Contempt (pronounced kuhn-tempt)
(1) The
feeling with which a person regards anything (or anyone) considered mean, vile,
or worthless; disdain; scorn.
(2) The
state of being despised; dishonor; disgrace.
(3) An act
showing such disrespect.
(4) In most
legal systems, willful disobedience to or open disrespect for the rules or
orders of a court contempt of court or legislative body; punishable by being
cited for “contempt of court”.
(5) In
chess engines (the software used in chess games), as an ellipsis of “contempt
factor”, a setting that modifies how much an engine values a draw versus a win
or loss, making it play more aggressively or defensively based on perceived
opponent strength. The idea is to
encourage interesting games by making engines avoid draws against weaker foes
or seek them against stronger ones.
1350–1400:
From the Middle English contempnen,
from the Anglo-French contemner, from
the Old French contempt & contemps, from the Latin contemptus (despising, scorn), a noun
derivative of contemnere, from contemnō (I scorn, despise). It displaced the native Old English forsewennes. The late fourteenth century meaning was “an open
disregard or disobedience (of authority, the law etc)” while the general sense
of “act of despising; scorn for what is mean, vile, or worthless” was in use by
at least circa 1400. In Latin, there was
also the feminine contemptrix (she
who despises). In the technical sense,
the codified offence of “contempt of court” (open disregard or disrespect for
the rules, orders, or process of judicial authority) dates only from the early
eighteenth century but the variants of the concept have been in use almost as
long as there have been courts.
Unusually
(in terms of construction), the phrase “beneath contempt” really means “extremely
contemptible”. In idiomatic use, “familiarity
breeds contempt” suggests “a prolonged closeness or exposure or a profound
knowledge of someone or something often leads to diminished respect or
appreciation” and a particular form of that is associated with Frederick the
Great (Frederick II, 1712–1786, King of Prussia 1740-1786) who observed: “The more I learn
of the character of men, the more I appreciate the company of dogs”. The term “contempt trap” comes from the
burgeoning discipline of “relationship studies” (romantic, social or political)
and describes situations in which individuals view others as worthless, leading
to toxic communication, disconnection, and resentment. It's a psychological trap where partners or
groups focus on flaws, creating a downward spiral in which the “issues fuel
themselves”; the best strategy is said to be “empathetic niceness” but, in the
circumstances, this can be easier said than done.
The
familiar “contempt of court” (plural contempts of court) is conceptually
similar to the offences “Contempt of Parliament” & “Contempt of Congress”
(ie the act of obstructing the work of a legislative body or one of its committees)
and, at law, the noun contemnor describes a party who commits or is held in
contempt of a court or legislative body.
The offence is one in which there’s held to have been open disrespect
for or willful disobedience of the authority of a court of law or legislative
body, typically punishable by such sanctions as a fine or incarceration. The nature of these punishments varies widely
and especially minor transgressions are involved, the penalty can vary from
judge to judge; one might ignore the slight while another might send the
offender to a cell for a few hours. The
noun & adjective contemptive is rare and used in linguistics to mean “of or
pertaining to, or creating a word form denoting the negative attitude of the
speaker”. The negative adjectival form
is uncontemptible and incontemptible does not exist although there may be a use
for both among those who cherish fine nuances, the former used to mean “not
able to be held in contempt”, the latter “incapable of being held in
contempt”. The alternative spellings cōtempt & cõtempt are obsolete. Contempt,
contemnor, contemptibleness, contemptuosity, contemptuousness &
contemptibility are nouns, contemptive is a noun & adjective, contemptible
& contemptuous are adjectives and contemptibly & contemptuously are
adverbs; the noun plural is contempts.
Contempt of Congress
Early in January,
2026, counsel for Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) and his wife crooked
Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) announced they were
refusing to comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony in matters
relating their relationships with disgraced financier and convicted sex
offender Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019 who died in custody while awaiting trial on
additional offences; it was determined to be suicide). The former president and first lady were
served the subpoena by the Republican-led House oversight committee which is
reviewing the government’s handling of “the Epstein matter”. As part of their combative statement, the
couple also launched an attack on the Republican Party and Donald Trump (b
1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025).
