Ressentiment (book)

[1] His observations and insights concerning "a special form of human hate" [2] and related social and psychological phenomenon furnished a descriptive basis for his philosophical concept of "Ressentiment".

[3] As a widely recognized convention, the French spelling of this term has been retained in philosophical circles so as to preserve a broad sense of discursive meaning and application.

Folk wisdom comes closest to Scheler's meaning by recognizing Ressentiment as a self-defeating turn of mind which is non-productive and ultimately a waste of time and energy.

[7] It is difficult to imagine the intellectual concern of the late 19th and early 20th century over the collective drift in Western civilization away from old-guard monarchical and hierarchical societal structures (i.e., one's station in life being determined primarily by birth), toward the relative uncertainty and instability embodied in such Enlightenment Era ideals such as democracy, nationhood, class struggle (Karl Marx), human equality, humanism, egalitarianism, utilitarianism and the like.

Friedrich Nietzsche used the term Ressentiment to explain this emerging degenerative morality issuing from an underlying existential distinction between what he saw as the two basic character options available to the individual: the Strong (the "Master") or the Weak (the "Slave").

This view of a "natural order", so typical of 19th Century Europe (e.g., Darwin's Theory of Evolution) is expressed in Nietzsche's metaphysical principal – Will to Power.

However, one can easily extend this notion of "comparing" to externally acquired qualifiers having the potential for negative valuations which also tend to a support consumer based economics: i.e., status symbol possessions (a lavish house, or car), expensive fashion accessories, special privileges, club memberships, plastic surgery and the like.

For example: 5) Ressentiment triggers a tendency in people which Scheler termed "Man's Inherent Fundamental Moral Weakness":[25][26] a sense of hopelessness which pre-disposes a person to regress and seek surrogates of lower value as a source of solace.

When personal progress becomes stagnant or frustrated in moving from a negative to a more positive plateau given a relatively high vital or psychic level of value attainment, there is an inherent tendency toward regression in terms of indulgence in traditional vices and a host of other physical and psychological addictions and self-destructive modes of behavior (e.g., the use of narcotics).

[27] This tendency to seek surrogates to compensate for a frustration with higher value attainment inserts itself into the scenario of consumerist materialism as an insatiable self-defeating need "to have more" in order to fill the void of our own philosophical bankruptcy and spiritual poverty.

When it occurs elsewhere, it is either due to psychological contagion—and the spiritual venom of ressentiment is extremely contagious – or to the violent suppression of an impulse which subsequently revolts by "embittering" and "poisoning" the personality.

"[29] But for Scheler, the essence of Impotency as characteristic of Pathological Ressentiment has less to do with the actual presence of an external oppressor, and more to do with a self-inflicted personal sense of inadequacy over limitations in the face of positive value attainment itself.

These re-experienced feelings of impotency become rationalized on a subconscious level as knee-jerk attitudinal projections: i.e., prejudices, bias, racism, bigotry, cynicism, and closed mindedness.

"[32] Such a random formal treatment of "otherness" offers a plausible explanation for hate crimes, serial killings (in part), genocide, the general framing of an enemy in faceless non-human terms, as well as any top-down or bottom-up form of class warfare agenda, etc.

"[20] Hence, the demands of Value-Delusion manifest in what we commonly refer to as a superiority complex, i.e., arrogance, hubris, hypocrisy, employment of double standards, denial, revenge, and self-projection of one's own negative qualities onto the opposition.

For Scheler, morality finds expression in response to "the call of the hour",[40] or exercise of personal conscience, which is based the heart's proper order of love (ordo amoris) in relation to positive and higher values.

For example, it is precisely the failure to feel for and identify with their victims (even to the extent of deriving sadistic pleasure) which characterizes the sociopath, the psychopath, the serial killer, the dictator, the rapist, the bully, the corrupt CEO and the ruthless drug dealer—all share this same common denominator.

Author Erick Larson in his book Devil in the White City renders with great precision a literary description of this deadening of higher feeling states in reference to America's first serial killer, Herman Webster Mudgett, alias Dr. H.H.

Indeed for the next several decades alienists [early psychologists] and their successors would find themselves hard-pressed with any precision what it was about men like Holmes that caused them to seem warm and integrating but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element of humanness was missing.

10) Finally, Pathological Ressentiment bears a particular relation to the Socio-Political Realm by virtue of, what Scheler describes as, man's lowest form of social togetherness, "Psychic Contagion".

In addition, Ressentiment is a philosophical and ethical concept from which to assess the spiritual and cultural health both of individual persons and society as a whole: a task which seems all the more urgent given economic globalization (i.e., a tendency toward carte blanche predatory capitalism).

[47] For example, it is entirely acceptable to view human ethical transcendence as complementary and commensurate with a bottom-up psychology of needs and drives so long as the arch of that qualitative direction is positive in nature.

This distinction is illustrated by the many cases in which negative role models can, and do, emerge as highly self-actualized economically powerful individuals from a psychological standpoint (clearly "Superman" type persons), but who are entirely lacking from an ethical, social and spiritual standpoint: e.g., the drug king-pin or pimp as a person young boys admire and look up to, or the corrupt CEO who absconds with obscene bonuses while his company goes bankrupt and the employee pension fund disintegrates.

For Scheler, Ressentiment is essentially a matter of self in relation to values, and only proximately an issue of social conflict over resources, power and the like (Master / Slave, or dominant / submissive relationships).

Rather, liken to the array of apriori hierarchy of value modalities, "class" has to do with who you make of yourself as a person,[48] which involves a whole range of factors including moral character, integrity, talents, aptitudes, achievements, education, virtues (i.e., generosity), reciprocal respect among diverse individuals (active citizenship) and the like.

Since society must be guided by the rule of law above power, we must promote government which relies upon fairness (See John Rawls) and egalitarian principal [49] in terms of channeling our national economic forces.