obyvatel
The Living Force
Self importance is frequently manifested in contempt which could be covert or overt. According to Miller, this is also a consequence of the contempt that one is subject to in childhood from people holding authority. Like previously stated, nothing can correct the past wrongs. Even an intellectual understanding about manipulations one is subjected to in childhood cannot change the contemptuous attitudes that one has inherited from parents or authority figures which will stay on in the unconscious and continue to manifest in one's behavior.
[quote author=DOTGC]
The function all expressions of contempt have in common is the defense against unwanted feelings. Contempt simply evaporates, having lost its point, when it is no longer useful as a shield - against the child's shame over his desperate, unreturned love; against his feeling of inadequacy; or above all against his rage that his parents were not available. Once we are able to feel and understand the repressed emotions of childhood, we will no longer need contempt as a defense against them. On the other hand, as long as we despise the other person and over-value our own achievements (he can't do what I can do), we do not have to mourn the fact that love was not forthcoming without achievement. Nevertheless, if we avoid this mourning it means that we remain at bottom the one who is despised, for we have to despise everything in ourselves that is not wonderful, good and clever. We despise weakness, helplessness, uncertainty - in short the child in ourselves and in others.
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Some forms in which covert contempt can be manifested
[quote author=DOTGC]
There are some people who never say a loud or angry word, who seem to be only good and noble, and who still give others the palpable feeling of being ridiculous or stupid or too noisy, or at any rate too common compared with themselves. They do not know it and perhaps do not intend it, but this is what they radiate: the attitude of their parents, of which they have never been aware.
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Then there are people who can seem very friendly, if a shade patronizing, but in whose presence one feels as if one was nothing. The convey the feeling that they are the only ones who exist, the only ones who have anything interesting or relevant to say. The others can only stand there and admire them in fascination, or turn away in disappointment and sorrow about their own lack of worth, unable to express themselves in these persons' presence. These people might be the children of grandiose parents, whom they as children had no hope of emulating - but later as adults they unconsciously pass on this atmosphere to those around them.
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Quite a different impression will be given by those people who as children, were intellectually far beyond their parents and therefore admired by them, but who also therefore had to solve their own problems alone. These people, who give us a feeling of their intellectual strength and will power, also seem to demand that we too, ought to fight off any feeling of weakness with intellectual means. In their presence one feels that one can't be recognized as a person with problems - just as they and their problems were unrecognized by their parents, for whom they had to be strong.
[/quote]
[quote author=DOTGC]
The function all expressions of contempt have in common is the defense against unwanted feelings. Contempt simply evaporates, having lost its point, when it is no longer useful as a shield - against the child's shame over his desperate, unreturned love; against his feeling of inadequacy; or above all against his rage that his parents were not available. Once we are able to feel and understand the repressed emotions of childhood, we will no longer need contempt as a defense against them. On the other hand, as long as we despise the other person and over-value our own achievements (he can't do what I can do), we do not have to mourn the fact that love was not forthcoming without achievement. Nevertheless, if we avoid this mourning it means that we remain at bottom the one who is despised, for we have to despise everything in ourselves that is not wonderful, good and clever. We despise weakness, helplessness, uncertainty - in short the child in ourselves and in others.
[/quote]
Some forms in which covert contempt can be manifested
[quote author=DOTGC]
There are some people who never say a loud or angry word, who seem to be only good and noble, and who still give others the palpable feeling of being ridiculous or stupid or too noisy, or at any rate too common compared with themselves. They do not know it and perhaps do not intend it, but this is what they radiate: the attitude of their parents, of which they have never been aware.
.............................................
Then there are people who can seem very friendly, if a shade patronizing, but in whose presence one feels as if one was nothing. The convey the feeling that they are the only ones who exist, the only ones who have anything interesting or relevant to say. The others can only stand there and admire them in fascination, or turn away in disappointment and sorrow about their own lack of worth, unable to express themselves in these persons' presence. These people might be the children of grandiose parents, whom they as children had no hope of emulating - but later as adults they unconsciously pass on this atmosphere to those around them.
...............................................
Quite a different impression will be given by those people who as children, were intellectually far beyond their parents and therefore admired by them, but who also therefore had to solve their own problems alone. These people, who give us a feeling of their intellectual strength and will power, also seem to demand that we too, ought to fight off any feeling of weakness with intellectual means. In their presence one feels that one can't be recognized as a person with problems - just as they and their problems were unrecognized by their parents, for whom they had to be strong.
[/quote]