From repressed hostility to moral emotions

In this section we will reconsider again the emotion involved in ressentiment and focus more particularly on the ones that characterise the reevaluation process. We previously defended

541 Wallace, 2006, p. 221.

542 Janaway, 2007, p. 3.

543 GM, II, 16.

544 Elster, 1996, p. 1392.

545 RAM, p. 44.

the view that the POR is someone who is mainly attempting to overcoming her distress with a propped up feeling of moral superiority. But how is this feeling experienced? We will now argue that it is experienced in the form of moral emotions.

To say that the person of ressentiment changes her evaluations is a shorthand for what is in fact a much more complex phenomenon. At different stages of this enduring phenomenon, the POR transitions from impressions of value and evaluations and emoting based thereon, to different impressions and evaluations and so, too, to different ways of emoting. As Griffiths remarks:

Emotions are a class of mental processes in which people regain psychic equilibrium by altering their perception of reality rather than altering reality itself […] people can use emotions to view the world in a light that is psychologically more rewarding to us than other possible interpretations.⁵⁴⁶

The original occurrence of envy, hatred, or revengefulness signals, indirectly, an affective attachment to unreachable goods and unrealisable values. Suppose I envy my neighbour; this might be the case because I find his wealth and good looks desirable while I painfully experi -ence my incapacity to exemplify these qualities myself. A feature of such ordinary episodes is always that I positively value these goods in the first place. But then, in ressentiment I alter my attachments – by finding, say, the grapes sour and power evil. Which emotions manifest an attachment to these new values? What attitudes exhibit a new commitment to, say, frugal-ity, which is preferred over wealth, or modesty which is favoured over sensuous pleasure?

And more generally, how are these new values experienced?

When ressentiment grows out of envy and a feeling of inferiority, there is an identifiable set of emotions marking the POR's transition to new value judgements or to a new axiological hierarchy. The characteristic judgements of ressentiment involve a moral reevaluation of the world. This, as we have argued, can occur directly, as when I belittle my neighbour as morally depraved, and praise my standing as morally good; or – as we have seen – indirectly, as when I consider my own frugality and humility to be higher non-moral values and come to appre-hend myself as morally superior for preferring them. We shall now analyse the claim that the POR’s emotional responses are, in these cases, moral too. The specification here is necessary, for there is a form of ressentiment that does not entail that kind of moral reevaluation, for example, Aesop's fox, who turns sweet grapes into sour ones.

Determining the exact relation between indignation, ressentiment and the reevaluation pro-cess will allow us to fulfil an important desideratum, mentioned in the Introduction, which is to determine whether ressentiment is truly distinct from resentment and whether or not the kind of resentment harboured by the POR is genuine. From what we already know,

resent-546 Griffiths in Hatzimoysis, 2003, pp. 59-60.

ment is clearly not to be confused with ressentiment; the phenomena are of quite different kinds. Yet the POR also comes to feel and harbour resentment, and this is probably why the two concepts are still so often identified. The question, then, is whether there is any differ-ence between the POR’s resentment and the familiar emotion I experidiffer-ence in response to wrongdoing. We will address this question from a more general standpoint and consider the relation between moral emotions and ressentiment. For resentment is not the only attitude the POR harbours; indignation and a general self-righteous attitude are part of her charac-teristic responses as well. Resentment in this case has a narrower scope and should be con-trasted with other moral emotions such as shame and guilt. Unlike the latter emotions, the relevant states in the case of ressentiment are “other-condemning”, as opposed to the family of “self-conscious” moral emotions.⁵⁴⁷

We shall argue that both the experience of resentment and indignation provide some relief from the tension caused by the repression of hostile attitudes and the initial experience of inferiority. Both are vectors of her attempt to counterbalance a damaged sense of self-worth with a feeling of moral superiority. But how does this mechanism work and how these emo-tions related to the POR's evaluaemo-tions. In particular, let us see whether the very structure of the reevaluation process also warrants such role for indignation and resentment.

Indignation

Let us first consider indignation and its relation to ressentiment. Indignation is often bound up with the disvalue of injustice. But we have argued that indignation is not exclusively a response to the disvalue of injustice; the emotion is also directed at the wrong caused by the failure of others to exemplify certain values. If courage and orderliness are important values to me, when someone behaves in a cowardly fashion or makes my flat untidy, I will feel wronged and respond with indignation.

