Upward Contempt William I

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1995 Upward Contempt William I. Miller University of Michigan Law School, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Miller, William I. "Upward Contempt." Pol. Theory 23, no. 3 (1995): 476-99.

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WILLIAMIAN MILLER Universityof Michigan

CONTEMPT AND HUMILIATION,contempt and shame go handin hand.1Actions that should shame us, styles of self-presentation thatshould humiliateus ifwe are socially competent enough to have such a purchaseon ourselves,are those actions and styles that generate and justify the contempt of othersfor us. Or,changing the causal order: one's contempt of us will generateshame or humiliation inus ifwe concur with the judgment of our contemptibility,thatis, if the contempt isjustified,2 orindignation and even vengefulfury if it is unjustified.Contempt is thus a mechanismofranking peopleor of contesting relative rankings and as suchhas an intensely political significance. Contemptraises a myriadof issues involving the relation of emotions to varioussocial orders, to the justice of those social orders, and to the micro- politicsof face-to-face interaction inthose social orders. I want to narrow my rangehere. What I wishto speculateabout is thenature of something I willcall upward contempt, that is, the contempt that the low have for the high;I willthen make some suggestions about how this might play out in differentsocial and political regimes: heroic society, the ancien regime, and indemocracy.3 Bysome accounts the notion of upward contempt involves a definitional impossibility.Contempt, after all, is usuallycaptured by the metaphor of "lookingdown on someoneor something," and this metaphor is even acted outconcretely inthe common facial expression of the one-sided smile and ofthe raised head, the partially closed eyes which view askance the offending contemptibleperson. However, let me do thenecessary justification of upwardcontempt slowly and indirectly as a matterof the exposition that

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thisessay has benefitedfromcomments by Don Herzog,Kathleen Koehler, PhoebeEllsworth, Robert Bartlett, and SteveCroley, to whomthanks are due.

POLITICAL THEORY,Vol. 23 No. 3, August1995 476499 C) 1995 Sage Publications,Inc. 476

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Miller/ UPWARD CONTEMPT 477 follows.Suffice it to sayfor the present that what I meanto capture is the contemptteenagers have for adults, women for men, servants for masters, workersfor bosses, Jews for Christians, Blacks for Whites, uneducated for theeducated, and so forth.Since all of us haveat least been teenagers once, I assumewe all havehad the experience of being the contemner inupward contempt.Please do not take that last statement tomean that I think all upward contemptsare the same or are triggered bythe same conditions. The Black, theJew, the woman, the teenager, and the worker may all sharean inferior status,but that does not mean that their inferiority is constituted inthe same way.A quickexample: teenagers will be automaticallyemancipated from theirrestricted status simply by marking time. Blacks, on the other hand, are stuck.Jews can convert and in a non-racially-basedanti-Semitic regime that canundo their inferior status. Even women suffer different styles of disable- mentdepending on whether they are single, married, divorced, or widowed, orwhether fertile or barren, old or young. Considerthis tale of competing contempts. Last summer I hired a mason todo some work on my house. He wasa largebeefy man, with several tattoos ofthe conventional sort: dragons, Vikings, and other virile Marvel comic- book-likefigures. His jeans were worn low so that when he bent over his rear fissurewas exposed.4 He lookedfairly tough, bearing the air of someone for whomthe receipt of physical pain was not as mucha causeof fear as the givingof it was of pleasure. He hadalready been on the job fora fewdays whenI rodeup on mybicycle, backpack on myback, said hello,and continuedpeddling back to thegarage. The mason said to my wife, "he a teacher?"The failure of the "is" to introduce that question only captures some ofthe contemptuousness ofhis tone. I wentback to make some small talk, commenton the job andhow it was going, and then took my leave. He andI eachhave no small amount of contempt for each other. But our contemptsare not constructed in quite the same way. His forme is less ambivalentthan mine for him, riddled as mine is with conflicting designs and commitments.Letme flesh out first some of the bases of my contempt for himbefore tackling my contemptibility inhis eyes. First were the tattoos. I tookthem as signsof his will to vulgarity (or at least of his will to offend typeslike me). He notonly did not disown them, but displayed them proudly. Hispride in them underwrote thebasis of my contempt, forwere he ashamed, thenI mightfeel embarrassed onhis behalf. Or I maystill feel contempt but itwould be a benigncontempt, almost undifferentiable frompity and compassion,not the sensation of wonderment mixed with disgust and revulsion thetattoos induced in me. His physicality, hisobliviousness toseeking pain (thenontattooed arealways treated to stories about the painfulness ofgetting tattooed),his lack of concern for-or even knowledge of-what might offend

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 478 POLITICAL THEORY /August 1995 memight have made me wary, if not quite fearful.' I could, without being paranoid,read in his style an affront.He wasbigger, stronger, and tougher thanI was and between men such assessments count for something. I suppose I couldrespect him for his willingness toaffront me or for his simply not givinga damn what I thought. But unabashed vulgarity simply does not make iteasy to grant even grudging respect on that account. Itseems that whatever warinesshe generated inme did not go to engendering respect for him; it only undenninedcertain foundations ofrespect for myself, as contemptiblyun- physical,miserably unmartial. The whole encounter was as faras thetotal of respectin the world goes less than zero-sum. Takethe exposure of his hind parts when he bentover. This produced a contemptthat touches both on amusementand disgust. The amusement is drivenby my utter inability to imagine actually choosing to self-present in sucha fashion;or, if in fact there had been no choosing, by the incomprehen- sibilityof being so oblivious to one's body and presentability. Theamusement is derisoryina waybut the smile is notconsciously willed as itoften is in certainstyles of sardonic laughter. The comedy is genuineand experienced as such.6He is playingthe clownish vulgar mechanic: he is inthe mold of Bottomthe Weaver or Curly,Mo, andLarry. This is theamusement of contemptand displays an intimate connection between some styles of contemptand the comic.7 Nevertheless,this Rabelaisian kind of comic grotesquerie edges toward horrortoo; it would not take much for the base mechanic to metamorphose intoa monster.Horror can be frightening, orit can be repulsive and disgusting.8And while contempt can be a kindof defense against a fearof the contemptible,italso bears some close connections with disgust. The same aspectsof his style that amused me also came close to disgusting me. In a sense,he wascontaminating. Disgust is thevisceral end point of contempt. Whileboth disgust and contempt come heavily mediated by culture, itstill makessense to conceiveof disgustas somewhatmore immediate, less thoughtdependent than contempt. Disgust is triggeredbythe sense that our bodyhas been invaded by impurity; itthus prompts somatic reactions like retching,gagging, vomiting, spitting out.9 Contempt, on theother hand, dependsmore on notionsof rank,of properordering, of decorum.It is complexlyintertwined with the rich rules of social and cultural ordering that bothelicits it and is maintainedbyit. I hopethat the reader might suspend his condemnation ofthe failure of myaccount to accord with pieties that I actually accept as a matterofpolitical commitment.10I need to spin a fewthings out a littlefurther: atthe same time I washaving feelings of contempt for him I wasalso, as I hintedjust a minute ago,indulging inno small amount of self-contempt, formy lack of physical-