In
response, committee chairman James Comer (b 1972, Republican-Kentucky) said he would
move to hold the pair “in contempt of Congress”. That was prompted by counsel’s letter which
described the subpoenas as “invalid and legally unenforceable, untethered to a valid
legislative purpose, unwarranted because they do not seek pertinent
information, and an unprecedented infringement on the separation of powers”. According to the Clintons (both trained
lawyers), the committee’s demand they testify (under oath, thereby being
compelled to tell the truth) “runs afoul of the clearly defined limitations on Congress’
investigative power propounded by the Supreme Court of the United States”,
to which they added “it is clear the subpoenas themselves – and any subsequent
attempt to enforce them – are nothing more than a ploy to attempt to embarrass
political rivals, as President Trump has directed”. As well as threatening the pair with being
held in contempt of Congress, Mr Comey informed the press: “I think it’s
important to note that this subpoena was voted on in a bipartisan manner by
this committee. This wasn’t something
that I just issued as chairman of the committee. No one’s accusing Bill Clinton of anything,
any wrongdoing. We just have questions,
and that’s why the Democrats voted along with Republicans to subpoena Bill
Clinton.” Even some Democrats supported
the subpoena, one on the oversight committee saying: “Cooperating with Congress
is important and the committee should continue working with President Clinton’s
team to obtain any information that might be relevant to our investigation.”
The Clintons didn’t much dwell on fine legal or constitutional points, preferring to attack the congressional Republicans for their obsequious acquiescence to the president (not so much the MAGA (Make America Great Again) agenda as to Mr Trump personally) including their support of hardline immigration enforcement, the recent killing of a US citizen in Minnesota by an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent and the president’s pardoning of January 6 “insurrectionists”. “Bringing the Republicans’ cruel agenda to a standstill while you work harder to pass a contempt charge against us than you have done on your investigation this past year would be our contribution to fighting the madness”, the Clintons wrote. So, the Clintons are running a political campaign in an attempt to solve their latest legal problem and this time they’re putting things in quasi-Churchillian phrases, asserting: “Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time.” Clearly crooked Hillary feels her finest hour is upon her but students of her past will variously be amused or appalled at the suggestion she’d do something as a matter of principle rather than base self-interest but she persists in claiming the consequences of refusing to comply with a valid congressional subpoena are “a politically driven process” designed “literally to result in our imprisonment.”
The “politically driven” argument has before been used by those seeing to avoid answering questions under oath, but despite that former Trump advisor Peter Navarro (b 1949) was in 2023 convicted of contempt of Congress for failing to provide documents and testify about the 2020 election and the Capitol riot. He also (unsuccessfully) cited executive privilege but that too was rejected; he was jailed for four months. So the claim a prosecution is a “political weaponization” of the justice system can’t stop a valid legal action like a citation of contempt and Steve Bannon (b 1953 and also a Trump-related figure) served four months in jail for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 committee. The courts also seem to view such matters as black letter law; on appeal, Mr Navarro’s attempt to stay out of jail while he appealed his conviction was declined while a federal judge rejected a stay on Mr Bannon’s imprisonment and revoked bail. According to a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, witnesses who “willfully refuse” to comply with valid congressional subpoenas can be punished, regardless of the excuse. As a general principle, it seems to be thought an offence of absolute liability.
In mid January, a Republican-led House panel recommended Bill & crooked Hillary Clinton be found in contempt of Congress; although the pair had offered “to co-operate” with the House Oversight Committee, that did not extend to answering questions under oath (ie, by implication, “telling the truth”). The committee conducted separate votes on what technically were two cases, voting 34-8 to cite Bill Clinton for contempt while the vote on crooked Hillary Clinton was 28-15; As predicted, all 25 Republicans backed the recommendations to cite for contempt and the degree of support from the Democratic members is an indication of the public & press pressure now being applied as a result of suspicions there are rich and well-connected individuals whose involvement with Jeffrey Epstein is being “covered up”. In the US, the lessons from the Watergate scandal have never been forgotten: it's the cover-up which matters most.
Should Congress elect to pursue the matter (as was done with Mr Navarro and Mr Bannon), the brief will then be passed to the DoJ (Department of Justice) for prosecution and the potential consequences include fines of up to US$100,000 and as long as a year in jail. Obviously, neither is a compelling prospect but the problem for crooked Hillary is that should she comply and testify, she’ll be under oath and thus compelled to tell the truth. That novel possibility would attract a big audience but her problem is she has no way of knowing in advance what questions will be asked and, being under oath, she’d have to either be truthful or “take the fifth” to avoid self-incrimination. Paying a US$100,000 fine would seem a very cheap “get out of jail free” card and even some time behind bars may be a better long-term option. While in the past crooked Hillary probably has used the phrase “no one is above the law” she’d never have imagined it applied to her but some in Congress suspect the Clintons will use "every trick in the book" (and they known them all) to avoid being questioned under oath, one Californian Democrat predicting: "If we launch criminal contempt proceedings, we will not hear from the Clintons. That is a fact. It'll be tied up in court".
