Nietzsche's Psychology of Resentment: How Toxic Anger Rewrites Reality

"Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution. Resentment is the wellspring of this reversal, the fuel that drives movements into rigidity." - Hannah Arendt

"The oppressed, when they can no longer endure their lot, invent values that make their powerlessness into virtue. Resentment creates morality where strength has failed." - Albert Camus

"Ressentiment is a self-poisoning of the mind which has quite definite causes and consequences. It is the fertile soil for the reversal of values." - Max Scheler

"The colonized man will first manifest this aggressiveness which has been deposited in his bones against his own people. It is resentment turned inward, until it explodes outward against the colonizer." - Frantz Fanon

Nietzsche saw a force that was far more sinister and destructive than typical anger, which he named resentment. It is a slow poison that becomes ingrained in the psyche and changes how people perceive the world, not a sudden outburst of anger that burns hot and then goes away. Reality itself is distorted by resentment. What starts out as frustration quickly develops into a whole philosophy of life that has the power to blind people and even change entire societies.

Usually, the cycle starts with frustration. A person feels excluded or denied access to opportunities, status, or power. This is a humiliation as well as a barrier. Think about how the patricians' domination in ancient Rome forced the plebeians to accept their political marginalization. Generations of their shared annoyance culminated in social conflicts that fundamentally changed Roman law. Resentment initially grows in such soil.

Rumination follows. The sense of injury is fuelled by the mind repeatedly replaying perceived injustices. After losing their privileges during the Revolution, the French nobility carried these wounds for decades, and their resentment tainted French politics in the nineteenth century. Similarly, this second stage is collectively embodied by the Palestinians, who have endured decades of ethnic cleansing, military occupation, racism, discrimination, and political marginalization. The memories of brutality, ethnic cleansing, and victims of genocide are passed down from one generation to the next, reoccurring like an endless tale. With each recounting, the land occupation escalates from a political grievance to a psychological scar that is passed down from parent to child.

Unable to act directly, the resentful get caught in imaginary revenge aspirations. These complex internal narratives culminate in the redress of the weak and the punishment of oppressors. The slave uprising against Rome, led by Spartacus, was the realization of numerous unseen visions held by both men and women who had often envisioned of their masters being humiliated. However, these kinds of visions are rarely true to life, and more often than not, they keep the helpless trapped in cycles of disappointment and longing.

The shift of values is the most harmful stage. Here, suffering is turned into moral superiority and weakness into virtue. According to Nietzsche, Christianity itself emerged from this shift: the meek inherited a moral authority over the strong, elevating suffering, patience, and humility to the highest virtues. This is the path taken by entire political movements in more recent times, which frame helplessness as wisdom and recognize oppression as honesty.

A show of justice can be mistaken for real change on social media, which has also turned into an arena of resentment where the weak find momentary victory in humiliating the strong.

However, the conflict in Ukraine is the most striking example of the psychology of resentment in modern times. America and NATO used a sovereign people as tools of their proxy war strategy because they were determined to undermine Russia. Despite being sent to fight a war whose terms were established not in Kyiv but rather in Washington, London, and Brussels, Ukrainians were promised armaments, protection, honour, and even victory. Their hopes for violence against their oppressor were exaggerated into triumphant ill-conceived ideas and their frustrations with unethical behaviour and lost sovereign territory were channelled into peace talks near the end of the proxy war.

However, as the conflict progressed and Russia solidified its victories, the delusions of Western assistance gave way to the harsh reality that they had been given up for a fight they were unable to win. All that's left is a deep psychological scar, a sense of being used, abandoned, and duped, as well as a collective Ukrainian and Russian resentment.  In this way, Ukraine might end up being for history what Rome, France, and Palestine were in their own eras: a lasting reminder of how animosity changes countries, taints identities, and causes the weak to cling to family histories.

Thus, resentment is a worldview rather than just an emotion. It distorts reality to cover up jealousy and excuse weakness. According to Nietzsche, the antidote starts with brutal honesty.

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