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Miller/UPWARD CONTEMPT 479 ity,for my certainty that I could not win a fightwith him, for my doubts about thesocial value of what I do,andfor myfeeling contemptuous ofhim while at thesame time realizing (or supposing) he wasutterly untroubled byhis contemptfor me. Although we bothlive in thethird century of American democracyand liberal democratic political and moral theory, those traditions onlyseem to undercut my contempt for him, not his for me. For those styles ofpolitical, moral, and social thought did much more to delegitimate downwardcontempt than they did upward contempt. One could even hazard the suggestion(which I willreturn to later)that democratic theory does more thanfree upward contempt from having to make a pretenseof hiding itself inthe servant's quarters; itactually changes the style of that contempt."' And wecould further suggest that one of the defining markers that distinguishes upwardfrom downward contempt in democraticsocieties is thegreater likelihoodthat the downward contempt will be accompaniedby a senseof its owndoubtful legitimacy, whether this sense be experiencedas guilt, shame,or a meresense of concern and doubt. This sense of doubt even makes thedownward contemner wonder ifhis firm sense that the other experiences noanxiety at all for his own feelings of contempt is simply another manifes- tationof his contempt for the lower classes, seeing them again as insensate. Thisis, however,to makemy contempt less sureof itself than it was actuallyexperienced, even though my feelings have a veryquestionable legitimacy.I actually had to remind myself that he is ofequal value with me, ofthe same dignity, and so forth.Moreover, he merited respect for the skill he had,and for doing his job well,for which indeed I did respecthim. Nevertheless,I cannot shake my contempt for what he is independentofhis roleas a competentmason. It is therewith a vengeance,inspite of my lack ofconfidence about its justifiability. Thesyndrome I am suffering from is not liberalguilt. That is thesentiment one feels for being privileged when one doubtsthe justifiability ofone's entitlement tosuch privilege. My contempt is notso muchtinged with guilt or even self-doubt as it is coloredby a sense ofwonderment that my contempt is so incorrigiblypart of me, uneradicable byall theyears of official discourse to the contrary. Although I feel a sense of myown failure to liveup to somehigh-toned principles about human equality,dignity, and value, I alsoexperience a genuine pleasure in thinking myselfsuperior to those I feelcontempt for. Thetrue source of my uneasiness is not my own failure to live up to noble principlesthat at one level of consciousness I accept and admire, but the more down-to-earthmatter that I discernhis contempt for me and fear he may be gettingthe best of me. It is quiteclear to me that the form his contempt takes is thathe does notcare what I thinkof him (with a smallexception for preferringthat I thinkhe is doinga goodjob rather than a badone). He is

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 480 POLITICALTHEORY / August 1995 indifferenttomy contempt and I amnot indifferent tohis. He isunambivalent inhis contempt (at least as a consciousmatter). To the extent his contempt is tingedwith envy, he reinterpretstheenvy as resentmentthat someone as unprepossessingas me should have such an easy life. I feelrather confident that I canconstruct much of his contempt for me, notonly because he so plainlymanifests itbut also because I amno stranger tofeeling this kind of contempt either, recalling quite well having felt it for thetype I havecome to be; foreven if I liketo think myself differentiable fromthe others he associatesme with,I expecthim to makeno such distinctions,noram I evenconfident that my sense that I am distinguishable fromthose I amgrouped with is anythingbut a delusion.12He wouldsee me as a feminizedmale. My build, my bike, my backpack, and my profession markme as somethingcontemptible inhis eyes. I donot work with my hands. Whateverskills I mighthave are dubiously magical, intangible, never really verifiable.I was a "teacher"inhis eyes: someone who gives people what they do notwant when they do notneed it."3 Ifhe cared to notice, he might have found itcontemptible inme that I cared tohave him think me a manlike him. He mighthave discerned that ever so slightlyI was aping him back to him. At one level this could be seenjust as competentand graceful condescension inthe eighteenth-century sense.He putson his best manners and I somewhatalter mine downward and we meet inthe middle, each having compromised out of respect for the encounter if notquite for each other. But he might pick up thatI wasnot quite dealing froma positionof strength,that I was in shorttrying too hard;to the discerningeye I was somewhatundignified. Here my commitments to democraticegalitarianism only made me a foolin his eyes. I wouldhave been betteroff to have dealt with him with a kindof cordial aloofness. I wondered if he wouldhave had thesame contempt for a corporateexecutive, an insurancesalesman, a woman? He unquestionablywon the encounter. His contemptfor me, unlike mine for him, was unlikelyto havebeen mingledwith horror or disgust. I simply was a matterof indifference tohim otherthan as a sourceof livelihood. My role was of a one-shotdispenser of money,nothing else. And then there is thesuspicion that for all his indiffer- encethe culture's determination ofstatus is notwithout some effect. I was bythe conventional notion of the higher class. I livedin the better neighbor- hood.This makes me, for all myeffeminacy inhis eyes, less a pollutantin hisworld than he could be inmine. Although I was contemptibly risible in hiseyes, the fact that I was of the higher class made me not have the capacity topollute. What is thehigher in higher class if not the capacity to put more space,real physical space between yourself and others, to be lesspolluting evento thosewho find you contemptible?

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Thisrich and utterly routine interaction raises many issues, only three of whichI willpursue further: (1) thecontent and mechanics of some varieties ofcontempt, (2) theparticular features of upward contempt that distinguish it fromthe usual downward contempt, and (3) howsocial and political arrangementsmight affect the moral economies of competing versions of contempt.

THE VARIOUSELEMENTS OF CONTEMPT

"Thosethings which we neitherDesire, nor Hate, we aresaid to Con- temne:Contempt being nothing else but an immobility, orcontumacy ofthe Heart,in resisting the action of certain things." Thus Hobbes in Leviathan. Contemptin thisformulation looks like indifference. And although this formulationis not unimaginable to us as a speciesof contempt, it hardly accordswith our core notion of contempt. Yet Hobbes is clear that his version ofcontempt is a passion,not simply the absence of affect.'4 Hume's contempt lookssomething more like how we usually envisage it. For him it is a mixof prideand hatred."5 Pride gives the necessary downward direction and the elevationof oneself in relation to the person contemned; hatred supplies the moraljudgment involved in thecomparison. But contempt is much richer thaneither of these formulations. Seldom is an emotionever experienced unalloyedwith other emotions. It is noeasy job, for instance, to separate a pureexperience ofhumiliation from its accompanying despair or indignation; itis difficulttoexperience jealousy independent ofanger; grief independent offrustration. Contempt is especially rich in the protean powers we under- standit to have in being able to combine with a multitudeofother passions andsentiments. We recognize contempt as a complexwhich can be made of variousadmixtures ofaffect and social style. Without taking the time to give a richaccount of each commingling,most of us will haveno trouble imaginingcontempt colluding with pity as well as scornand derision; bemusementas well as smugness,haughtiness, disgust, revulsion, and horror; love(as withpets and even children) as wellas hatred,indifference, disdain, snubbing,ignoring, sneering, and an arrayof sentimentswhich motivate variousforms of laughterand smiles: the sardonic, the sarcastic, and the indulgent(again as withpets and children). What is commonto all these experiencesis one's relation to someone over whom one is claimingsome superiority,thevery assertion of the claim being identical with the manifes- tationof contempt. Contempt is itself the claim to relative superiority. This helpsexplain the nearly polar extremes we suppose for contempt-from pity