Presumably, the strategy will be to "string things along" until the mid-term elections in November when the Republicans may lose control of the Congress. Of course, as a last resort, there remains the “Pinochet option”. After avoiding trial for crimes against humanity because of his allegedly frail mental and physical state, General Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006; dictator of Chile 1973-1990) boarded his aircraft in England from a wheelchair, looking something like a warmed-up corpse, only to make a miraculous in-flight recovery; the moment he set foot on the tarmac at Santiago, in rude good health, he strode off. All crooked Hillary would need is a “medical episode”, one not serious enough to kill her but just enough to permit physicians to fill out the forms saying she’s not well enough to be questioned. Depending on this and that, her condition would need to linger only until the threat of prosecution has been evaded. One intriguing potential coda to legal action could be that Donald Trump might well grant the pair a pardon. What's often unappreciated about Mr Trump is he doesn't waste time or effort running grudges against those who were merely opponents as opposed to those who actually tried to damage him or present an on-going threat. Although he'd spent the 2016 campaign threatening crooked Hillary with jail and encouraging the MAGA faithful to chant "Lock her up!", interviewed after the election, when asked if he'd be taking legal action against the Clintons, he brushed off the the question with a dismissive: "No, they're good people" and moved on. Should that happen, darkly, some might mutter about him having reasons why he'd not want the pair questioned about Jeffrey Epstein but, like disgraced former congressman George Santos (b 1988), crooked Hillary will not be one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The Brutum Fulmen
The
practical significance of a court or other institution holding an individual
“in contempt” relies on the body having a means of enforcing its order. While that order can extend (variously) to a
fine, a term of imprisonment or a burning at the stake, if no such means exist
(or are, in the circumstances, not able to be used), then, at law, the order is
a brutum fulmen (plural bruta fulmina) which historically, appeared
also as fulmen brutum. The term entered the language as a construct
of the Latin brutum (stupid) + fulmen (lightning), picked up from the
title of a pamphlet (the word then used of documents distributed publicly and
discussing political and related matters) published in 1680 by Thomas Barlow
(circa 1608-1691; Lord Bishop of Lincoln 1675-1969) who derived the phrase from
the passage hinc bruta fulmina et vana
(these senseless and ineffectual thunder-claps) in Naturalis Historia (Natural History) by the Roman author (and much else) Pliny the Elder (Gaius
Plinius Secundus, 24-79). Pliny
literally was describing the natural phenomenon of lightning (which, having
never been struck by one, he dismissed as “harmless thunderbolts”) but the term
entered legal jargon meaning “a judgement without effect” and was for a while
learned slang for “an empty threat” before fading from use in the late
eighteenth century.
So, at law,
brutum fulmen is used to refer to a judgment, decree, edict, order etc that while
(on paper) is valid and nominally enforceable, is in practice ineffective
either because it cannot be enforced or is directed at someone or something
beyond the court’s effective power.
There’s a long history of such paperwork, Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975;
Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) with typical acerbity noting in his diary
on 3 April 1945 the pointless bureaucratic output still flowing from the desk
of Martin Bormann (1900–1945; secretary to the Führer 1943-1945; head of the
Nazi Party Chancellery 1941-1945), even as the Reich was being diminished to an
enclave: “Once
more a mass of new decrees and instructions issue from Bormann. Bormann has turned the Party Chancellery into
a paper factory. Every day he sends out
a mountain of letters and files which the Gauleiters [the party’s
district leaders],
now involved in battle, no longer even have time to read. In some cases too it is totally useless stuff
of no practical value in our struggle. Even
in the Party we have no clear leadership in contact with the people.” Goebbels may have been evil but his mind was
well-trained and he was a realist, understanding the “great danger” in the “diminution of
authority” likely to be suffered by the party. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and
German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) called the
devoted Bormann “Dear Martin” but interestingly, one author has written works
claiming that by late April even Bormann had become a realist and was complicit
in having the Führer murdered by his valet (Heinz Linge (1913–1980)), thereby
removing the one obstacle preventing the pair’s escape from the Führerbunker. The author is a well-credentialed medical
doctor and although his earlier theory about the Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi
Deputy Führer 1933-1941, who spent 46-odd years in Allied custody) being a
“doppelganger” has recently been disproved by DNA analysis, his recounting of how Hitler
may have been murdered is well written and, in a sense, the ultimate “the butler did it” tale; it’s not
necessary to be convinced to enjoy what may be a tall tale.
From the
Vatican, there would have been many popes who would have understood Goebbels’
frustrations because there’s quite a list of Papal Bulls and decrees that
proved to be “casting rhetoric to the
winds of history”. Pius V
(1504–1572; pope 1566-1572) in 1570 issued Regnans in Excelsis (Reigning on High) which, as an
order of excommunication against Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England &
Ireland 1558-1603) was intended to depose the queen by releasing her subjects
from obedience but, “having no divisions” in England, the Holy See could not
there exercise temporal authority and Elizabeth merely “changed teams” becoming
Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
Of course, she remained excommunicated from the Church of Rome but
that’s hardly as serious as being burned at the stake. Less dramatically, papal interdicts issued
against secular rulers on matters less consequential routinely were ignored,
kings, princes and dukes aware their thrones (and sometimes their necks) might
be better preserved by pleasing their many subjects than the bachelor Bishop of
Rome.
