Ressentiment
Encyclopedia
Ressentiment in philosophy
and psychology
, is a particular form of resentment
or hostility
. It is the French
word for "resentment" (fr. Latin intensive prefix 're', and 'sentir' "to feel"). Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration. The sense of weakness or inferiority and perhaps jealousy
in the face of the "cause" generates a rejecting/justifying value system
, or morality
, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one's frustration. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability.
Ressentiment is not to be considered interchangeable with the normal English word "resentment", or even the French "ressentiment". While the normal words both speak to a feeling of frustration directed at a perceived source, neither speaks to the special relationship between a sense of inferiority and the creation of morality.
. Friedrich Nietzsche
later independently expanded the concept; Walter Kaufmann ascribes Nietzsche's use of the term in part to the absence of a proper equivalent term in the German language
, contending that said absence alone "would be sufficient excuse for Nietzsche," if not for a translator. The term came to form a key part of his ideas concerning the psychology of the 'master-slave
' question (articulated in Beyond Good and Evil
), and the resultant birth of morality
. Nietzsche's first use and chief development of ressentiment came in his book On The Genealogy of Morals; see esp §§ 10–11).http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anth/AnthMore.htm http://www.nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive1.html.
The term was also put to good use by Max Scheler
in his book Ressentiment, published in 1912, and later suppressed by the Nazis.
Currently of great import as a term widely used in psychology and existentialism, ressentiment is viewed as an effective force for the creation of identities, moral frameworks and value systems.
Ressentiment is a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one's own inferiority/failure onto an external scapegoat. The ego creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in oneself, but rather by an external "evil."
According to Kierkegaard, ressentiment occurs in a "reflective, passionless age", in which the populace stifles creativity and passion in passionate individuals. Kierkegaard argues that individuals who do not conform to the masses are made scapegoats and objects of ridicule by the masses, in order to maintain status quo and to instill into the masses their own sense of superiority.
Ressentiment comes from reactiveness: the weaker a man is, the less his capability for adiaphoria, i.e. to suppress reaction. According to Nietzsche, the more a man is active, strong-willed, and dynamic, the less place and time is left for contemplating all that is done to him, and his reactions (like imagining he is actually better) become less compulsive. The reaction of a strong-willed man (a "wild beast"), when it happens, is ideally a short action: it is not a prolonged filling of his intellect.
attempted to reconcile Nietzsche's ideas of master-slave morality and ressentiment with the Christian ideals of love and humility. Nietzsche saw Christian morality as a kind of slave morality, while Greek and Roman culture was characterized as a master morality. Scheler disagrees. He begins with a comparison of Greek love and Christian love. Greek love is described as a movement from lower value to higher value. The weaker love the stronger, the less perfect love the more perfect. The perfect do not love the imperfect because that would diminish their value or corrupt their existence. Greek love is rooted in need and want. This is clearly indicated by the Aristotelian concept of God as the "Unmoved Mover". The unmoved mover is self-sufficient being completely immersed in its own existence. The highest object of contemplation, and who moves others through the force of attraction because efficient causality would degrade its nature.
In Christian love, there is a reversal in the movement of love. The strong bend to the weak, the healthy help the sick, the noble help the vulgar. This movement is a consequence of the Christian understanding of the nature of God as fullness of being. God's love is an expression of His superabundance. The motive for love is not charity nor the neediness of the lover, but it is rooted in a deeply felt confidence that through loving I become more personalized and most real to myself. The motive for the world is not need or lack (à la Schopenhauer), but a creative urge to express the infinite fullness of being. Poverty and sickness are not values to be celebrated in order to spite those who are rich and healthy, but they simply provide the opportunity for a person to express his love. Rich people are harder to love because they are less in need of your generosity. Fear of death is a sign of a declining, sick, and broken life (Ressent 60). St. Francis' love and care for the lepers would have mortified the Greek mind, but for St. Francis, the threats to well-being are inconsequential because at the core of his being there is the awareness that his existence is firmly rooted in and sustained by the ground of ultimate being. In genuine, Christian love, the lower values that are relative to life are renounced not because they are bad, but simply because they are obstacles to those absolute values which allow a person to enter into a relationship with God. It is through loving like God that we are deified. This is why Scheler sees the Christian saint as a manifestation of strength and nobility and not manifesting ressentiment.
in The Sociology of Religion relates ressentiment to Judaism, an ethical salvation religion of a "pariah people." Weber defines ressentiment as "a concomitant of that particular religious ethic of the disprivileged which, in the sense expounded by Nietzsche and in direct inversion of the ancient belief, teaches that the unequal distribution of mundane goods is caused by the sinfulness and the illegality of the privileged, and that sooner or later God's wrath will overtake them." (Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 110.
used the term bad faith
to describe a highly similar phenomenon of blaming one's own failure on external factors and therefore denying responsibility
for oneself.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, is a particular form of resentment
Resentment
Resentment is the experience of a negative emotion felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done. Etymologically, the word originates from French "ressentir", re-, intensive prefix, and sentir "to feel"; from the Latin "sentire"...
or hostility
Hostility
Hostility is a form of angry internal rejection or denial in psychology. It is a part of personal construct psychology, developed by George Kelly...