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 482 POLITICALTHEORY / August 1995 to disdain,from hate to love,from bemusement to loathing: all theseare possibleattitudes the higher may assume vis-a-vis the lower. Whatevermight be theaffects and motives that constitute any particular instanceof contempt,we shouldnot be surprisedto see its stylesand meaningsintimately connected to the social and cultural setting in which it arises.Rigid hierarchical societies or societies of clearly marked status will havetheir contempts tend in one direction, while the contempts ofdemocratic culture,or of roughlyegalitarian honor cultures, would tend to haveits contemptsconstituted inanother way. TakeHobbes's contempt again. This looks like the contempt ofcompla- cency,of never doubting your superiority and rank. It is thecontempt ofthe masterfor the man, the lord for the villein, the lady for the maid. These lower simplydo notmerit strong affect; they are noticed only sufficiently so as to knowthat they are not notice worthy. One cancondescend to treatthem decently;one may in rare circumstances even pity them, but they are really of a differentand innocuous species. Not insects, because insects might disgust;these people are the safely disattendable. Weare not unfamiliar with thiscontempt ofcomplacent indifference even in democratic cultures. Itstill flourishesin spiteof democratic principle in particularcontexts in which statusis fixedand mobility across rankings is relatively rare. We thus find thiskind of contempt inthe posture of some bosses toward their secretaries, ofprofessionals forthe maintenance staff, and so on. There are two qualifiers here.First, I am speaking of one-on-one encounter. Ittakes an extraordinary amountof complacency todisattend large groupings ofthe low. Such group- ingsmove the contempt ofindifference tothe realms of terror and horror (see note8). Andthis is whysocieties that depended on the rigid structuring that enablesthis kind of Hobbesian contempt are careful to regulate the conditions underwhich the low can assemble. We may propose that, if the superiors feel secureand can indulgecomplacency, we willsee theHobbesian style of contempt;if, however, the groups are at waror forwhatever reason the superiorfinds the lower not safely disattendable, then we mightexpect differentlymotivated and constitutedcontempts as in thecontempts of anti-Semitism,racism, classicism, and sexism,with sexism perhaps marchingto a differentbeat. Here it is notindifference, but loathing, horror,disgust, hatred, cruelty that accompanies and constitutes the contempt.Second, the indifference that is thiskind of Hobbesiancontempt dependson a preciseknowledge ofwhere you stand relative to the other and ofa correspondingconfidence inthe disattendability ofthe other. The country bumpkinwho through ignorance fails to understand when he should defer is notshowing contempt inthis Hobbesian way, even though his ignorance may giveoffense."6

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Now changethe setting so thatwe arenot confirming or establishing hierarchicalrelations across large status demarcations butare contending for esteemand standing within a status, that is, in a basicallyegalitarian setting. Herewe would expect to see a differentstyle of contempt, theone we usually meanwhen we refer to treating someone with contempt. This is thetreatment wegive to let someone know that they have failed, that they are not measuring up, thatthey are claimingmore for themselves than they can worthily discharge.This is thecontempt ofthe bloodfeuder for the antagonist hehas on therun, of the courtier whose manners are more refined than the other courtiers,ofthe academic for his nonpublishing colleague. This is notthe contemptfor the disattendable, butfor those we might become or have just recentlyceased to be. It is moreactive than Hobbes's contempt, more a part ofconsciously assumed strategies ofinteraction. Itis thecontempt that is the correlativeof shamingor humiliatingothers for their failures to maintain groupnorms. Thisactive contempt is part of the system of challenge and riposte in the processof status acquisition and status maintenance that is the game of honor. To sufferthat latter kind of contemptis, as articulatedby a varietyof eighteenth-centurymoralists and not so moralists,the worst that can befall a man.It is theopen denial to oneself of what one considers one's due. For Fieldingsuch contempt was cruelerthan murder."7 And Lord Chesterfield harpson it continually tohis son of which one example will suffice:

Howeverfrivolous a companymay be, still,while you are amongthem, do notshow them,by your inattention, that you think them so; butrather take their tone, and conform in somedegree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothingthat people bear more impatiently, orforgive less, than contempt; and all injury is muchsooner forgotten than insult.18

Thesemen moved in circles where they felt their self-esteem and status at riskfrom a numberof directions: from above by those whose favor they sought,from the side by those with whom they competed for the favors of thoseabove, by thoseupstarts immediately below whose very presence woulddevalue the position they had already attained. Ifthey could still rest secureamong their servants, they could not rest secure among the witlings, thecoxcombs, the insolent, and the impudent would-bes.19 The contemptthese men fear is thecontempt from those they honor, respect,and fear. This is thecontempt that disciplines and establishes the authorityand superiority ofthe contemner. Not everyone can inflict contempt thathurts. Thus to Chesterfield the contempt that upstarts in goodcircum- stancesshow for those who "cannot afford as fineclothes, as goodan

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 484 POLITICALTHEORY / August 1995 equipage,or who have not as muchmoney in their pockets" is an "insolent contempt,"a contempt that exposes such insolent upstarts to justifiable contemptfrom judges like himself. This kind of insolent contemptuousness is incessantlypilloried in comedies of manners; these mean souls of whom we mighttake Mrs. Elton, in Emma, as oneof many instances, are too dim torecognize merit, rank, or where they stand in the eyes of real blue blood. Thecontempt that comes from this kind of contemptible person can still cause realpain but not of the soul-killing variety that the contempt ofthose whose merityou concede can. Contempt from these latter can be a kindof moral andsocial death. Letme pursue a different matter for a bit.One school of emotion theorists inmodern experimental psychology, following Darwin and to some extent James,have hunted for the emotions independent oftheir social and cognitive settingsand contents and sought them in the adaptive legacy of the species andthus in the hardwiring ofthe human animal. These theories tend to limit thenumber of core emotions tothose that have distinctive facial expressions thatindicate their presence. And so itis thatcontempt often appears on the listof coreemotions, along with joy, sadness, anger, surprise, interest, disgust,fear, shame/shyness, andguilt.20 Contempt creates some problems forthis kind of analysis that the others do notbecause there is notjust one expressionthat serves to express the sentiment, norfor that matter is any one expressioncapable of doing service for the entire range of sentiments that canbe subsumedwithin the broad notion of contempt. Darwin, for instance, discussescontempt incompany with disdain and disgust, which discussion followson theheels of sneeringand defiance in hispreceding chapter.21 Disdainhe viewsas implyinga more angry frame of mind than contempt, whiledisgust focuses on things offensive tothe sense of taste, "nevertheless extremecontempt, oras itis oftencalled loathing contempt, hardly differs fromdisgust" (p. 253). Contempt,like disdain, sneering, and defiance, is oftenindicated by a slightuncovering ofthe canine tooth on one side of the face.This same expression can imperceptibly metamorphose into a smile, whichas Darwinnotes, "may be real,although one of derisionand this impliesthat the offender is so insignificantthathe excites only amusement; butthe amusement is generally a pretense." We all know under what circum- stancesthe amusement is a pretense.Itis a kindof defensive posture masking horrorand revulsion. But the amusement need not be a pretenseeither; it couldjust as well be a signof thegenuine laughability of certainkinds of contemptibility. The one-sidedsmirking smile (notice how many types of smileswe distinguishthat are likely to be one-sided:the smirk, the derisory grin, the sardonic,the wry, the sneer, etc.) is associatedwith dismissiveness. Inthis it

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Miller/ UPWARD CONTEMPT 485 differsfrom the other classic contempt expression which Darwin represents ina plateshowing a woman with partially closed eyes that may or may not belooking askance, the nose raised up with a contractionupward of the upper lipin an expression that verges on the expression we show for disgust. This representssomething other than dismissiveness. It shows that the thing contemnedis vile,revolting, and beneathcontempt, a phrase that once probablyindicated Hobbesian indifference, buthas come to indicate instead theloathing contempt that Darwin refers to. This is thesign of despising. Thesetwo expressions differ inhow they style one's relation to the would-be offenseand offender. The one finds nothing funny in havingto be present withsomething one perceives as undifferentiablefromexcrement; the other, theone-sided smile, recognizes, ifnot quite welcomes, the rough comedy of havingto suffer fools and clowns. And clowns are significantly lesspolluting thanfeces. I do nothave the space to play this out in all its suggestive detail. Suffice it to say thatunder the rubric of contemptlies a complexof strategy, expression,and affect. By wayof reprise, the only thing we cansay with reasonableconfidence is thatwhatever the precise style of theparticular contempt,whether Hobbesian indifference, orvisceral loathing and disgust, whatis always being played out in every instance isthe articulation ofrelative socialand moral value. Contempt is the emotional complex that articulates andmaintains hierarchy, status, rank, and respectability. And differentiated statusand rank are the eliciting conditions ofcontempt. So whatwe have is a kindof feedbackloop in whichcontempt creates the structures which generatethe capacity for contempt. And there is goodreason to believe that theparticular style of the contempt will be intimatelyconnected with the precisesocial and political arrangements inwhich it takes place.