As well as
being appalled by the thought of heretical Anglicans, Pius V disapproved of
bull-fighting, calling the tradition “alien from Christian piety and charity, “better suited to
demons rather than men” and “public slaughter and butchery” fit for paganism
but not Christendom and word nerds will be delighted to note Pius’s ban on
bullfighting was technically a “papal bull”.
De Salute Gregis Dominici (On the Salvation of the Lord’s Flock) was issued
on 1 November 1, 1567 as a formal proclamation with a bulla (the papal lead seal) attached (hence such edicts being known
as the “Papal bulls”), the seal authenticating the document and, as an official
decree, it was binding upon the Church and Christian princes. Disgusted by the cruelty inflicted on one of
God’s noble beasts, Pius called bullfighting “a sin” and condemned the events
as “spectacles
of the devil”, prohibiting Christians from attending or
participating under pain of excommunication.
However, like many papal though bubbles down the ages which never quite
make it to the status of doctrine, his ban was soon ignored and, after his
death the, edict quietly was allowed to lapse.
Predictably, in Spain and Portugal, where bullfighting had deep cultural
& political roots, the bulla was either ignored or resisted and Philip II
(1527–1598; King of Spain 1556-1598), while as devout a Catholic as any man,
was known as Felipe el Prudente
(Philip the Prudent) for a reason and quietly he turned the royal blind eye,
allowing bullfighting to continue.
Within the Holy See, the king's disobedience of an edict from the Vicar
of Christ on Earth would have been disappointing but unsurprising and it was
the world-weary Benedict XIV (1675–1758; pope 1740-1758) who best summed-up the
church's chain of command: “The pope commands, his cardinals do not obey, and the
people do what they wish.”
What is still not always recognized is that Rome’s authority on matters
both spiritual and temporal did often depend on consent; in Medieval Europe there
were a number of interdicts (such as that against the Republic of Venice in
1606) which indisputably were binding in canon law but had no force because the
target solved the legal quandaries by ignoring them.
Secular courts
too sometimes have issued orders that look authoritative but are void for want
of jurisdiction. The British Empire is a
rich source of such bruta fulmina because,
especially in the nineteenth century when expansion (as expressed by land being
colored pink on maps) often exceeded control “on the ground”. A practical exercise in (1) the establishment
of trading & coaling stations and (2) theft of the resources of others,
what the British Empire did to a greater extent than other European colonial
powers was secure what were essentially coastal beachheads and tracks of
communication (rivers, roads, railway lines) while leaving vast swathes of
territories in the hands of native authorities, some of which were cooperative,
some not. While the Colonial Office
understood this was how thing were done (the British Empire in particular
something of a well-executed confidence trick because there were never the
resources effectively to control all that was claimed on the map), colonial
courts, for many reasons, felt compelled to issue orders to what were, in
effect, sovereign foreign territories; even at the height of the British Raj,
the means did not exist always to enforce judgements or rulings purporting to bind
tribal authorities or princes in their palaces.
A post-colonial example is the operation of the “Supremacy Clause” in US
jurisprudence. As a simple
constitutional fact, under the Supremacy Clause, a state court has no power to
enjoin a federal officer acting in federal capacity; even if correct in every
aspect of construction, any such injunction will be held to be a brutum fulmen because it cannot be
enforced, the classic example being Tarble's
Case, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 397 (1872), in which the USSC (Supreme Court) held
state courts could not issue writs of habeas corpus to federal military
officers; such writs legally void. What
the case settled was that the US Constitution was the supreme law of the land, “anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” That an order may be perfectly valid under
state law was irrelevant and this doctrine has of late been again discussed
because of certain actions being taken by the federal government during the
second Trump administration.
There is
also the matter of orders those who enjoy legal immunity. Historically, when the concept of “sovereign immunity”
was effectively absolute (before “restrictive immunity” emerged in the wake of
the modern “commercial exception”, courts would enter judgments against
sovereign states; the judges were carrying out a type of “black letter law” but
the value of such rulings was purely political or symbolic. A subset of such things was the matter of declarations
unsupported with any mechanism of enforcement and that was one of the several
structural flaws which doomed the League of Nations (1920-1946), an institution
something of a case study in characterised as a brutum fulmen, whatever it’s
noble goals. However, the judicial model
established by the League of Nations (essentially one of “moral authority”)
carried over into post-war institutions, the ICJ (International Court of
Justice) having often issued advisory opinions states routinely have ignored.
