Ressentiment
Resentment is a loanword from French and means as much as " secret grudge ." The resentment is regularly based on the feeling of permanent impotence in the face of suffered injustice and defeat or personal Back positedness. It is found both individual psychology, as in social psychological- historical expression. In philosophy, the resentment is the subject of moral criticism.
Conceptual history
Resentment is a nominalization of French ressentir, ( durable) feel, remember; Literally about after - feel in the temporal sense. It is first documented in the 16th century in French literature and is usually used in a neutral sense as for the permanent binding sense of gratitude. "Overall, " however, the Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, "refers to R. [ essentiment ] rather negative sensations content, because negative feelings memorize durable than positive ". The use of the word in English is an expression of the lack of a native-language correspondence and happens in the latter sense. Its use here is intrinsically linked with the moral and democratic critical philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Resentment thought in philosophy
The idea of the moral philosophy underlying definition is already found in Plato's dialogue Gorgias. There Callicles bears in dispute with Socrates, his idea of " real life " before:
" [W ] he probably could a man be blessed, that of some who served? But that's just the nature of beauty and rights, what I now say to you quite freely out that anyone who wants to live properly, his desires should make as large as possible, and they do not constrict; and these, how big they are, he must still be complied with by fortune bravery and insight, and what his desire is always satisfy them. This alone, I believe, are just the most incapable, so they just such people blame of shame, her own inability hiding, and say, footloose is shameful things in order, as I said even before that, the better of nature cramp people; and because they themselves are able to give their lusts no satisfaction, they praise the prudence and justice of their own because of effeminacy. "
Callicles sees all the action limiting moral ashamed fainting. Socrates welcomed the frankness of this commitment to the unrestricted desire and power principle and refuted the equation of good and pleasurable and enjoyable.
The earliest source for the use of the word should the essay Montaigne's cowardice is to be the mother of cruelty. Resentment is the feeling here that teaches the superior in battle the underdog, by waiving the killing and thus anchored its superiority permanently in the consciousness. As a refined level of retaliation Montaigne affirms the generation of resentment through life - leave compared to the barbaric killing of the enemy, which character does not overcome fear and therefore the cowardice and resentment on the part of the victor was.
Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche wins his resentment - term in dealing with Eugen Dühring, who introduced the term in the German -speaking philosophical debate and at the same time pretending whose radical, polemical worth using. Dühring had - in a kind of remake of the calli Klei 's argumentation - all legal concepts, in particular the fundamental justice at all, confront the nature of the fittest, explained by the resentment ( The value of life, 1865). In contrast, now occurs Nietzsche, though not as "higher", the real power relations recognizes parent values, but assumes an immanent justice between peers or direct strong.
Nietzsche describes the " psychology of resentment " as a self- poisoning by inhibited revenge: " Having a vengeance and run it is, get a violent attack of fever, but passes: but a revenge have, without strength and courage to carry it out, is called [ ... ] poisoning in body and soul to carry around. "
In the Genealogy of Morals (1887 ) Nietzsche applies this idea to the " History of morality " to. The poisoning by the resentment corrupts the general value estimates: "While the noble man from himself with confidence and openness lives ( Gennaios, edelbürtig ' underlines the nuance, sincere ' and probably naive '), as is the man of ressentiment neither sincere nor naive nor honest with himself and downright. His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places, secret paths and back doors, everything seems hidden him as his world, his security, his refreshment; he knows how to silence the non- forgetting, the waiting, the preliminary self- shrink, self- humiliating. "
Resentment finds its value and world-historical precipitation in the Judeo -Christian ethic that make as slave morality of reactive, negating character of ' affirmative, master morality of the Romans is compared. " Make " the place of the original estimates of "good" vs. "bad" now takes the morality of "good" and "evil." By reducing the scale of the original revenge pulse ( by delegation from the vengeance to God and delegation of the punishment to the state ) a internalization of man is forced, leading to the formation of moral concepts ( sin, guilt, conscience ) in the modern sense. However, these deny him, Nietzsche, their origin from the resentment and claim to absoluteness, which makes a " critique of moral values " as the question of the "value of values " is necessary. This criticism are particularly subject to modern European democracies whose fundamental value of Nietzsche as " the will to equality ' historically derived from the resentment of morality. It opens into the moral utopia of the superman as a liberation from the " spirit of revenge " at all.
Max Scheler
A phenomenological analysis of resentment in the critical connection to Nietzsche Max Scheler delivered in Resentment in the construction of morals (1912). Scheler concerns in particular a rehabilitation of Christian ethics over the universal Ressentimentverdacht Nietzsche.
He clarifies the concept as a " lasting psychological adjustment that results from systematically practiced suppression of discharges of certain emotions and affects, which are normal to itself and to the basic Bestande of human nature include ", which leads to a specific deformation of the value perception: When resentment is by " the repeated and afterlife of a particular [ hostile ] emotional response reaction against another " and tangential to the core of the personality, without manifest themselves in their spontaneous expression and action movements.
Fainting for revenge on the polluter avenges the resentment in the " dogged " awareness on the transcendent value by disparagement ( " Detraktion " ) or the same devaluation. What in precursors of the actual resentment about as masochistic " vindictiveness " expresses that " almost [ ... ] impulsively incidents that may give rise to an inner act of revenge, [ ... ] " seeks, shows characteristically in the typical " of Scheler so-called Ressentimentkritik " ( genitive subjektivus ): their negativistic attitude is not aimed at improving the criticized, but finds its satisfaction in the" exhilaration of fundamental opposition ".
Max Weber's Sociology of Religion
By limiting criticism Max Weber considered the resentment in Nietzsche's sense of the contribution to religious values of the so-called " pariah religiosity ". The influence of resentment on the " theodicy of suffering " of the oppressed, contrary to the assumed general responsibility rather low, although not completely negligible.
Depth psychology
The psychoanalyst Leon Wurmser seeks to make fruitful the Ressentimentbegriff for depth psychology. In the confrontation with Nietzsche sees in its glorification of strength even resentment effective than " fighting the shame".
The psychiatrist and psychotherapist Michael Linden recently describes a post-traumatic embitterment disorder, which can be understood as an extreme manifestation of the dynamics of resentment.
Current aftereffect
In the current debate, the media theorist Norbert Bolz attacks - gegenaufklärerisch under perversion of religious signs - the Ressentimentkritik Nietzsche on. In political science, for example, Roland Eckert linked to the enlightenment approach of Nietzsche to explain to political movements.