UPWARDCONTEMPT

I wouldlike to suggest that the notion of contempt moving upward is more thanjust a playon words, more than quickly dismissed by a quickrelativist moveof the sort that asks: "By whose view are you judging high and low? Surely,you must admit, the mason did not feel himself below you at all, so to theextent he feltsuperior to you he couldhold you in contemptof the classicvariety." I do notdispute that upward contempt involves seeing the higherparty as contemptibleandthus as risibleand in some respects as lesser. Itis contempt,after all, we are dealing with. The lower might know himself moreintelligent, physically stronger, more moral, better looking, and so forth.

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Butwhat I ampositing is thatupward contempt will still have a differentfeel, a differentstyle. We have alreadynoted some: (1) thatupward contempt is less likelyto be coupledwith disgust and thatit is thusless concernedto protectoneself from pollution; (2) thatin democraticsettings upward contempt,unlike contempt proper, is securein its legitimacy. Upward contempt, in spiteof thefact that it allowsthe lower to claimsuperiority regarding a particularattribute, does not take place in a vacuum.The person below knows thatthey are below in the eyes of the other, knows that they are in some sense heldin contempt by those others, whereas the higher by the usual conventions ofrank can indulgethemselves even legitimately inthe thought that they are heldin esteem,admired, or envied by the lower.22 This knowledgeis notwithout consequences. This meansthat upward contemptis playedout in a largersetting of powerrelations that define its rangesand meanings. If conventional contempt constitutes hierarchy, upward contemptmakes for some psychic space for the low. It neverloses thesense of itsown limits;it knowsitself to be secondary,a kind of remedyfor the contemptthat is raineddown on one,never constitutive, always reactive. In otherwords, no matterhow contemptible I might be tothe mason I hired,the factremains that I hiredhim, not he me.23There follows from this another crucialdistinction between upward and conventionalcontempt. The contemptof thelow forthe high, unlike conventional contempt, will oftenbe coupledwith a distinctivekind of Schadenfreude.If thepleasure of normal contemptis oftentinged with complacency, self-satisfaction, and smugness, or evenwith a simpleand less culpabledelight in one's ownsuperiority, the pleasurein upwardcontempt is seldomseparable from the knowledge that thesuperior you hold in contempt is humiliatinghimself, is, in short,looking foolish.Notice that in thiscase it is notthat the lower person is necessarily seeingthe high as beneathhim, as lower,in otherwords, than the low, but onlyas seeingthe high as lowerthan where the high sees himself.24Let me expandupon this briefly. Occupyingthe high position is notwithout its risks. It supposes,of course, superiority,demonstrable superiority. The highhave to maintainthe stan- dardsthat justify admiration and deference or suffer contempt and resentment forfailing to maintainthem.25 We mustspeak in probabilitieshere, but it mightjustly be supposedthat upward contempt is bothgenerated by and generatesthe capacity to discern and expose hypocrisy in superiors.Upward contemptis oftenintimately connected with the revelation of hypocrisy in its object,the identification of hypocrisyfueling and justifying the resentment as wellas themirthful derision that will be itsconsequence. This process will tend,in otherwords, to admitthe authority of the higher while revealing the higher'smoral unworthiness for the positionthey occupy. The styleof

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Miller/UPWARD CONTEMPT 487 upwardcontempt will then often be characterized bya certainsatiric mockery.The satiric drives a contemptthat finds in the higher not so muchthe basesfor disgust as thebasis for scornful laughter. Ifone cannot quite render themclowns and fools, satire can surely show them to be the knaves they are. Upwardcontempt inthis style then does not deny the superior power of the other;it just finds the hypocrisy ofthe high to be thesubstance of a kindof moralistic,sardonic, and bitter comedy. Theexposure of hypocrisy and the upward contempt that accompanies it dependson thehigh not adhering to their own publicly stated standards of conductand virtue. And the bitterness ofthe satire that exposes such hypoc- risysuggests that the satirist judges those values and standards worthy of beingadhered to.26 Satire, then, to the extent itembodies the lower exposing and admonishingthe higher is usuallythe bailiwick not of theutterly disempowered,but of the middling and ministerial sorts: it is thecontempt ofthose who actually have to clean up the messes and implement the policies ofthose they contemn. Anotherkind of upward contempt more clearly associated with hierarchical society(but not necessarily so) simplyfinds the high's standards of conductand virtue and the social institutions which maintain them silly, a causefor general mirth. Here the strategy is not to paint the higher as knaves, butto see themas clownsand fools. This is thefeast of misrule. Here the standardsand virtues of thepowerful are meaningless. Only their power matters.The glee, mirth, laughter, the giggles, deny for the moment the forms ofconstrained deference. To theextent that pomposity is an attributeofso muchinstitutionalized power there is alwaysan entry for the glee and delight ofseeing it punctured.27 Andthese little scenes of punctured pomposity need notoccur only during periods set aside for it eachyear but whenever the contentsof a chamberpot fell on the finely dressed lady or whenever a lord trippedover his sword. Imagine how hard it must have been for the footman tokeep a straightface. Minifeasts ofmisrule, therein lies the image of this styleof upwardcontempt. Contrast it withthe usual style of downward contempt:sardonic, indifferent, smug, or disgusted, but all in all dismissive. Notetoo that the two styles of contempt can each have their defensive aspects. Downwardcontempt defends against the possibility ofimpudence by deny- ingthe capacity of the offender tooffend; upward contempt tries to carve out spacesof self-respect,bymaking the contemners of one'srespectability comiccharacters .28 Letme add as anaside that contempt ofthe higher's values and standards ofconduct need not only lead to the mirthful contempt offeasts of misrule. Contemptcan be theconsequence of calculated self-interest that thrives at theexpense of a superiorwhose values leave the door wide-open to fleece

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 488 POLITICALTHEORY / August 1995 him.The embezzlements ofChaucer's Manciple and Reeve29 were the simple priceof a nobleethic that made work and attention to the balance sheet a contemptiblebadge of baseness.Masters were hardly unaware that such thievingwent on. They supported and delighted in a comedicliterature in whichcunning servants outwitted them. But masters, I suppose, indulged in thefantasy that it was everybodyelse's reevesand stewards who were engagedin such activities. His own steward, after all, was always the exception thatproved the rule. And yet you were almost supposed to be cheated by your servants;ifyou cared enough to put a stopto it you were base, illiberal, and small-minded.In that kind of society your moral standing and self-esteem werestill safely independent ofwhat your servants or otherlower-status peoplethought ofyou. Letme baldly state a propositionwhich, given the constraints ofspace, I canonly sketch out as a roughstory, more in thenature of an hypothesis. Upwardcontempt, as noted above, is markedby its reactive quality. It is a paybackof sorts, a response to the contempt being rained down from above. I suspectthat the style of upwardcontempt might vary with the style of contemptitis respondingtoand that both might be locked together ina circle ofmutual elicitation and influence. We might state it broadly thus: Hobbesian contempt,the style of disattending theother, of being indifferent tohim or her,is somethingthat characterizes the contempt ofthe high for the low in rigidhierarchies until we getto democracy when it becomes available as a styleof upwardcontempt. In thepre-French-revolution west,Hobbesian indifferencewaslargely unavailable tothe low as a styleof contempt, atleast in sucha formthat it evoked anxiety and concern among the high. In that worldthe public form of upward contempt was feasts of misrule, or the grim laughterof hypocrisy exposed. And one suspects that even these styles of upwardcontempt were not quite evenly distributed among the various rankingsbeneath the nobility. Feasts of misrule were for those at the social antipodesof the nobility, while the bitter delight in exposing hypocrisy was morea style,as indicatedabove, of those who were nearer the high, who actuallyhad a chanceto observe them closely, but were still contemned by them. Considerthe broad types of socialarrangements that follow and the variouscontempts that maintain them. The heroicworld, those cultures describedin epic, cannot tolerate too much upward contempt ofthe sort that questionsthe very value of honor itself. When we seesomeone dare risk it theyare put down quickly and the hierarchy is maintained in spite of how comicalit may look to the underlings. True, Thersites is given his say, but no oneresponds to the content of his speech. Odysseus' ad hominemassault is deemedto disposeof the issue.30 In theIcelandic sagas Thersites makes a