A special
case of brutum fulmen concerns domestic
statutes struck down by courts but never repealed. Known as “dead letter” laws, these,
ghost-like, remain on the books even after invalidation. This happens apparently for two reasons: (1)
in the technical sense it matters not whether the words are removed from the
books or (2) governments retain them because they retain a certain symbolic
force as an expression of disapprobation for one thing or another, an example
being Section 3 of the US DOMA (Defense
of Marriage Act) after the decision handed down by the USSC in US v Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013)). New technology has also created a whole new
field of potential bruta fulmina. Although instances of material banned from
publication in one place appearing in another have for centuries been
documented, the advent of the internet and its inherently global availability has
meant the injunctive and contempt orders which once were such a potent means of
preventing or punishing proscribed publication now are of less use because so
many potential subjects lie beyond a court’s reach.
Not exactly contemptible, just less desirable: The Alfa Romeo 2600
While Ms
Bardot was a vision of haunting loveliness, the 2600 is less fondly remembered
than its smaller stable-mates. Whereas in
its era Mercedes-Benz and most US-built cars tended to improve as the cylinder
count and engine displacement increased, in the post-war years, the most
admired and successful Alfa Romeos were the smaller, four-cylinder models
renowned for their balance and agility (certainly in the company’s illustrious, pre-FWD
(front wheel drive) era). Tellingly,
although imagined as a flagship, the 2600 was in production only between
1962-1968 and despite being offered with a range of coachwork (Berlina (sedan),
Sprint (coupé) & Spider (roadster) as well as a typically quirky fastback
coupé (the 2600 SZ (Sprint Zagato)) by Zagato), it was not a success; sales were never close to expectations, the high price and nose-heavy, “un-Alfalike” driving characteristics usually cited as reasons for the muted demand. In its six-odd years of
availability, unusually, it was not the sedan which was most successful but,
with almost 7,000 sold, the Sprint and even the 2,255 Spiders out-sold the
2,092 Berlinas; the 105 Sprint Zagatos an expensive footnote.
Whatever
the 2600’s flaws, the engine was a gem.
An all-new, all aluminum 2.6 litre (158 cubic inch) DOHC (double overhead
camshaft) straight six, it was very much in the company’s pre-war tradition
but, in a way, the image of Alfa-Romeo had been captured by the wildly
successful 1900 range (1950-1959) which featured relatively small-displacement,
four-cylinder engines. So seductive did
Italians and others find the 1900 that it quickly came to be thought of as the
definitive “Alfa Romeo”. However, the
platform which as the 1900 (and subsequent 2000) had been a model of well-balanced agility,
didn’t adapt so well to the longer straight six and it was the subsequent
105/115 range (Gulia, 1962-1968) which was the 1900’s true successor, the incomparable
105 coupé among the company’s finest achievements. The 2600 proved to be the last of Alfa
Romeo’s classic DOHC straight-sixes.
The Kaiser and the Old Contemptibles
No document
has ever been found confirming the Kaiser used the phase the British
propagandists spread with such glee and it’s thus almost certainly apocryphal but
historians have concluded that, in discussions, he probably did dismiss the
British as a military threat on the European mainland on the grounds their army
was “so contemptibly small”. In that, he
has a point in that compared to the land forces in the standing and reserve
armies of France, Germany, Austria and Russia, the British Army genuinely was small;
as a maritime empire with its military strength based on the Royal Navy being the world’s most powerful, the British Army was designed for remote colonial
engagements rather than big, set-piece invasions of European countries. So, from the Kaiser’s point of view it was a
reasonable observation; since the time of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989;
chancellor of the German Empire (the "Second Reich" 1871-1890), the
dark joke told in continental chancelleries was that while most countries “had
an army”, Prussia was unusual in that its army “has a country”. All he really got wrong was the British did
have some contemptibly poor generals, one of who was the Field Marshal Sir John
French (1852–1925) mentioned in his alleged statement. Not for nothing are the “Old Contemptibles” remembered as “lions led by donkeys” but in the way the British ruling class does things, after
being asked to resign, Sir John was elevated to the peerage and died laden with
titles and imperial honours.
Lindsay Lohan, contempt, and the matter of intent
Fingernails don’t often hit the headlines but in 2010 one did during one of the Lindsay Lohan's appearances in court during her “trouble starlet” phase: close-up photographs of the relevant (and very colourful) nail (on the middle finger) revealed the text “fuck U”. In the US of the twenty-first century a fingernail so decorated would be usually unexceptional and uncontroversial but on the digit of a defendant sitting in court to receive a sentence, it was at least taking a risk and defence counsel, had they noticed the artwork, doubtlessly would have insisted on a strategically applied band-aid. The risk posed by what may have been a misguided manicure was that were the judge to conclude the apparently unambiguous message was directed either at court or judge, Ms Lohan could have been cited for contempt of court on much the same the basis as had she mouthed the words. Lawyers asked to comment on the matter confirmed that in such circumstances a defendant cannot rely on rights guaranteed by the First Amendment (a component of which is freedom of speech) to the Constitution but what was an intriguing legal question was the matter of intent. All agreed the judge was sitting too far away to read the distant and tiny “fuck U” so it couldn’t be argued Ms Lohan intended it to be read thus but if the judge saw the paparazzi’s photos, would a “retrospective” citation of contempt be possible? Given all that, it was at least a gray area but the matter was never pursued. Ms Lohan clarified things with a tweet on X (then known as Twitter) denying the text was a message for the court or anyone else: “It had nothing to do w/court. It’s an airbrush design from a stencil”. According to Fox News (a famously reliable source), the nails were “part of a joke with friends”.
