When Bad Things Happen to Other People (21 page)

Briefly put,
Schadenfreude
and malicious glee are episodic concerns, where 
ressentiment
 is a dispositional one. Malicious glee indicates something about a person’s character, where
Schadenfreude
indicates something about how a person views justice and moral triviality. I have questioned the moral appropriateness of condemning some instances of malicious glee (specifically, those of self-esteem and of comedy). This same sort of defense can be expanded, with minimal modification, to cover resentment. This is not the case with 
ressentiment
, however, which bespeaks a genuine moral shortcoming.

Resentment versus 
Ressentiment

Ressentiment
, in the 
Oxford English Dictionary
 interchangeable with the word “resentment,” remains a somewhat vexing aspect of Nietzsche’s legacy because it has eluded consistent translation; because no criteria help us to discern when hostility and 
ressentiment
 are really the same thing; and because the application of 
ressentiment
 beyond religious morality is in some respects dubious. I argue that 
ressentiment
 and resentment are not in fact linguistic equivalents, and that 
ressentiment
 has more to do with envy than with hostility.

The two principal expositors of the phenomenon, Nietzsche and Scheler, relied on the French word 
ressentiment
 because they believed that it could not be reduced to the psychological notion of indignation. Agreeing with them, I adopt the convention of using the French
ressentiment
.
Ressentiment
 has become widely accepted within the German language, although there is no full equivalent for this term in English.11 Derived from the French word 
sentire
 (to feel), the English word resentment indicating indignation or bitter feelings against some person or situation carries less weight than the French notion of 
ressentiment
.

Scheler has offered a sound reason for retaining the French word, but in so doing, he has slanted the meaning Nietzsche intended:

We do not use the word 
ressentiment
because of a special predilection for the French language, but because we did not succeed in translating it into German. Moreover, Nietzsche has made it a
terminus technicus
. In the natural meaning of the French word I detect two elements. First of all 
ressentiment
 is the repeated experiencing and reliving of a particular emotional response reaction against someone else. The continual reliving of the emotion sinks it more deeply into the center of the personality, but concomitantly removes it from the person’s zone of action and expression. It is not a mere intellectual recollection of the emotion and of the events to which it “responded”—it is a re-experiencing of the emotion itself, a renewal of the original feeling. Secondly, the word implies that the quality of this emotion is negative, i.e., that it contains a movement of hostility.12

While the English noun “resentment” possesses marked similarities to the French word “
ressentiment
,” Scheler’s characterization of the phenomenon rules out the employment of the two words synonymously. (Scheler does not comment on the problems of English translation; “sour grapes” must be the closest linguistic and conceptual equivalent.) The English verb “to resent” derives from the same Latin prefix and verb as “
ressentir
.” However, the English verb pertains to cases in which someone merely feels or shows displeasure at (a person, act, remark, etc.) from a sense of injury or insult. Although I believe Scheler exaggerated the link of 
ressentiment
 to physical violence, I think he was correct to insist that by expressing our occasional “resentment,” we could avoid developing within ourselves the disposition called “
ressentiment
.”

As will become clear in examining Nietzsche’s speculations in the following section,
ressentiment
is essentially about the ongoing lack of and desire for some value or good, whereas resentment arises much more generally, in the context of feeling mistreated in a particular way. Sir Peter Strawson’s well-known essay “Freedom and Resentment” classifies resentment as a morally reactive attitude, a response that follows the perception that other people aren’t treating us, or others who deserve respect and goodwill, well enough. Although resentment is not necessarily a constructive sentiment, it may help change attitudes or behavior we find objectionable. Resentment is considerably less worrisome than 
ressentiment
, both psychologically and morally. What we speak of in English as resentment often accompanies what Nietzsche means by 
ressentiment
. I will now explain the difference this makes.