In other words, indignation reveals my attachment to these values even when their non-in-stantiation by others has no direct consequence on my sense of self-worth (see chapter 2).

The values picked out by indignation are important for the individual and the emotion there-fore vindicates norms and claims such as “people ought to be orderly” or “people ought to conduct their business thriftily”. An indignant person implicitly raises new claims when she sees that some norm has been violated; a norm that is of the form “value V ought to be instantiated” or “value V ought to be preferred over value W”. We have previously assumed that values ground norms. The attachment to, say, the value of justice (very much a hard-wired capacity of our brain⁵⁴⁸) is manifested in the affective support of norms of justice and

547 Haidt, 2003.

548 Binmore, 2005.

emotional reactions when such norms are violated. Wealthy businesspeople who dodge their taxes transgress a norm of fairness and cause my moral indignation. Such examples are quite straightforward when indignation is seen to respond to the injustice of an action, but it can have different objects too. A very prosaic case such as a lack of tidiness can arouse indigna-tion, for example. Puritans typically condemn, morally, the absence of such a trait in others.

And as a Swiss protestant, I may come to find that my negligent neighbour is breaching essential norms of thriftiness and diligence. Since these are positive, non-moral, values to me, their non-instantiation bears a negative value. Hence, indignation is not exclusively a reaction to injustice; it can also be a response to the non-instantiation of a different kind of value, which is experienced as the violation of a norm that wrongs me.

Considering the case of the person of ressentiment more specifically, it appears that her newly endorsed evaluations come with various emotional vindications. The POR always apprehends her rival as lacking the values or virtues she considers good, or as preferring lower over higher values. She may regard her own weaknesses as a form of humility, and thus her rival as arrogant. Her new preferences – favouring modesty over pride – are then signalled by bouts of indignation against her rival's alleged lack of humility. The same phe-nomenon is illustrated in the case of my relation to a rich and successful neighbour. If I try to overcome my suffering and feeling of inferiority by valuing the opposite values of frugality and discretion – a typical sweet-lemon strategy – I will harbour indignation towards anyone who fails to be frugal and discrete. In fact, in order to find out which state of affairs the per-son of ressentiment could be indignant about, one simply needs to observe the content and structure of her reevaluation. If the POR comes to value B instead of her original value A, she will feel indignant about a perceived deficiency of B or the presence of A which, by definition, is an attribute of her rival. Indignation makes the indignant condemn.

Indignation is grounded in the POR's reevaluation. If she comes to prefer frugality and humil-ity, clearly the perception of the opposite traits or of any preference for less important values triggers indignation. Since indignation is the affective correlate of the values the POR comes to adopt in the wake of her reevaluation, we should bear in mind that these new values are endorsed in an attempt to obtain relief from the repeated repression of hostile emotions and a damaged sense of self-worth. We may therefore also consider the hypothesis that the POR's indignation is, in reality, simply envy expressed differently. This, of course, should not be understood as a reductionist assertion; the two emotions are different. Yet this does not rule out the possibility that indignation constitutes an expression of envy, repressed envy in par-ticular.⁵⁴⁹ Aristotle already remarked that envy may be thought to be almost the same thing

549 People experiencing envy might eventually “find additional ways to focus on both the moral baseness of the target of their envy and on the seemingly unfair process through the advantage came about. This process might begin to tip the transmutational process toward indignation and resentment proper together with

as indignation, for they are disturbing pains excited by the prosperity of others, although in envy, there is no consideration of desert.⁵⁵⁰ Ranulf claims that “moral indignation (which is the emotion behind the disinterested tendency to inflict punishment) is a kind of disguised envy”.⁵⁵¹ The once influential German economic historian Sombart argues that industrious-ness and thriftiindustrious-ness are important virtues for the lower middle class. They are in fact the condition for their economic survival. However, these traits only become virtues, he claims, because members of this class indulge in sweet-lemon reevaluations; their social and eco-nomic condition are deemed morally superior in response to their oppressed, and repressed, envy of the upper classes, which they apprehend with indignation.⁵⁵² The once influential Erich Fromm also believes that a salient attribute of the bourgeoisie is its propensity to

“rationalise envy as moral indignation”.⁵⁵³

How should these claims be understood? Since the experience of ressentiment is marked by the repression of hostile emotions, one way for the POR to discharge, say, her envy is to har -bour indignation instead. Apart from allowing her to uphold, in the end, her new values, this transmutation strategy is realised through reevaluation and comes with several benefits.