Before, during & after: Lindsay Lohan and her bandaged finger, 2016.
Not until 2016 would one of Lindsay Lohan’s
fingers again attain such notoriety. During an
Aegean cruise in October that year, in dreadful nautical incident, the tip of
one digit was severed by the boat's anchor chain but details of the
circumstances are sketchy although there was speculation that upon hearing the
captain give the command “weigh anchor”,
she decided to help but, lacking any background in admiralty jargon,
misunderstood the instruction.
Self contempt
The terms “self-hatred”,
“self-loathing” and “self-contempt” are familiar in general discourse and pop
psychology texts but none are formally distinguished as separate diagnostic
constructs or appear in either the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM) or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases
(ICD). However, the concepts encompassed
do appear in theories and research papers as well as being part of clinical
discourse and between the three terms are denoted different self-directed
attitudes, largely along affective versus evaluative lines.
Self-hatred
is thought a core quality, an intense, hostile feeling directed at one’s self
and the affective tone may be one of disgust, anger or revulsion. Typically, this can appear as a form of self-hostility
and may manifest as wishing to self-harm, a feeling of deserving of punishment
and a general rage turned inwards.
Self-hatred is often discussed in connection with (1) major depressive
disorders, (2) borderline personality pathology, (3) trauma and internalised
abuse and (4) self-harm including suicidality.
Self-loathing can perhaps (if not wholly satisfactorily) be
characterized as “self-hatred lite” in that it’s treated usually as a pervasive
aversion to the self and associated with shame, disgust and revulsion. There’s obviously some overlap (to the extent
the terms probably can be used interchangeably without causing confusion for
most) but as used by clinicians, self-loathing conveys the idea of something less
aggressive and more avoidant, the emphasis on being repelled by one’s own
traits, body, or identity rather than contemplating self harm; commonly it’s linked
with shame-based self-schemas, eating disorders, body-image disturbance, depression
and social anxiety. The convenient
distinction between the two is that while self-hatred summons the thought: “I
should be punished”, self-loathing says “I am repulsive”. The point about self-contempt is that often
it can be transitory (sometimes styled as “transactional”) and related to a
particular event or one’s reaction to that event. In that sense, self-contempt can be seen as
something is more cognitive and judgmental than emotional although, obviously,
there too there can be overlap.
There is a
special case within internal Jewish discourse of a certain flavor where the
term “self-hating Jew” overwhelmingly is more commonly used than the
superficially similar “self-loathing Jew”.
“Self-hating Jew” became a standard phrase (and in doing so sacrificed
some of its original meaning in favour of becoming a still-potent slur) in Jewish
polemical writing and was once most associated with political debates (not
always between intellectuals), especially if the matters involved anti-Zionism
or internalised anti-Semitism. The
term gained popularity after Der
jüdische Selbsthaß (Jewish Self-Hatred (1930)) by German Jewish philosopher
Theodor Lessing (1872-1933) was translated into English and the choice of “self-hatred”
rather than “self-loathing” “locked in” the English idiom. What Lessing did was construct a subtle
argument in which he attempted to explain the (apparently uniquely European) phenomenon
of Jewish intellectuals who incited anti-Semitism against the Jewish people and
who regarded Judaism as the source of evil in the world. The translator’s preference was thought to be
a considered choice which reflected a certain conceptual emphasis: Whereas “self-hatred”
implies hostility, repudiation, and active rejection of Jewish identity or interests,
“self-loathing” suggests inward disgust or shame, which is psychologically
plausible but rhetorically weaker for polemical purposes. In other words, the former is of the
political, the latter the personal. The
term has become especially controversial because, within Judaism, it had become
a convenient weapon to use against any Jew who criticizes some aspect of the conduct of the government of Israel.