Nietzsche’s Theory of 
Ressentiment

Fredric Jameson has called Nietzsche “the primary theorist, if not, indeed, the metaphysician of 
ressentiment
.”13 Walter Kaufmann similarly termed 
ressentiment
 “one of the key conceptions of Nietzsche’s psychology and the clue to many of his philosophic contentions.”14 According to Kaufmann it is this state of mind or state of being that perhaps best illuminates the separation of Christian ethics from Nietzsche’s own (though whether Nietzsche endorsed the philosophical enterprise of arguing for ethical actions or emotions is not entirely clear). 
Ressentiment
 involves the feelings and emotions in a fundamental way. When explicating Nietzsche, Scheler had argued that no “perversions of value feelings” correspond to the perversions of desire, only illusions and delusions of value feeling. Scheler found this understandable, for “feeling” or “preferring” a value is an act of cognition. Therefore a man who slanders the unattainable values which oppress him may still be aware of their positive character.

I have said that Schopenhauer must have contributed to Nietzsche’s reflections on
ressentiment
. Schopenhauer speaks in 
The World as Will
 
and Representation
 of the “bitterest of all human sufferings, dissatisfaction with our own individuality” (I, p. 307). Nietzsche’s insight that the weak suffer from themselves bears the influence of Schopenhauer:

Where does one not encounter that veiled glance which burdens one with a profound sadness, that inward-turned glance of the born failure which betrays how such people speak to themselves—that glance which is a sigh! “If only I were someone else,” sighs that glance: “but there is no hope of that. I am who I am: how could I ever get free of myself? And yet—I am sick of myself!” (
GM
 III, Section 14)

In his last book and philosophical autobiography 
Ecce Homo
, Nietzsche repeats nearly verbatim Schopenhauer’s insight into the deep pain caused by thoroughgoing dissatisfaction with the self (“Why I Am So Wise,” Section 6). In this essay Nietzsche articulates the link between
Schadenfreude
and 
ressentiment
.

Nietzsche’s understanding of 
ressentiment
 reflects an apprehension, absent in Schopenhauer, of the 
dispositional
 (or habitual, as opposed to episodic) nature of this reactive attitude. People who yearn to be someone else, those who fundamentally dislike themselves, exhibit a properly dispositional trait. They are fertile soil for 
ressentiment
. Someone simply having a bad day, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily dislike him- or herself. A sporadic or temporary crisis of self-esteem differs in scope, duration, and consequences from the state of mind that leads to
ressentiment
. This second class of persons may, when rationally assessing the misfortune of another, include in their thought process an element of feeling inferior. (Of course, this feeling of inferiority or disempowerment is continuously subject to revision.) Nobles may feel resentment, but they do not suffer from 
ressentiment
.

Difficulties of all sorts befall us. Difficulties, regardless of their extent, bother some of us more than others. Nietzsche’s view of human life, a view he shares with Schopenhauer, is not cheery:

Here we must beware of superficiality and get to the bottom of the matter, resisting all sentimental weakness: life itself is 
essentially
 appropriation, injury, overpowering of what is alien and weaker; suppression, hardness, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and at least, at its mildest, exploitation—but why should one always use those words in which a slanderous intent has been imprinted for ages? (
BGE,
 Section 259)

For Nietzsche, this omnipresent suffering is a consequence of the will to power. The most repellent aspect of human misery for Nietzsche is its irrationality. Nietzsche cares about suffering, but he warns us not to allow preoccupation with it to interfere in the task of living our lives.

Nietzsche views 
ressentiment
 as a lasting mental attitude caused by the systematic repression of certain emotions and affects. Later, Scheler identified these emotions:
Rache
(revenge),
Hass
(hatred),
Bosheit
 (malice),
Neid
(envy),
Scheelsuch
(impulse to detract),
Hämischkeit
(spite),
Groll
(rancor),
Zorn
(wrath),
Rachsucht
(vindictiveness, vengefulness), and
Schadenfreude
. In
On the Genealogy of Morals
I, Section 8, Nietzsche associates the 
modus operandi
 of this repression with Judaism. Though he initially blames Judaism for
ressentiment
, Nietzsche takes pains to make clear that Christianity is just as guilty, because Christianity eagerly absorbed the perversion of values underlying 
ressentiment
.

