Essay: Contempt Is Contagious, So Is Love

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

A few years ago, I was going through a life transition. As I felt the need to really focus on the areas of my life that were changing, I decided to run an experiment. It was a digital detox of sorts. I was going to spend 30 days off all social media. That 30 days was so freeing it turned into 9 years and counting. Over these years, I have noticed some differences in day-to-day experiences between myself and those I know that use more social media, and it’s really concerning.

What I first noticed was people showing up more online than in life. There was always a possibility of something better “out there” than right here. That also revealed to me a distractibility that others describe and display that doesn’t feel as present for me. Teaching and mentoring university students for the last 6 years, I’ve also been told of, and witnessed, a general unease that many just live with all the time. In fact, in a recent study from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 45% of young adults in the US reported a general sense that “things are falling apart”. One participant said, “I just wish I was able to calm down literally ever. I always feel on edge, everything scares me…If I could just find some way to calm down a little it would work miracles.” Most recently, I have begun to pay attention to another difference. People seem to be, and are expressing to me, being more upset, angry, even outraged. I am witnessing in my own life, good, loving people see others in their life as enemies, turn against one another, and friendliness and friendships end. What is going on?

Drs. John and Julie Gottman, clinical psychologists and researchers, are relationship experts. Through their work they have been able to predict with 93% accuracy in research settings which couples would get divorced and which ones would stay together. Considering all the behaviors and characteristics couples express, there is one destructive variable that stands out more than any other: contempt. Sadly, contempt in relationship, romantic or otherwise, is lethal and is growing all too common. What is driving contempt to be the emotion of so many relationships today? Look no further than a blend of human instincts and the ‘outrage industrial complex’.

First, what is contempt and what does it do besides destroy all our relationships? Contempt is an emotion that is in the same family as anger and disgust. Unlike anger and disgust, emotion researcher Paul Ekman finds that contempt gives us a feeling of power or status. Unfortunately for relationships of all kinds, feeling contempt contributes to feeling superior to others. I don’t need to tell you that this is not the foundation for a good relationship whether romantic, personal, or professional. Worse still, social psychological research demonstrates that it is human nature to get a whole lot wrong when it comes to questions of morality and intent. Included in a short list of findings, virtually everyone inflates their moral qualities and sense of themselves. In other words, we innately perceive ourselves to be more moral than those around us, especially those we disagree with. We believe that love and virtue drive people on our “side” and hate and immorality drive people on the “other” side. And unless we are engaged in a conscious and well-informed act of reflection, we believe that our version of reality is reality and anyone that disagrees with us is either misinformed, biased, hurtful, or out to get us. It’s these tendencies that the “outrage industrial complex” has so masterfully harnessed, and it’s moving us, unconsciously, in a bad direction.

Contempt and its breeding grounds are everywhere. Since the late aughts researchers, thinkers, writers, and advocates having been warning of the “outrage industrial complex.” Look around. Outrage is everywhere, and where there’s no outrage, outrage is directed because it’s outrageous that there is no outrage. Tired yet? Maybe the most common and insidious expression is found in all the media sources we so ravenously crave and consume. News and social media, which have been redesigned to take advantage of our most addictive and solipsistic traits and behaviors, I am looking at you. In their article, “How Contempt is Corroding Democracy”, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens argue that “the machinery of public discourse, dominated by media and social media, is powerfully designed to manipulate, inflame and commodify our moral emotions, impelling us towards an unrestrained contempt for each other.” There’s so much more to this story, but you know this is true. Division, in group and out group, and contempt are the main course of so much of the information that shows up in our lives. And we keep going back for more, even though we don’t like it. The empirical evidence is very clear; the more you consume social media, the unhappier you are. Bottom line: emotions, feelings, and social actions are contagious, and the ubiquity of contempt is creating an enemy out of everything and everyone. And outrage and contempt are not the solution. They’ve certainly not worked for me. So, what is the solution if outrage, contempt, and hate only lead to more outrage, contempt, and hate? The answer, as unnatural as it may feel at times, is love. The question, then, is how.

Let’s return to the Gottmans. There is a great practice they ask couples to do to remedy contempt and criticism and get back to appreciation and love. Each partner is asked to carry a journal with them, and any time they feel the need to be critical, they must first write down in their journal 5 things they like about the other person. Not only does this give you the time and space to not get carried away in the initial heat of the moment, but it also directs you to think positively, see the good in the other. It reflects the first life lesson that your mom and your mom’s mom taught you, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” And here’s the most important part. If you are saying to yourself, I don’t know 5 things I like about the other person because I don’t know them well enough, that is precisely your problem. The solution to conflict with someone you don’t know is not to fight with them, it’s to get to know them. If you do know them well enough and you still can’t think of 5 things you like about them, you need turn your gaze from the other and back to yourself.

In his speech ‘Loving Your Enemies’, Martin Luther King Jr. directs his congregation “to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self… we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done…, some personality attribute that we possess… There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.” It can be hard to see yourself as you really are. You and I, we’re not perfect, and we’re certainly not morally superior. It can also be hard to see ourselves as wrong, and yet (don’t tell my wife or my kids), we often are. This is where we may have to do what comes unnaturally to us.

I teach my students, as I have learned for myself, in situations that call for personal growth: do what comes unnaturally. Social scientist Arthur Brooks asked the Dalai Lama how to respond to contempt for your enemy. He said ‘with warmheartedness’. Martin Luther King Jr. taught to look for the good in the others. Those responses certainly come unnaturally to me. How about you? Do what comes unnaturally. Love your enemies.

But wait! What is love? My wife says it’s the flow of God’s energy, and that energy is transformative. That’s why love is the answer. That’s why all the major wisdom traditions teach it. That’s why Martin Luther King Jr says, “love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” And that’s why love cannot be stopped or beat, because even if you don’t experience the transformation in the other person, you can be sure that love, and loving your enemy, will transform you. Warmheartedness and love can be what comes naturally. It’s in our nature, we must reclaim it.

So, what do we do about the outrage industrial complex? You don’t have to like it. I don’t. But I also see that there are parts of it that could be used for good. You don’t have to like the things that the outrage industrial complex does or promotes. I don’t. But I see its power, and I know love’s power. So, I see potential for spreading something better, something more humane. Be the change. And social media? To be clear, in its current form, I don’t really like it, at least not what it does to me. That’s why it’s not in my life. But I am genuinely open to others liking it, using it, and being better for it. My wife seems to do really well with it. So, no, I am not advocating for banning or abstaining from social media, although you may want to try the latter even just for a short time. I am advocating for very conscious consumption of it. The charge is simple: know what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, and why, and think and act with love. And when, not if, you find yourself encountering personas and perspectives that breed more contempt than connection, do what comes unnaturally: give yourself a little time and space, ask yourself what would love do, look for, and name, the good, choose warmheartedness, and find a way to spread love, because it, too, is contagious.

Craig Keaton, PhD, LMSW

Burnett School of Medicine at TCU Director of Wellbeing