[1] The sense of weakness or inferiority complex and perhaps even 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.
This value system is then used as a means of justifying one's own weaknesses by identifying the source of envy as objectively inferior, serving as a defense mechanism that prevents the resentful individual from addressing and overcoming their insecurities and flaws.
[2] 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.
[11] Kaufmann expresses his discontent with this explanation and states, "A detailed comparison of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Scheler might be rewarding; but not giving us the original word at all and not rendering it literally, say, as envy (the best German translation says Neid, which is envy), but rather with a technical term from another man's philosophy, forestalls comparison, analysis, and needful thought.
'[12] Currently of great import as a term widely used in psychology and existentialism, ressentiment is viewed as an influential force for the creation of identities, moral frameworks and value systems.
Kierkegaard:"It is a fundamental truth of human nature that man is incapable of remaining permanently on the heights, of continuing to admire anything.
That is perfectly in order and is entirely justifiable so long as after having laughed at the great they can once more look upon them with admiration; otherwise the game is not worth the candle.
ressentiment becomes the constituent principle of want of character, which from utter wretchedness tries to sneak itself a position, all the time safeguarding itself by conceding that it is less than nothing.
Neither does it understand itself by recognizing distinction negatively (as in the case of ostracism) but wants to drag it down, wants to belittle it so that it really ceases to be distinguished.
In a burst of momentary enthusiasm people might, in their despondency, even long for a misfortune in order to feel the powers of life, but the apathy which follows is no more helped by a disturbance than an engineer leveling a piece of land.
[13] According to Nietzsche, the more a person is active, strong-willed, and dynamic, the less place and time is left for contemplating all that is done to them, and their reactions (like imagining they are actually better) become less compulsive.
The reaction of a strong-willed person (a "wild beast"[14]), when it happens, is ideally a short action: it is not a prolonged filling of their intellect.
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.
He follows Nietzsche's view that the challenge for both philosophy and life is to overcome the reactive state of things and become active, thereby constantly enhancing our power to act.
[19] René Girard differs from Nietzsche by assessing that ressentiment is a left-over of not pursuing the mimetic rival or the scapegoat.