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Miller/ UPWARD CONTEMPT 489 briefappearance inthe guise of a poorfarmer named Thorkel of Hafratindar. He has thetemerity to refuseto warnthe hero of an impendingambush becausehe finds the disputes of the honorable vaguely amusing and proposes insteadto have fun from a safedistance watching them kill each other off. His argumentsare not dealt with either, except ad hominem.He is killedfor hisderision.31 Heroicsociety, however, knows of contempt; itdepends on it. Contempt is thecorrelative ofshame and humiliation. Contempt is what the honorable haveright to show for the less honorable; itis partof the give-and-take of honormaintenance and honor acquisition. Fear of contempt orshame is what fuelsthe engine of honor. The literatures ofheroic honor only rarely give us a glimpseof those too mean to be part of the competition forhonor: Thersites andThorkel suffer grievously for their contemptuous ridicule of the ethics of honor.Upward contempt oftheir sort is dangerousand not tolerable. When onelaughs at one's superiors, one better make sure it is safelybehind their backunless you have been granted the privilege of the fool or madman.32 Itis oftenthe case that those down one in the feud, that is, those who have beenwronged and have not yet avenged themselves, may defy their oppo- nents,may in fact have contempt for them. Such contempt, however, is not upwardcontempt for it is bandiedaround within a group of rough equals, peoplein the game. The views of true inferiors, that is, of servants, the lowly, thenonplayers, do not interest the authors. Except, in the saga literature, for thewomen. In Icelandthe thoughts ofthe wives, mothers, and daughters of warriormen do countand they are nothing ifnot experts at subjecting their mento blistering contempt for their failings. They are masters of knowing howto shame and humiliate. Yet this too is not upward contempt. The women arecharged with voicing the norms of honor. They are protecting theinterests ofthe honor ethic.33 Forinsistent interest inupward contempt we need hierarchies that are not as fluidas theyare in the rough egalitarianism ofhonor systems. We need moreformal or less mobile hierarchies that assign whole groups to a rank ratherthan a gamein which individuals compete for relative rank. We also needcertain instabilities in theconfidence with which the hierarchy is maintained.Consider these accounts in the generation ortwo that precede the FrenchRevolution and then some that follow reasonably soon upon it. In hisEssay on Conversation,Fielding asks us to considera settingin whichwe areto "suppose a conversationbetween Socrates, Plato, Aristotle andthree dancing masters" (p. 267).34The mere posing of the hypothetical suggeststhe problem: mutual contempt. The "heel sophists would be as little pleasedwith the company of thephilosophers as thephilosophers with theirs."What can be done to remedy the situation? Two courses are proposed:

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 490 POLITICALTHEORY /August 1995 raisingthe lower or lowering the higher. The former is impossible.What must becomeof "our dancing masters" should Socrates discourse on thenature of thesoul, Plato on the beauty of virtue, or Aristotle on occult qualities? "Would theynot stare at one anotherwith surprise and ... at ourphilosophers with contempt?"The philosophersmust condescend to thosetopics which are mutuallyintelligible. Hereis a littlevignette in whichmutual contempt between high and low is assumed.But notethe tone. The dancingmasters are no threatto order, onlyto interestingconversation. Their contempt for Plato and his pals types themas comicallycontemptible. Ifthe contempt of dancing masters is all that philosophershave to concern themselves with, then they are safe indeed. The dancingmaster is notsome rudemechanic. He is contemptibleespecially becausehis skill is onethat he getsno credit for having. There are ideologies, amongwhich we mightcount Christianity, that grudgingly concede virtue to tillersof the soil and to the builders of things, but the dancing master is simply a low abettorof thevanities of the privileged. Rude mechanics and tillers of thesoil occasionallyproduce Wat Tylers and Jack Cades, but no one fearsa dancingmaster, whose position makes him oily, serviceable, and obsequious. The onlybasis a dancingmaster has forlaughing behind your back is his dancingskill and that is whathe is paidto impart to you. So shouldhe laugh at yourson's ungainliness,he onlycalls intoquestion his own skillsas a teacher.This makes his smirking much less pointythan that of your footman or valetde chambre,or chambermaids.If one needsto sufferoccasionally thecontempt of thelow, what better than have it come fromthe dancing master?In thisworld a gentlemanis stillin control.He is notanxious about thefigure he cutsbefore his servants.He adoptsa condescendingconfident andbenevolent style: Thus Lord Chesterfield:

Thereis a biensiancealso withregard to peopleof the lowestdegree; a gentleman observesit withhis footman,even withthe beggar in thestreet. He considersthem as objectsof compassion, not of insult; he speaksto neitherd'un tonbrusque, but corrects theone coolly,and refuses the other with humanity. (to hisson, June 13, O.S. 1751)

Nonetheless,Chesterfield's gentleman calmly keeps his money in his pocket. So thehumanity of his refusal must simply be thathe refrainsfrom beating, berating,or ridiculingthe beggar. The compassionhe showsthen does not lead to deedseither good or bad,but simply to inaction.Evidently, inaction countsas an improvementsince the benchmark expectation is thatbeating andberatement are in order. Butsome fifty years later we havea moreanxious world. William Godwin can observethat

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inEngland at the present day there are few poor men who do notconsole themselves, by thefreedom of theiranimadversions upon their superiors. The new-fangledgentleman is byno meanssecure against having his tranquillity disturbed by their surly and pointed sarcasms.This propensitymight easily be encouraged,and made conducive to the most salutarypurposes.35

In thisthreatening, panicky postrevolution world we soonbegin to observe thenervous anxieties of theprotomodern paranoid who feels that every servant,every inferior, is laughing at him. From the jovial contemplation of shallowand empty dancing masters having contempt for Plato and Aristotle wemove to a worldin which every encounter with a socialinferior holds the prospectof one'sown humiliation. Democratic ideals have, if notquite transformedtheold style, surely altered expectations and perceptions. Down- wardcontempt becomes less complacent because it now suspects itis being paidback in kind. The high can no longer as easilymaintain the Hobbesian contemptofindifference. Only the insentient fool is indifferenttothreat. One canpose as indifferent,butthis is a strategydesigned to veneerfear and gnawingdoubts about the figure one cuts in a worldall ofa suddenmuch moredensely populated. The servants are no longer quite invisible. William Hazlitt,for instance, sees himself in a constantstruggle with servants out to ridiculeand humiliate him. "Their betters," he writes,

tryall theycan to setthemselves up above them,and they try all theycan to pullthem downto theirown level. Theydo thisby gettingup a littlecomic interlude, a daily, domestic,homely drama out of the odds and ends of the family failings, of whichthere is ingeneral a plentifulsupply or make up thedeficiency with materials out of their own heads.36

No pointin preempting their mockery with kindness: "Any real kindness or condescensiononly sets them the more against you. They are not to be taken inin that way." Notice again that the style of upward contempt is the style of comedyand drama. And it is notjust your own servants who are cheeky and cheat,but "after a familiarconversation with a waiterat a tavern,you over-hearhim calling you by some provoking nickname" (p. 107). Thisis a worldin which the once invisible is nowmonstrous and flexing itsmuscle. Breaches of deferenceare apparently becoming just frequent enoughthat there can be no longer any complacency inthe smallest exchange, eventhough most of themstill pass offwith all deferenceintact and all respectfulnesspreserved. Hazlitt casts about for strategies to save face. Condescension,humanity, he says, do notwork. The low will simply hold youin greatercontempt (here writing of dull and low peoplerather than specificallyofservants):