The thoughts of Bill Buckley on the thoughts of John XXIII
By the time in 1961 conservative US writer (and leading lay Catholic) William F Buckley (1925–2008) responded to John XXIII’s (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963) encyclical Mater et magistra (Mother and Teacher), the days were gone when the Church could have heretics burned at the stake (perhaps a source or regret to at least one pope) so suggesting the document “…must strike many as a venture in triviality” didn’t trigger the sort of risk such a critique might in previous centuries have provoked. Still, what was seen by theologians and the laity alike as a casual dismissal of a work of 25,000 words was thought quite a slight and even an expression of contempt; that Buckley’s objections were less theological than political was a distinction understood by the cardinals and archbishops but that didn’t make them less unhappy. Buckley was writing during the High Cold War and in the immediate aftermath of comrade Fidel Castro’s (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008) communist guerrillas taking over Cuba and what most disturbed him was John XXIII’s focus on the inequities of modern capitalism and seeming disregard for the oppressive conduct of various communist regimes. In that, Buckley was right because arguments in Mater et magistra were striking and the choice of words provocative, the pope noting the “immeasurably sorrowful spectacle of vast numbers of workers in many lands and entire continents who are paid wages which condemn them and their families to subhuman conditions.” Rejected was the notion prices working people paid should be “left entirely to the laws of the market” rather than being “determined according to justice and equity.” The encyclical recommended profit-sharing and other “radical” reforms pursued in the name of “socialization”.
The car is a 1961 Mercedes-Benz 300d Landaulet, built by the department responsible for the Spezial coachwork and made on a separate assembly line. The one delivered to the Vatican including not only the folding soft-top atop the rear passenger compartment but also an elevated roof which extended the “greenhouse” by 100 mm (4 inches). The 300s of the era (W186: 300, 300b & 300c; 1951-1957 & W189: 300d 1957-1962) came to be referred to as "the Adenauer" because several were used as state cars by Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; chancellor of the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany, 1949-1990) 1949-1963). In the days of John XXIII, the Vatican's parade vehicles were not dubbed “Popemobiles” and did not feature armor-plating or bullet-proof glass. For good reason, all that would come later.
It can now be difficult to understand how controversial once was the participation of Roman Catholics in the upper reaches of US political life; in the nineteenth century the warnings against voting for them was they would visit upon the country: “Rum, Romanism and Ruin!” When the Catholic Al Smith (1873-1944; Governor of New York 1919-1920 & 1923-1928) in 1928 ran on the Democratic ticket in the presidential election, campaigns against him included the suggestion the pope was already packing his bags in preparation for a move to the White House. After Smith (in a landslide) lost the election to the Republican’s Herbert Hoover (1874–1964; POTUS 1929-1933), the joke circulated that his first act was not the usual concession speech but wiring a telegram to Pius XI (1857–1939; pope 1922-1939) saying: “Unpack!”
Amusingly, the slur wouldn’t have survived the scrutiny of modern fact-checkers because between the unification of Italy in 1870 and the signing in 1929 of a concordat (the Lateran Treaty) with Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) fascist state, in protest at the the loss of the Papal States (756-1870), no pope set foot outside the Vatican. The status of the popes in these years as prigionieri del Vaticano (prisoners of the Vatican) was unusual in that it was a kind of “self-imposed exile” in reverse, but the Church insisted it was not a matter of choice (ie “self-restraint”) because it was held to be a “coercive curtailment” (“constructive imprisonment” probably the closest expression of the legal theory) of freedom of movement, consequent upon the Italian state’s annexation of the Papal States and Rome itself. The argument was that were a pope to set foot on the soil of the annexed territories, that might be held to imply recognition of the Italian state’s sovereignty. Even at the time, outside the Roman Curia, the legal basis of that was thought at least dubious and the consensus remains the self-imposed “imprisonment” was an act of diplomatic and political symbolism. Since then, no political figure has exactly replicated what the five “imprisoned pontiffs” did and even old Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975), while to his dying day denying he’d lost the sovereignty of the mainland to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), did on occasion travel beyond his renegade province, though obviously he never visited the mainland.
Religion was an
issue still in 1960 when the presidential contest was between the Roman Catholic Democrat John
Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US POTUS 1961-1963) and the Quaker Republican Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US
VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974).
In the campaign, two prominent evangelical Protestant preachers who
would now be regarded as something like “celebrity TikTok churchmen” (Billy
Graham (1918–2018) and Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) both cast aspersions
about JFK and the nature of his allegiance to Rome to which the candidate
responded by saying: “I believe in an America, where the separation of church
and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president,
should he be Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his
parishioners for whom to vote.”
The idea of “Rome pulling the president’s strings” may have brought a
wry smile to the pope who well knew it was often difficult to get his own
bishops to follow his instructions, let alone the president of the US. Buckley took an well-sharpened intellectual axe to Peale but
seemed to regard Graham as little more than a vulgarian with a peasant’s view
of God.