Invoking God to justify the suffering of others lies at the heart of “the slave revolt in morality.” As I have said, Nietzsche accuses the Jews of initiating that revolt. Their misery over failing to attain the values of “the noble, the powerful, the masters, the rulers” led Jews to substitute a new system of values such that

the wretched alone are the good; the poor, impotent, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone are blessed by God, blessedness is for them alone—and you, the powerful and noble, are on the contrary the evil, the cruel, the lustful, the insatiable, the godless to all eternity; and you shall be in all eternity the unblessed, accursed, and damned! (
GM
 I, Section 7)

Christians subsequently embraced this revolt wholeheartedly. Nietzsche calls the ideal of Christian love, agape, the “triumphant crown” of “Jewish hatred.” First the Jew and then the Christian learned to transfer to God the vengeance he himself could not wreak on the great. 
Ressentiment
 thus began as a distinctly religious phenomenon.

It is a mistake to think of 
ressentiment
 as 
necessarily
 a function of religion. It would be more accurate to think of envy as the culprit. The success of 
ressentiment
 does not hang on religious belief.
Ressentiment
poisons the consciences of life’s winners, who start to doubt whether they deserve to prosper. Even the strong have their weary hours, Nietzsche tells us. Once life’s winners start doubting their right to happiness,
ressentiment
has worked its black magic. Even an atheist, though, might worry about the misery he sees around him: he doesn’t need a religious voice to compel him to look at the suffering of others. Religion may fuel
ressentiment,
but religion is not a necessary cause.

Further, it is a mistake to dismiss cynically all of the Jewish/Christian morality. Against Nietzsche, Scheler defended the concept of Christian love as an expression of strength rather than weakness, as a sign of vitality rather than decadence. He suggested that Nietzsche had confused authentic love with Schopenhauer’s version of Christian culture. Scheler regarded the culture of bourgeois society as the most profound manifestation of negative 
ressentiment
. In particular, he condemned the bourgeois endorsement of utilitarian philosophy as a perversion of true values and a subversion of genuine feeling and Christian love. These reservations notwithstanding, Scheler was one of the first serious thinkers to understand the extraordinary importance of Nietzsche’s moral insight.

The following passage from 
On the Genealogy of Morals
 most clearly explains how the “transvaluation” underlying 
ressentiment
 works:

The slave revolt in morality begins when
ressentiment
itself becomes creative and gives birth to values: the 
ressentiment
 of natures that are denied the true reaction, that of deeds, and compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge. While every noble morality develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself, slave morality from the outset says No to what is “outside,” what is “different,” what is “not itself”; and this No is its creative deed. This inversion of the value-positing eye—this 
need
 to direct one’s view outward instead of back to oneself—is of the essence of
ressentiment
: in order to exist, slave morality always first needs a hostile external world; it needs, physiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act at all—its action is fundamentally reaction. (I, Section 10)

Like 
Schadenfreude
, 
ressentiment
 is a function of reaction, not action.
Ressentiment
 involves a distortion of reality, a distortion of facts. Recent philosophical attention to sentimentality has focused on how this emotional indulgence distorts the world.15 Sentimentality causes people to falsify the object of their emotions. They may actively cultivate false beliefs about some object in order to make an object appear appropriate to their feelings. A film or novel, for example, might sentimentally portray a child molester by emphasizing his own sad childhood (the loss of a mother, the cruelty of a father, the death of a pet) instead of focusing on his pattern of damaging the lives of children. As John Kekes has put it, sentimental people change the world (in fantasy) to accommodate their feelings, as opposed to changing their feelings to accommodate the world.