. It is the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
word for "resentment" (fr. Latin intensive prefix 're', and 'sentir' "to feel"). Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration. The sense of weakness or inferiority and perhaps jealousy
Jealousy
Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...
in the face of the "cause" generates a rejecting/justifying value system
Value system
A value system is a set of consistent ethic values and measures used for the purpose of ethical or ideological integrity. A well defined value system is a moral code.-Personal and communal:...
, or morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one's frustration. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability.
Ressentiment is not to be considered interchangeable with the normal English word "resentment", or even the French "ressentiment". While the normal words both speak to a feeling of frustration directed at a perceived source, neither speaks to the special relationship between a sense of inferiority and the creation of morality.
History
Ressentiment was first introduced as a philosophical/psychological term by the 19th century philosopher Søren KierkegaardSøren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
. Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
later independently expanded the concept; Walter Kaufmann ascribes Nietzsche's use of the term in part to the absence of a proper equivalent term in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, contending that said absence alone "would be sufficient excuse for Nietzsche," if not for a translator. The term came to form a key part of his ideas concerning the psychology of the 'master-slave
Master-slave dialectic
The Master-Slave dialectic is a famous passage of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. It is widely considered a key element in Hegel's philosophical system, and has heavily influenced many subsequent philosophers...
' question (articulated in Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1886.It takes up and expands on the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but approached from a more critical, polemical direction....
), and the resultant birth of morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
. Nietzsche's first use and chief development of ressentiment came in his book On The Genealogy of Morals; see esp §§ 10–11).http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anth/AnthMore.htm http://www.nietzschecircle.com/essayArchive1.html.
The term was also put to good use by Max Scheler
Max Scheler
Max Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...
in his book Ressentiment, published in 1912, and later suppressed by the Nazis.
Currently of great import as a term widely used in psychology and existentialism, ressentiment is viewed as an effective force for the creation of identities, moral frameworks and value systems.
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
The ressentiment which is establishing itself is the process of levelling, and while a passionate age storms ahead setting up new things and tearing down old, razing and demolishing as it goes, a reflective and passionless age does exactly the contrary: it hinders and stifles all action; it levels. Levelling is a silent, mathematical, and abstract occupation which shuns upheavals. ... If the jewel which every one desired to possess lay far out on a frozen lake where the ice was very thin, watched over by the danger of death, while, closer in, the ice was perfectly safe, then in a passionate age the crowds would applaud the courage of the man who ventured out, they would tremble for him and with him in the danger of his decisive action, they would grieve over him if he were drowned, they would make a god of him if he secured the prize. But in an age without passion, in a reflective age, it would be otherwise. People would think each other clever in agreeing that it was unreasonable and not even worth while to venture so far out. And in this way they would transform daring and enthusiasm into a feat of skill, so as 'to do something, for something must be done.'
Søren KierkegaardSøren KierkegaardSøren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
, Two Ages: A Literary ReviewTwo Ages: A Literary ReviewTwo Ages: A Literary Review is the first book in Søren Kierkegaard's second authorship and was published on March 30, 1846. The work followed The Corsair affair in which he was the target of public ridicule and consequently displays his thought on "the public" and an individual's relationship to...
(T)he problem with the other origin of the “good,” of the good man, as the person of ressentiment has thought it out for himself, demands some conclusion. It is not surprising that the lambs should bear a grudge against the great birds of prey, but that is no reason for blaming the great birds of prey for taking the little lambs. And when the lambs say among themselves, "These birds of prey are evil, and he who least resembles a bird of prey, who is rather its opposite, a lamb,—should he not be good?" then there is nothing to carp with in this ideal's establishment, though the birds of prey may regard it a little mockingly, and maybe say to themselves, "We bear no grudge against them, these good lambs, we even love them: nothing is tastier than a tender lamb."