As it transpired, KFK did, “by an electoral eyelash” win the presidency and his wife (Jacqueline Kennedy (1929-1994; US First Lady 1961-1963) admitted to being baffled by the objections, saying "I don't understand why people are opposed to Jack being elected as a Catholic because he's so poor a Catholic". Buckley certainly agreed JFK "wasn't Catholic enough" (something like the later complaint from activist African Americans that Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) "wasn't black enough"), unlike his more devout brother, the intense, driven, Robert F Kennedy (RFK, 1925–1968; US attorney general 1961-1964) who Theodore Roosevelt’s (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) daughter Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (1884–1980) compared to “a seventeenth century Jesuit priest”. Buckley understood why his family and the Kennedys often were compared (essentially because both were “rich, Catholic and political”) but liked to stress the difference, pointing out the “lace curtain, Irish cultural upbringing” of the Kennedys while his father had not set foot in Ireland until he was sixty and that was “to attend the Dublin Horse show”. One of his friends observed the very American Buckley should really be understood as “a Spanish Catholic aristocrat” and although it has become customary to speak of the Kennedys as “American Royalty”, Buckley would have though the family “a bit common”.
Fully to understand Buckley’s reaction to Mater et magistra, it must be remembered it was issued only some three years after the death of Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) and there was at the time, outside of the Church, not a great appreciation of just what an “encyclical” was. Indeed, in 1927, when asked to comment on Leo XIII’s (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) 1885 encyclical Immortale Dei, De Civitatum Constitutione Christiana (God Immortal, On the Christian Constitution of States) which reaffirmed the Church’s view on ecclesiastical rights in the apparatus of the modern state, Al Smith had replied: “Will somebody please tell me, what in hell an encyclical is?” Although he chose only once to vest his words with the authority of “papal infallibility” (indeed, was the last pope to do so), Pius XII (like his predecessor Pius XI) had run “an imperial pontificate” with encyclicals viewed not merely as authoritative but doctrinal; one priest, when asked if they were “binding” stated the orthodox position which held: “the possibility of error in these documents is so utterly remote that it is practically non-existent.” It was in that milieu Buckley commissioned to a scholar of theology to undertake a historic study of the papal encyclical and the conclusion was they were really “pastoral letters, giving counsel,” not official statements of the magisterium, the Church’s infallible teaching. That does of course make sense because the whole point in the nineteenth century in codifying papal infallibility was to make a clear distinction between undisputable, undebatable statements of dogma and all other thoughts and expressions.
Whether
that at the time softened Buckley’s attitude towards Mater et magistra seems improbable because any document suggesting
the state’s social and economic policies should be “pursued in the name of socialization”
would have received his condemnation and that the translators chose to
interpret the Italian socializzazione (understood as something like
European social and industrial democracy rather than the Marxist sense of the
collective ownership of the means of production & distribution) as “socialization”
(deftly avoiding the politically and historically loaded socialism
(socialismo)) is unlikely to have been much assuagement; Buckley would have
thought the distinction just “too clever by half”. So it was his critique of John’s 25,000 words
came to be remembered for that one memorable fragment: “venture in triviality”. In fairness, the passage was more expansive
and said: “large
sprawling document” would “be studied and argued over for years to come”
and that it may one day come to be “considered central to the social teachings of the Catholic
Church; or, like Pius IX’s [1792–1878; pope 1846-1878)] Syllabus of Errors [1864], it may become the source of
embarrassed explanations. Whatever its final effect, it must strike many as a
venture in triviality, coming at this particular time in history.” Popes have been accused of worse but in 1961, to have an encyclical damned as
Although heretics, malcontents and other trouble-makers are no longer burned at the stake, in canon
law, the Church does have a close equivalent of citing someone for contempt but
it chose not to use it against Buckley although many Catholics did make their
opposition to his views known; some cancelled their subscriptions to the
magazine he edited (the conservative National
Review), prompting him to point out the periodical was no more a Catholic
publication than the Kennedy administration was a Catholic government “because the
President is Catholic”. One
prominent Jesuit priest damned Buckley’s statement as “slanderous” and while in the
internal logic of the Jesuits (perfect chastity, perfect poverty and perfect
obedience to the pope) that would have been obvious, it must have baffled those
more used to legal dictionaries and thesauruses. In a way the Church establishment might have
had the last laugh because, writing decades later, in his distinctly religious
memoir Nearer, My God (1997),
stridently Buckley defended papal decrees as statements revealing truth immune
from challenge, words of “revelation and providentially guided reason”
from the “one
Voice for whose decisions the people wait with trust” (ie the
pope). Buckley made no mention of Mater et magistra or the controversy he
had triggered and whether this constitutes apology or apologia readers can judge but
whenever he's discussed, it’s rare for his words of 1961 not to be reprinted
while those of 35 years later rarely are mentioned. If he had his time again, while still critical, he’d likely have phrased things differently.