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All thehumility in the world will only pass forweakness and folly. They have no notion of sucha thing.They always put their best foot forward; and arguethat you would do thesame if you had anysuch wonderful talents as peoplesay. You hadbetter, therefore, playoff the great man at once-hector,swagger, talk big, and ride the high horse over them:you mayby thismeans extort outward respect or commoncivility; but you will getnothing (with low people)by forbearanceand good-nature but open insult or silent contempt.37

Hazlittis desperateand at loose ends. He is stillenough of the world of rankand order that he can suppose that pretentiousness is a viable humiliation- avoidingstrategy. Orwe may see him as aproto-Dostoyevskianunderground manin whichthe defining trait of the new modern order is preciselythe inevitabilityofhumiliation, the inevitability ofappearing contemptible to thosewhom you style yourself as betterthan. In thiskind of world the only safestrategy for the preservation ofa virtuallyunattainable self-esteem is paradoxicallytoseek humiliation.38 Be pretentious, puton airs,hector and upbraidthe social inferior, because if you do not,they will see you as even morecontemptible forbeing embarrassed about your own superiority. This is modernityitself: suffering upward contempt, self-loathing, and looking ridiculousto those you fancy yourself better than. Instead of being admired, youare now spurned for your attempts at"democratic condescension" when lordlycondescension is what is preferred.Wehave not quite reached me and themason, but we are very close. Weare in the midst of big changes here. But just what has changed? Are thelow less deferential? Oris itthat the same old cheekiness, buffoonery, andcunning is nowseen where once it was safelydisattendable? Is the change,in other words, more in the masters than in their lackeys? There were alwayscheeky servants and swindling stewards. Both provided their supe- riorswith stock characters inthe comedies that amused them. What I suspect Hazlittobserves are not his inferiors literally laughing inhis face where once theynever would have dared, but that now types like him care obsessively aboutimpudence and effrontery. They are panicked in seeing what they were onceable to ignore; they even imagine being laughed at when they are not. Theyare now actively concerned about how they are seen by their inferiors, andthey fear that the earlier strategies ofdealing with effrontery areno longer so easilyavailable: caning, whipping, orcontemptuously refusing torecog- nizethe affront. Itis thisconcern and this fear that look new. A hundred years earlierSwift could imagine his servants laughing athim, knows, in fact, that theydo, but the tone is notof urgent desperation; itis a slapstickcomedy in whichservants smirk at their superior's bowel movements, guffaw at their pratfalls,and waste their lord's estate with their knavery and incompetence.

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Thefear is notof revolution, but of bankruptcy. The master is stillthe master evenin spite of frequent effrontery.39 Hazlittis writingatthe outset of a newordering ofassumptions about rank andstatus. Things, he feels,are in flux.But one wonders if he indeedis pickingup on somethingdifferent in style from the usual cheekiness and impudencein thelow-that was therefrom Plautus onward. The new democraticorder allows for a realinversion of contempts. Itis nowthe low whocan indulge a Hobbesiancontempt; they can treat their superiors with indifference.The waitperson cares less about you than you do abouthim or her.Contrast this to how the Manciple's and the Reeve's contempt depended on assiduousconcern and attention totheir masters, on pleasing them, yes, butalso on knowingthem better than they knew themselves, on becoming utterlyindispensable tothem, so as toconstruct the basis for their planned violationsof their masters' trust. These cunning operators could never relax; therewas no time that they could be indifferent totheir masters. The modem inferiormight need to displayobsequiousness in some settings but these settingsare severely restricted. For the most part she does not give a damn andhas her own spaces within which she has more important things to worry about:like competing for esteem among her peers. Tocquevilletells another story in which he contrasts English and American customsof treating strangers. Why is itthat Americans abroad greet each otherbut the English do not?' The shortanswer is thatthe English are nervouswrecks about the security of theirrank; hence their distinctive reserve.According toTocqueville, the security of an aristocracy ofbirth has givenway to one of wealth and "the immediate result is anunspoken warfare betweenall the citizens.... Aristocratic pride still being a verystrong force withthe English and theboundaries of thearistocracy having become doubtfuleach man is constantlyafraid lest advantage be takenof his familiarity."In America, on the other hand,

whereprivileges of birth never existed and where wealth brings its possessor no peculiar right,men unacquainted with one anotherreadily frequent the same places and find neitherdanger nor advantage in tellingeach otherfreely what they think. Meeting by chance,they neither seek nor avoid each other.Their manner is thereforenatural, frank, and open.One sees thatthere is practicallynothing that they either hope or fearfrom each otherand that they are not concerned to showor to hidetheir social position.

Onewonders where he found this egalitarian utopia in the United States. It seemsthat before all thisnatural frank openness can take place it must be precededby a judgmentthat the other person is indeedentitled to such free intercourse.The openness does not precede a determinationofwho exactly

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 494 POLITICAL THEORY /August 1995 is entifledtoit, but itself follows on the ascertainment thatone is dealing with a roughequal. Tocqueville is comparingapples and oranges. He compares anEnglishman who has yet to judge whether the person he is dealingwith is hispeer to Americans who have already made that judgment. The Englishman is waryof a personabout whose exact rank he is uncertain;the American has thatsettled already because the place frequented will be a placefor his kind ofpeople to frequent. I am overstating it.There surely was something more openabout America for broad ranges of men(and I meanmen) when comparedwith Europe and even the large freedoms ofEngland. The English didand do cutdistinctions ofrank in much finer gradients than Americans. YetI imaginethat we wouldsee thesenatural, frank Americans quickly settlingamong themselves who was a manto be reckoned with and who was not,who was to be deferredtoand who was not, who was to be respected andwho was not,even if thisform of respectwas less hedgedin with formalizedconventions than English relations between classes and ranks wouldbe. If the class of people an American admitted as his equals was more broadlyrecruited than an Englishman's,it was rathersharply delimited nonethelessand those boundaries were maintained as before by contempt and humiliation.Consider further thefollowing extract from a letter a young New Yorkerin 1852writes home to his sister about his travels in the Caribbean:

Herea blackman is as goodas a whiteone.... Theydo nothesitate to offertheir hands to be shaken.Our washerwoman,sits upon the sofa in thecabin and talksas bold and loudas tho'the ship was hers.A washerwomanin NY,a whiteone too, would not open herlips or thinkof sittingdown. Nor would she offerto shakehands, as ourAntiguan ladywasherwoman did, which I politelyrefused to accept. The English say much against whatthey call equality in the states. They call it the most disagreeable part of their travels in ourcountry that any man can ride who pays. If they think our equality disagreeable, I thinktheirs disgusting-for certainly our servants would not offer to shakehands with us, a thingoften occurring in Antigua.41

I wantto limit myself to two main points about this wonderfully richpassage. It servesa usefulcorrective to Tocquevilleand to me.For Tocqueville it makesthe point that equality comes in all kinds of sizes and shapes. And that theAmerican size and shape still had plenty of room for rank and status, not onlyfor race and gender as in theyoung traveler's letter, but we suspect amongWhite men too, even, I wouldguess, on theegalitarian Western frontier.There is Englishequality and American equality, and each style seemsto appallthe other and provide the basis for competing contempts betweenAmericans and the English. And what is itthat makes them appall- ing?The impudence ofpeople clearly designated as inferior. Both equalities wantranks maintained even if the grand theory of ranks has fallen on hard