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, On the Genealogy of MoralityOn the Genealogy of MoralityOn the Genealogy of Morality, or On the Genealogy of Morals , subtitled "A Polemic" , is a work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed and first published in 1887 with the intention of expanding and following through on certain new doctrines sketched out in his previous work Beyond...
Ressentiment is a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one's own inferiority/failure onto an external scapegoat. The ego creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in oneself, but rather by an external "evil."
According to Kierkegaard, ressentiment occurs in a "reflective, passionless age", in which the populace stifles creativity and passion in passionate individuals. Kierkegaard argues that individuals who do not conform to the masses are made scapegoats and objects of ridicule by the masses, in order to maintain status quo and to instill into the masses their own sense of superiority.
Ressentiment comes from reactiveness: the weaker a man is, the less his capability for adiaphoria, i.e. to suppress reaction. According to Nietzsche, the more a man is active, strong-willed, and dynamic, the less place and time is left for contemplating all that is done to him, and his reactions (like imagining he is actually better) become less compulsive. The reaction of a strong-willed man (a "wild beast"), when it happens, is ideally a short action: it is not a prolonged filling of his intellect.
Scheler
Max SchelerMax Scheler
Max Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...
attempted to reconcile Nietzsche's ideas of master-slave morality and ressentiment with the Christian ideals of love and humility. Nietzsche saw Christian morality as a kind of slave morality, while Greek and Roman culture was characterized as a master morality. Scheler disagrees. He begins with a comparison of Greek love and Christian love. Greek love is described as a movement from lower value to higher value. The weaker love the stronger, the less perfect love the more perfect. The perfect do not love the imperfect because that would diminish their value or corrupt their existence. Greek love is rooted in need and want. This is clearly indicated by the Aristotelian concept of God as the "Unmoved Mover". The unmoved mover is self-sufficient being completely immersed in its own existence. The highest object of contemplation, and who moves others through the force of attraction because efficient causality would degrade its nature.
In Christian love, there is a reversal in the movement of love. The strong bend to the weak, the healthy help the sick, the noble help the vulgar. This movement is a consequence of the Christian understanding of the nature of God as fullness of being. God's love is an expression of His superabundance. The motive for love is not charity nor the neediness of the lover, but it is rooted in a deeply felt confidence that through loving I become more personalized and most real to myself. The motive for the world is not need or lack (à la Schopenhauer), but a creative urge to express the infinite fullness of being. Poverty and sickness are not values to be celebrated in order to spite those who are rich and healthy, but they simply provide the opportunity for a person to express his love. Rich people are harder to love because they are less in need of your generosity. Fear of death is a sign of a declining, sick, and broken life (Ressent 60). St. Francis' love and care for the lepers would have mortified the Greek mind, but for St. Francis, the threats to well-being are inconsequential because at the core of his being there is the awareness that his existence is firmly rooted in and sustained by the ground of ultimate being. In genuine, Christian love, the lower values that are relative to life are renounced not because they are bad, but simply because they are obstacles to those absolute values which allow a person to enter into a relationship with God. It is through loving like God that we are deified. This is why Scheler sees the Christian saint as a manifestation of strength and nobility and not manifesting ressentiment.
Weber
Max WeberMax Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
in The Sociology of Religion relates ressentiment to Judaism, an ethical salvation religion of a "pariah people." Weber defines ressentiment as "a concomitant of that particular religious ethic of the disprivileged which, in the sense expounded by Nietzsche and in direct inversion of the ancient belief, teaches that the unequal distribution of mundane goods is caused by the sinfulness and the illegality of the privileged, and that sooner or later God's wrath will overtake them." (Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 110.
Sartre
Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
used the term bad faith
Bad faith (existentialism)
Bad faith is a philosophical concept used by existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the phenomenon where a human being under pressure from societal forces adopts false values and disowns their innate freedom to act authentically...
to describe a highly similar phenomenon of blaming one's own failure on external factors and therefore denying responsibility
Moral responsibility
Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...
for oneself.
See also
- Bad faith (existentialism)Bad faith (existentialism)Bad faith is a philosophical concept used by existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the phenomenon where a human being under pressure from societal forces adopts false values and disowns their innate freedom to act authentically...
- ExistentialismExistentialismExistentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
- Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
- Master-slave moralityMaster-slave moralityMaster-slave morality is a central theme of Friedrich Nietzsche's works, in particular the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morality. Nietzsche argued that there were two fundamental types of morality: 'Master morality' and 'slave morality'...
- Max SchelerMax SchelerMax Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology...
- PsychologyPsychologyPsychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
- Søren KierkegaardSøren KierkegaardSøren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...