Autor: Scheler, Max

Buch: Ressentiment

Titel: Ressentiment

Stichwort: Einführung 1: Ressentiment allgemein: die emotive Struktur (3 Bestimmungen); 1) Wurzel v. R.: Ohmacht (impotency; physische, soziale, geistige usw.); 2) Unwertgefühle; 3) Unterschied zu Wut-Aktionen usw.; Beispiel: Fuchs u. d. Trauben (Äsop)

Kurzinhalt: Ressentiment is an incurable, persistent feeling of hating and despising which occurs in certain individuals and groups. It takes its root in equally incurable impotencies or weaknesses that those subjects constantly suffer from.

Textausschnitt: I. THE EMOTIVE STRUCTURE OF RESSENTIMENT IN GENERAL

6a What, precisely, is ressentiment? The general answer to the question is threefold.
1. Ressentiment is an incurable, persistent feeling of hating and despising which occurs in certain individuals and groups. It takes its root in equally incurable impotencies or weaknesses that those subjects constantly suffer from. These impotencies generate either individual or collective, but always negative emotive attitudes. They can permeate a whole culture, era, and an entire moral system. The feeling of ressentiment leads to false moral judgments made on other people who are devoid of this feeling. Such judgments are not infrequently accompanied by rash, at times fanatical claims of truth generated by the impotency this feeling comes from. There are various kinds of impotencies from which, strangely enough, the very strength of ressentiment feelings well up. They can be psychic, mental, social, or physical impotencies, disadvantages, weaknesses or deficiencies of various kinds. The individuals and groups concerned suffer from a blockage to communicate with others. They tend to come on slow and, if at all, they can hardly vent what keeps on plaguing them. (Fs)

2. Any feeling of ressentiment stemming from the impotency in a ressentiment-subject is accompanied by hidden feelings of self-disvalue over against others. The overwhelming dissimilarity between a ressentiment-subject and other people causes a disorder in value experiences and of all feelings conjoined with these disarranged values. In a marked contrast to such a ressentiment-subject, an individual of strong personality has no need to compare himself with his fellow humans, even if they happen to be superior in specific respects and abilities. The strong person is always ready and willing to accept values higher than those he represents. Therefore, no ressentiment can come up. Because of this emotive readiness, [eg: he?] is not easily embarrassed or ashamed about himself. Feelings of resentment, however, are irritated by the unattainability of positive values that others represent. Therefore, the inner experiences with others and of himself are in constant disarray. There is always present in ressentiment a disorder of the heart or a "désordre du coeur." That is, ressentiment is a state of constant aberration from the order of values, from the order of feelings and of love in which acts values are first given, i.e., from the "ordo amoris" or the "ordre du coeur." All this amounts to a damaged moral tenor of the individual person constantly charged with ressentiment feelings. (Fs)

7a
3. The constant state of ressentiment is distinguished sharply from furious reactions or outbursts of anger. Whenever a prosaic resentment-feeling finds satisfaction by way of, say, successful revenge and retaliation, there is no resentment proper at hand. It is therefore not the case that there is ressentiment in those who act out various types of terrorism, we are so familiar with in our time. Types of terrorism, such as murdering people because of hate, of holding hostages, of placing explosives under parked cars, or the terrorism of devastating whatever may be nearby, etc., happen as a rule acted because criminals want to find an inner fulfillment in their revengeful terrorism since there are little or no other means to this end. While persons committing acts of violence may entertain a prosaic resentment, one must, reading Scheler's text, come to the conclusion that throughout terrorism resentment is prone to be found among those who do not place bombs to kill, etc., but among those who stay behind such acts. Thus, ressentiment-subjects are often to be found among sympathizers of violence rather than among the criminals themselves doing violence.

8a Let us illustrate the difference between ressentiment and resentment by two examples taken from literature. (Fs)

8b The short story of one of Scheler's favorite writers, Edgar Allen Poe ( 1809- 1849), "The Cask of Amontillado" may tells us of the revenge taken by one whose personal honor had been seriously injured. Under the pretense of fun, he later on decides to tie his offender to a wall of a wine cellar, where they had been drinking. Having done so, he then starts to wall him up from the front, slowly and without mercy, each brick increasingly enjoying his feelings of revenge. When the last one is laid in place and the offender walled up to die of thirst, suffocation and starvation, the revenge is consumed, and no resentment can well up again. In ressentiment proper, however, no such gratification of revenge occurs. This is because the impulse to revenge, but no revenge itself, keeps on simmering without end and relief in sight. The impotency and powerlessness concerned blocks the venom of ressentiment from being washed away by a factual revenge. Of course, revenge like that in Poe's story, can in certain cases be fulfilled over and over again after each revenge taken and be suffused with ressentiment. This is the case with certain serial killers with whom the impulse to take revenge is not completely diluted by one kill alone. Resentment is so deep that it can well up again and again after each revenge taken. (Fs)

8c Another literary example helps us to come closer to ressentiment. It is Aesop's well known fable of "The Fox and the Grapes," which Scheler alludes to. There are the sweet grapes tempting the fox, but out of his reach. After leaping up and up to get a hold of some, the fox gives up trying. Leaving the scene, he convinces himself that those grapes were not sweet but sour anyway. Aesop's fable comes closer to ressentiment proper, because there is an impotency involved which is at the root of a value-deception. It is a physical impotency, which the fox can not overcome because he lacks the strength to jump high enough for the grasp of a grape. This makes the fox powerless to taste the grapes' sweetness. The powerlessness, in turn, makes him detract and diminish the value of their sweetness into "sour grapes."