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Miller/ UPWARD CONTEMPT 495 times.The English do notlike the idea that American common carriers do notdistinguish rank among paying passengers, while the American finds it disgustingthat the English allow servants such familiarity asto think to shake handswith their social superiors (one suspects our traveler is mistakinga frontiercolonial style as representativeof a particularlyEnglish style). Upstartismofsome sort (the passage indicates that not all upstartism has the samecontent) is as upsettingtoAmericans as itis tothe English in spite of thepolemical point Tocqueville wishes to make. One wonders, by the way, howour young traveler thought itwas possible to refuse the washerwoman's handpolitely? Presumably, he, like Chesterfield tothe beggar, assumes an appallinglylow benchmark inwhich caning, raping, or spitting inthe face is thenorm. Andwhat Mr. Dudley, our letter writer, shows me is thatany claim about democracyliberating upward contempt tocombat the usual fare being rained downfrom above must be accompaniedwith a muchmore nuanced and detailedstory than I am providinghere. Apparently, these two opposing contemptsestablished various equilibria at different times and places. The NewYork washerwoman is still all deferencetoMr. Dudley's mind. But is she?She maysimply be utterlyindifferent to this confident young prig, findinghim at best a bore,at worst a pain in the butt. And what of our Black washerwomaninAntigua? Why assume with Mr. Dudley that she is simply toodense to understandthe effect of her lack of deference on theyoung Americanman? She might very well be puttinghim on, exposing him to a veryheavy dose of a morebroadly comic contempt, rendering him the pretentiousfool. It is notas ifMr. Dudley was able to ignore her. Quite the contrary.He thoughtshe was really worth writing home about. I concludeby restating my broad claim. Democracy does not destroy the conditionsfor upward contempt. Inspite of the language of equality, we still recognizestatuses, classes, and ranks that construct hierarchies. We can, in otherwords, still safely mark many instances of contemptas upwardor conventionallydownward. While some contempts surely represent compet- ingclaims for dominance as inthe style of contempt among rough equals in heroicsociety, other contempts relatively easily map onto the styles of contemptdiscoverable inrigidly hierarchical societies. Democracy, far from undoingthe basis for contempts ofhigh and low, simply makes it possible forthe low to add to the styles of upward contempt they already had in the oldorder. If the dominant form of upward contempt was, and still largely is, thatof making the superior look ridiculous, either by feasts of misrule or by exposingthe hypocrisy and incompetence ofthe superior, itbecame possible withrole proliferation, roledivision, and democratic assumptions simply to be indifferent,to find more than enough space for oneself in whichthe

This content downloaded from 141.211.57.224 on Fri, 9 Jan 2015 15:06:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 496 POLITICAL THEORY /August 1995 superiorwas disattendable and simply did not matter much at all.The low nowhave available to them the Hobbesian contempt ofsimply not caring to attendto theirsuperiors and it is thiswhich does so muchto engender anxietiesin the superior, for the superior cannot fathom that he or she could be so utterlydisattendable. And what possible strategy is there to oppose to suchindifference? Ignoring it? That is simplyto battle his indifference with yourfeigned indifference. Caning is nolonger permissible and firing and not hiringare severelycircumscribed. It just might be thatthe mutuality of contemptismuch of what pluralistic democracy isall about. What democracy hasdone is armthe lower with some of the contempts that only the high had availableto them before. This is no smallachievement. It is muchof what makesit so differentfrom the old order.

NOTES

1. See AllanGibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990),136-40 for the notion that shame is thefirst-person counterpart todisdain, contempt, or derision.On the distinction between shame and humiliation, seemy discussion inWilliam Ian Miller,Hwniliation (Cornell University Press, 1993), 134-48. 2.Not that our concurrence will always be sufficient asa matterofjustice. Wemay not concur withthe judgment and simply be behavingobstreperously orincorrigibly, or,we may concur withthe judgment and be thevictim of an unjust social order that deprives us ofthe ability to makesufficiently autonomous evaluations ofour lot in that particular social order. 3. JamesC. Scottin his Dominationand theArts of Resistance(New Haven,CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1990), as histitle suggests, deals with the styles of resistance the lower take withregard to the higher, but he plays this out almost solely in societies with institutionalized slavery,untouchability, orracial domination. His discussion,somewhat too sentimental and piousfor my tastes, only indirectly alludes to theemotional force motivating the "hidden transcripts"ofthe disempowered. Hisdiscussion largely assumes that resentment, indignation, andfear mark the style. Contempt makes only a rareappearance (e.g., pp. 2, 199).Many of Scott'spoints are anticipated byM. P.Baumgartner, "Social Control from Below," Toward a GeneralTheory ofSocial Control, 2 vols., ed. Donald Black (New York: Academic Press, 1984), 1:303-45.See ArlieRussell Hochschild, The Managed Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press,1983) for a richethnography ofthe costs of emotion management and constraint among flightattendants. 4. I realize"fissure" is rather prissy, but the more direct alternatives aretoo great a breach ofdecorum at present.Please know I struggledwith this. 5. Myview of the significance oftattooing dates me. Now that upper-middle-class young of bothsexes get tattoos the relation between tattoos and notions of vulgarity will undergo some shift.Still the classbound significance oftattoos is likelyto survive for some time the recent upper-middle-classattraction tothem. There is notmuch difficulty indiscerning the difference betweentattoos designed to shock parents and those designed to identify with them.

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6. On anotherday, he and mywife met each otherin a kindof duelingT-shirts: hers read "save endangeredmammals" and his "crack kills" inscribed beneath a cartoonof a humanbeing crushedbetween the cheeks of a nakedbutt. His, of course,was meantto be funny,not only in its scatologybut by its piercingthe pretensionsof the grave styleof a somberand self-consciouslyvirtuous "concerned citizenry"; the perverse result is thatmy wife's T-shirt endsup as funnyas his.Funny how most of us liveso as tojustify the not-so-friendly stereotypes othersimpose on us. 7. See furtherMiller, Humiliation, 136-48. 8. See RobertC. Solomon,The Passions: The Myth and Nature of Human Emotion (Garden City:Anchor Press, 1976), 292, who asks us to imaginea cockroach,then a six-footcockroach. On thegrotesque, the obligatory cite is MikhailBakhtin, Rabelais and His World,trans. Helene Iswolsky(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). 9. On disgustsee PaulRozin and April E. Fallon,"APerspective on Disgust," Psychological Review94, no. 1 (1987): 23-41. 10. Beforeyou excoriate me, would you treat the unambivalent expression of contemptby Ice-Tto the same condemnation?: "Let me tell you something about the masses. You everwatch wrestling?Hulk Hogan and all that,guys jumping off the ropes? And the arena's always packed? Those same peoplevote, man." John Anderson, "Ice-T's Role Reversal,"Newsday, March 3, 1991,pt. 2, 3. Ice-T's viewson democracy reduplicate those of the conservative anti-democrats inEngland during the decades following the French Revolution. I find in Ice-T's espousal of the sameanti-democratic views a paradoxicalemblem of the triumph of democracy, for the contempt ofthe people that once was a prerogativeof high-Toryismis now readily available to everyone. 11. Scott,Domination and theArts of Resistance, 4-5, throughout. 12. Butthen am I notsimply projecting my self-contempt, making it his contempt for me? I do not wantto get lost in thisproblem except to notea few things:if we are to function competentlyin thisworld, we have to be reasonablygood at discerningthe motivations and intentionsof others.We do itall thetime. To be sure,some of us arebetter at itthan others and thosewho are better at it seemto have,over the long haul, a competitiveadvantage over those who are not.Those ineptat discerningmotivation in othersget easily swindled; they are also morelikely to give offense and thus elicit more hostile reactions, and so on (see my" 'I cantake a hint':Social Ineptitude,Embarrassment, and The King of Comedy,"Michigan Quarterly Review33, no. 2 [1994],322-344). That still does notanswer whether I am projectingor not, butit seemsthat I am no morelikely to know whether I am projectingthan I amlikely to know hismotivation. Consider that our therapeutic society seems to depend on an implicitassumption thatwe are less likelyto knowourselves than certain licensed others are likelyto knowus. Furthermore,itmay not be all thatimportant whether I am right about this particular interaction as thatsuch an interactionas I describeseems to make complete social and psychological sense; thatis, thereis nothingall thatsurprising in myaccount either about my inner states or about his. Nor do I feelit necessaryto apologizefor an inevitablesubjectivity in theaccount: how, afterall, are we to getat motivationwithout the datum of our own inner states? 13. Noticehow the type of work he doeswill affect the content of his contempt. As a mason he has a skillwhich he prideshimself on notbeing easily reproduced in otherswithout years of training.If, however, he weresimply providing a lawn service, or even painting, he mightlook at the veryfact that I have hiredhim as an indicationof my moralfailing. Shouldn't any reasonablymanly man be ableto painthis own house or cuthis lawn, especially someone who has a schedulethat allows him to be homeat eleven in the morning or by three in the afternoon? 14. See Leviathan,pt. 2, chap.6. 15. A Treatiseof Human Nature, bk. 2, pt.2, sec. 10.

