly, listening to a panel talk about ‘curatorial justice,’ when the idea of contempt came up. Unfortunately this seems to be the only panel from the festival that’s not available online so I’ll have to reconstruct from memory what the context of these comments were, but it had to do with the idea that experiencing contempt is an inevitability when you’re a curator. I found this idea to be curious and presented in a relatively neutral way, but the thought didn’t feel complete to me. Because if I am thinking about justice in my practice as a curator (and what are most of us, interetty/creative adjacent/media-types if not curators) then I think the big question is: WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO CONTEMPT? (this was the only actual note I took, written in all caps)
Time for a definition:
contempt
1. the feeling with which a person regards anything considered mean, vile, or worthless; disdain; scorn.2. the state of being despised; dishonor; disgrace.
3. Law.
* willful disobedience to or open disrespect for the rules or orders of a court (contempt of court ) or legislative body.
* an act showing such disrespect.
Contempt is a word, or idea, that is deeply subjective. I think the first definition gets at it, when it calls contempt a feeling. This makes the second defintion, of contempt as a state, particularly interesting. It implies fixity, a prolonged attachment or preoccupation. And so the third definition is particularly provocative because it reveals the way legal systems evolved to prosecute, control, restrain, and punish — through the supposedly ‘objective’ purview of the judge/court/state — human feeling and expression.
When I thought more about the co-optation of ‘contempt’ into the legal framework, it’s transformation into a phrase of choking out dissent, I began to feel that anyone in a position of power should be asking themselves: What is my relationship to contempt?
It feels okay to assume that most of us fear contempt. It feels uncomfortable or even scary to be on the recieving end of it, and expressing it — whether in the courtroom, as a petty act of workplace subordination, or on the streets in protest — can invite punishment. I mean, I know I don’t really want to receive another’s contempt.
But the more I think about it, the more I feel that contempt is a word that is used to disguise power — as though it is somehow a crime to be regarded with contempt. (Let me be clear here that although contempt is an action that supports systems of racism, gender or sexuality-based phobias, or the maintenance of poverty, we should use those words). When we consider our relationship to contempt, we consider our place within social and economic hierarchies. Demystifying what we might perceive as contempt, and why encourages a deeper (or at least more honest) engagement with the world, and with ourselves.
In its subjectivity, as an expression of feeling, contempt is as varied as the human experience. It is a stylized expression of anger, critique, indignation, power imbalance. It can be expressed with joy, rage, despair, or humour. Contempt can be a creative force. It can also be reactive. But contempt is an attempt to breach so-called reality. It provokes existential panic; it filters our perception through fear. Contempt can be the discovery of a trick deck. It can be righteous, even if it hurts our feelings. More expression of contempt might reveal who the real sickos are.