First, it allows the POR to vent her repressed tensions and aggressiveness in the form of a public and moral disapproval of the rival. Second, it provides an alternative to private ven-geance or direct attack on the rival which, although desired intensely, cannot be acted out by the impotent person of ressentiment. When struck by envy, an individual may want to per-sonally harm his rival or destroy the coveted object; indignation on the other hand comes with a desire to see his rival punished impersonally. This has the effect of “lifting the object of ressentiment out of the hands of revenge”.⁵⁵⁴ From the POR's perspective, the expected out-come is similar, since envy motivates potentially harmful actions and indignation supports claims and norms that are detrimental to the rival, who the POR now thinks ought to be

pun-the possibility of convincing opun-thers of pun-the validity of pun-their sense of injustice. And, finally, if people pun-then find a way to gain a degree of increased control, the end state will be righteous indignation and full-blown resentment and the open aggression that this state of affairs can grant” (Smith & Kim, 2007, pp. 56–57).

550 Aristotle, 1386b.

551 Ranulf, 1964, pp. 1-44. Ranulf considers his theory to be identical to Scheler's theory of ressentiment, though he disagrees with the latter’s methodology. As he puts it:

[t]he thesis which we have tried to prove is identical with that of Max Scheler […]. But unfortunately we are not able to invoke his argument as additional evidence in support of the result at which we have arrived because the German sociologist has been content to rely on a method which, in our opinion, ought to deprive his essay of any claim to be acknowledged as a contribution to the advancement of science (Ranulf, 1964, p. 199).

552 Sombart, 1930, p. 340.

553 Fromm, 1941, p. 212.

554 GM, II, 11.

ished. This shift from personal vengeance to third-party punishment is crucial and consti-tutes an important property of ressentiment. Victims of this drive, as Darwall suggest, “rather than owning up to their sense of personal grievance, […] take the insult, as it were, imper-sonally, rather than personally”.⁵⁵⁵ Indignation, in other words, trades envy's private revenge for third-party punishment, a public revenge. In an important contribution to the sociology of emotions, Ranulf claims that indignation drives the emergence of a disinterested tendency to inflict punishment. According to him, this tendency grounds the institutionalisation of third-party punishment that is criminal law and coincides with the rise of the lower middle classes. Puritanism and Protestantism, and in particular Calvinism are, he argues, exemplific-ations of this phenomenon.⁵⁵⁶

We have argued that the man of ressentiment indulges in reevaluation in an attempt to arouse a feeling of moral superiority, in order to counterbalance his damaged sense of self-worth. Righteous indignation might typically be the mark of such a phenomenon. Repeated moral outrage condemns transgressors and raises claims for their punishment. It also gives the POR a moral stance from which she condemns the rival and his deficiencies with regard to certain values. But through that same indignation she shows a preference for what she comes to see as higher values and more important causes. Her actions, traits, and prefer-ences become morally superior because they point to higher values. This is why Scheler believes that some individuals draw a sense of moral superiority from being (very) con-cerned about values and ideals such as those of humanitarianism.⁵⁵⁷ Their indignation sig-nals that their values are higher and ought to be preferred. Those who fail to share the same value preferences are thus thought to fail from a moral standpoint. The POR eventually deals with moral values in a Pharisaical way. Her excessive righteousness signals the fact that she directly aims to realise moral values and excellence, as we have seen, if Scheler is to be believed, the exemplification of moral values cannot be willed directly without running the risk of self-righteousness.⁵⁵⁸ The person of ressentiment comes across as someone who glows with moral superiority – a feeling entirely grounded on her reevaluations. Nietzsche illustrates this specific relation between ressentiment and indignation in his portrayal of Eugen Dühring, a crude anti-Semitic moralistic agitator who, as we have noted, also happens

555 Darwall, 2013, p. 3.

556 As Mencken writes, more idiosyncratically:

There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness – to bring him down to the miserable level of 'good' men, i.e., of stupid, cowardly and chronically unhappy men (Mencken, 1982, p. 163).