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16. Consider,however, that the superior may blame the lower's inability to recognizeunder whatcircumstances certain forms of deference should be due.The lower's ignorance would not excusehis offensebut simply reveal a recklessdisregard of the obvious. A swiftcaning might be consideredappropriate instruction. This kind of instruction looks vaguely similar to the kind of disciplinemeted out by constitutedauthority when it invokes,for example, the notion of contemptof court. Failure to show deference becomes a kindof strict liability offense in the eyes of authority.Ignorance is no excuse. 17. "AnEssay on Conversation," vol. 1,Miscellaneous Writings, ed. WilliamE. Henley,The CompleteWorks of Henry Fielding (New York:Croscup and Sterling, 1902), 251, 262. 18. To his son October9, O.S. 1746. This sentimentis repeatedin aboutten other letters almostverbatim. Also: "Wrongsare often forgiven, but contempt never is. Ourpride remembers it forever" (July 1, 1748,to hisson). 19. "Of all theFops in Nature,none are so ridiculouslycontemptible as theWouldbees." LondonMag. 1.240,cited in OxfordEnglish Dictionary, s.v. would-be, B. sb. 20. See, generally,the work of Paul Ekmanand CarrollIzard. For example,Paul Ekman, "An Argumentfor Basic Emotions,"Cognition and Emotion6, nos. 3-4 (1992): 169-200;and CarrollIzard, The Face ofEmotion (New York:Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971). For a lucid critiqueof these theories see JeromeNeu, " 'A Tearis an IntellectualThing,' " Representations 19 (1987): 35-61. 21. CharlesDarwin, The Expressionof the Emotionsin Man and Animals(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1965), 247-61. 22. I am paintingbroadly here. In theactual micropolitics of anyparticular encounter, all kindsof competingfactors may alter the precise style of mutual status adjustment. Given role proliferation,pluralism, and thesignificance of certainpublic spaces, the conventionally low may at certaintimes actually be able to competefreely as to whosecontempt gets styled as reactiveand whoseas constitutive.For instance,it makesa differencethat the mason and me meton myfront porch rather than, for example, in a working-classbar. Upward contempt, by myreckoning, always has some consciousness of its own reactiveness. When it ceases to be thus aware we have eitherthe inadvertentoffensiveness of the countrybumpkin or the open competitionfor dominance played out among people contesting their rank. 23. The hiringof someone to do manuallabor constructs the relative ranking in favorof the hirer.But whenone hires(we do noteven say hire),but rather engages, or retains,or sees a doctor,lawyer, or some otherperson engaged in some of the moremagical and suspect professions,it is oftenthe hireling rather than the hirer who occupies the higher ranking. 24. Upwardcontempt can also makeuse ofthe self-loathing ofthe lower (if present) to make thehigher the object of contempt.Thus, in certaininstances of upward contempt, the pleasure ofthe lower is notquite separable from the knowledge that the superior you hold in contemptis at leastin somerespects lower even than you yourself are; lower, in otherwords, than the low. 25. Herewe wouldwant to distinguish the phenomenon of the high not living up to their own standardsfrom finding the standards that the high aspire to risible; see furtherbelow. 26. "Satireis an unwillingtribute to power;but it also impliesthe recognition of a certain inevitabilityin thething satirized, a lack of anyconstructive alternative": R. W. Southern,The Makingof the Middle Ages (New Haven,CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1953), 154. 27. Note thatkings and lordswould innoculate themselves somewhat against the risk of puncturedpomposity by privileging fools and lower-classjesters who were allowed to ridicule theirsuperiors to theirfaces. One wayto deal withthose laughing behind your back is to make themperform some of the same routine before you defuse most of its danger. The institutionof theprivileged fool also indicatesthat the higher were in somerespects willing and able to see themselvesas theirinferiors saw them.

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28. The mirthfulnessof the feastof misrulestyle of upwardcontempt is plainlynot Nietzsche'svalue-transfornming ressentiment, although the moralizing style of upward contempt has clearresemblences to it.See Genealogyof Morals 1.10. 29. The Manciple'sskills in thievery were especially noteworthy because, as stewardof the templehousing the best lawyers in England,he was able to fleecehis masters; in otherwords, he fleecedthe fleecers. And of the Reeve it is said,that "His lordwel koudehe plesensubtillyJ To yeveand lene [giveand lend] hym of his [the lord's] owene good." (Canterbury Tales, A. vv. 569-88,612-13). 30. See TheIliad 11.214-82. 31. Laxdoelasaga, chaps.49, 52. 32. Notethat Thersites tries to gainsuch privilege by playing the clown. It is deniedhim. 33. For moreon the remarkablewomen of the Icelandicsagas see WilliamIan Miller, Bloodtakingand Peacemaking:Feud, Law, and Societyin Saga Iceland(Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1990), esp. 212-13. 34. No figurecomes in formore generalized contempt in highercircles in thefirst half of theeighteenth century than the dancing master. By the end of the century the dancing master has passedhis unenviable torch to the hair dresser. See thewonderful account of the significance of referencesto hairdressers by Don Herzog,forthcoming in Representations. 35. WilliamGodwin, The Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793; bk. 1, chap.5) ed. F.E.L. Priestly(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1946), 3:141. 36. Hazlitt,"On theKnowledge of Character"(1821), WilliamHazlitt: Selected Writings, ed. RonaldBlythe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), 105. 37. Hazlitt,"On theDisadvantages of Intellectual Superiority" (1821), ibid., 188. 38. I discusshumiliation-avoidance strategies at lengthin Humiliation.The generalobser- vationis thatthe risk of humiliation inheres in pretension, but that so dolorousis thesocial world thatpretensions of somesort are never completely avoidable. Hence the despairing strategy of undergroundman to seek out humiliation so as tohave it on hisown terms. Note too that Hazlitt, and in a lesserway my account of the mason, suggest, in constrastto Nietzsche,that self-con- sciousnessis a functionof the higher's fears of the mockery of the low ratherthan a functionof thelow's resentmentof thehigh. 39. See JonathanSwift, Directions to Servants, ed. HerbertDavis (Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1959). 40.Democracy in America, II.iii.2. 41. Letterof Thomas C. Dudley,a youngship's purser from Yonkers, New York, to his sister Fanny,16 June,1852 in theDudley collection at the Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

WilliamIan Milleris a professorof law at theUniversity of Michigan.He has a Ph.D. in Englishand a law degree,both from Yale. He specializesin the social historyof saga Iceland,but is morerecently attempting a social theoryof emotions,especially the status-determiningemotions of humiliation, shame, contempt, and disregard.His recent booksinclude Bloodtaking and Peacemaking:Feud, Law and Societyin Saga Iceland (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1990) and Humiliation(Cornell University Press,1993). He is presentlyworking on a bookon disgust.

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