This article considers the concepts of contempt and counter-contempt, and the management of these relational affects – ideas that Josephs and Stone (this issue) usefully opened up for exploration in the clinical situation and beyond. The author extends the relevance of these phenomena to important topics like serial killing, mass shootings, and genocide. These elaborations may help those striving to prevent these horrific tragedies. The author also finds these concepts useful for comprehending and managing psychoanalytic politics – a domain in which they can manifest with problematic intensity that is deleterious to the healthy functioning and growth of our discipline. To cope with, contain, and ultimately transcend these disruptive, internecine conflicts, the author advocates for the utility and value of a comparative-integrative perspective.