557 RAM, Chap. 4.

558 Mulligan, 2009; FORM; Blosser, 1999.

to be the father of the expression “ressentiment”. This figure offers a telling example of what Nietzsche calls Kranken-Pharisäismus. As he puts it:

The hoarse, indignant baying of sick hounds, the vicious mendacity and rage of such ‘noble’ Pharisees, can be heard right into the hallowed halls of learning (I again remind readers who have ears to hear of that apostle of revenge from Berlin, Eugen Dühring, who makes the most indecent and disgusting use of moral clap-trap of anyone in Germany today: Dühring, today’s biggest loudmouth of morality, even amongst his kind, the anti-Semites). These worm-eaten physiological casualties are all men of ressentiment.⁵⁵⁹

The POR tends to be excessively indignation; she presents all the traits of what Sunstein calls an “indignation entrepreneur”.⁵⁶⁰ Repeated moral outrage and a glow experienced in relation to one's derived moral superiority are characteristic of ressentiment. This is also discernible in the characteristic trait of pettiness, which according to Ossowska is:

the tendency towards keeping a malicious eye on what other people are doing, a tendency to be shocked and scandalised by their behaviour, even when this in no way impinges on the interests of those who resent it.⁵⁶¹

This disposition is not to be confused with mere irritability; indignation is not an apprehend-ing of another's transgressions as personal offences. To be shocked and scandalised are rather ways to show disapprobation of the fact that some individuals, by their very conduct or simply in the values they personify, transgress norms. This is then experienced as a moral issue and seen as something that ought to be punished. In the case of ressentiment, these tendencies become loud and recurrent. As Nietzsche puts it:

You can look behind every family, every corporate body, every community: everywhere, the struggle of the sick against the healthy – mostly a silent struggle with small doses of poison, pinpricks, spiteful, long-suffering looks, but also interspersed with the loud gesture of the sick Pharisee playing his favourite role of ‘righteous indignation’.⁵⁶²

Or, as Snare puts it:

Moral indignation represents itself not as personal dislike or hatred, but as hatred of moral evil as such. Again, moral blame represents itself as something other than dislike or striking back at insult.⁵⁶³

559 GM, III, 14.

560 “The goal of indignation entrepreneurs is to convince people that indignation is appropriate and that the costs of expressing such indignation are worth incurring”(Sunstein, 2001, p. 351.)

561 Ossowska, 1986, p. 21. Emphasis added.

562 GM, III, 14. Emphasis added.

563 Snare, 1992, p. 126.

Apart from its excessiveness, ressentiment's indignation is also highly contagious.⁵⁶⁴The dis-play of indignation, outrage, and harsh condemnations are powerful tools of persuasion in that regard. The Swiss psychoanalyst Forel explains this very clearly:

Le ressentiment a une tendance à la propension, au prosélytisme dans les rangs des envieux. Alors que les sentiments les plus voisins du ressentiment, tels que : amertume, envie, jalousie, bouderie, réaction à des blessures d’amour-propre, de dignité ou de vanité restent, en général, limités l’individu, un ressentiment individuel peut se propager, peut soulever les masses, s’étendre à une nation, à tout une race.⁵⁶⁵

According to recent empirical findings, the force behind such contagion seems to be blaming attitudes such as resentment and indignation.⁵⁶⁶ Whether the POR consciously and strategic-ally turns into a proselyte in order to “grasp the susceptibility of the masses to this dynamic, and exploit it expressly for the purpose of undermining power”⁵⁶⁷ or whether ressentiment's effect on the masses is only the unconscious by-product of its Pharisaical emotions is still an open question at this stage. This question is related to the conscious or unconscious nature

According to recent empirical findings, the force behind such contagion seems to be blaming attitudes such as resentment and indignation.⁵⁶⁶ Whether the POR consciously and strategic-ally turns into a proselyte in order to “grasp the susceptibility of the masses to this dynamic, and exploit it expressly for the purpose of undermining power”⁵⁶⁷ or whether ressentiment's effect on the masses is only the unconscious by-product of its Pharisaical emotions is still an open question at this stage. This question is related to the conscious or unconscious nature