Writes Neitzsche, “It was the Jews who, in opposition to the aristocratic equation (good = aristocratic = beautiful = happy = loved by the gods), dared with a terrifying logic to suggest the contrary equation, and indeed to maintain with the teeth of the most profound hatred (the hatred of weakness) this contrary equation, namely, “the wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the sick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones who are blessed, for them alone is salvation—but you, on the other hand, you aristocrats, you men of power, you are to all eternity the evil, the horrible, the covetous, the insatiate, the godless; eternally also shall you be the unblessed, the cursed, the damned!” (Source, pg. 30)
Wow and yikes! Surely, orthodox Christians and Jews are bound to disagree with Neitzsche’s assessment, perhaps by suggesting his reductionist account of morality and religious history is a woefully inadequate explanation of the moral and historical facts, not to mention, quite misrepresentative of the religious teachings themselves, and certainly question begging against the metaphysical status of moral values and obligations; but also, just a teensy bit far-fetched. Cool. Put that aside. Because what really fascinates me is just how relevant Neitzsche’s account of ressentiment (definition forthcoming) is to today’s cultural climate of political correctness, sexual ethics, abortion, and so on. Thus, while ressentiment may not be able to adequately explain the origins of Christian morality, it does seem to offer *some* explanatory power concerning people who harbor an increasingly deep and automatic animus toward others within a certain social or racial or economic category, and especially (perhaps ultimately) to those adhering to traditional conservative/religious beliefs. A few examples immediately spring to mind:
Instead of being virtuous in their chastity, people who abstain from sex until marriage are now simply, prudes. Or, instead of defending innocent human life, people who oppose abortion are (allegedly) against the rights of women. Or, instead of having the courage to follow truth, people who question gender ideology are, accordingly, afforded the label of intolerant bigot, transphobe, or whatever else. All this seems to be precisely the sort of inversion of values to which Neitzsche is speaking of; except it isn’t the result of Christianity; it is, if anything, a devilish reaction to it.
Concerning ressentiment, the word Nietzsche leaves untranslated from its original French is to imply something of a sort of super-envy. The account can be summarized as follows: According to Nietzsche, the notion of “good” was, throughout a significant swath of history, strongly associated with power and nobility and aristocracy. To be weak and downtrodden was in some sense to be bad, evil. Eventually, however, the enslaved masses so resented their lot they devised a revolt, but, because they were too feeble to initiate such a revolt through physical force, they instead conducted a moral revolution – an inversion of values, as it were. The goal? To get people to see the good as evil, and vice versa, in order to restructure society and displace the powers that be. Sound familiar?
Importantly, ressentiment signals not just jealousy, but blame. Thus, the man or woman of ressentiment, as it were, is looking for somebody to scapegoat, which typically involves some person of Category X (insert race, economic status, religion, etc.) who is wicked because of their being Category X. Ressentiment is not merely an acknowledgement of one’s failings or lack of unearned benefits or lower social/economic status, but an attempt to explain one’s particular lot in life as precisely not a matter of personal responsibility, unintended (apparent) misfortune, or perhaps just a confluence of factors some of which may be irreducibly complex, but the result of somebody else, end of story. The parallels to contemporary society are, I suggest, chilling.
While I believe Nietzsche’s overall account of morality and history fails, he has certainly uncovered and been able to expose with vivacious clarity one of the most powerfully motivating and sinful psychological bents of the human mind, which currently plagues large swaths of the contemporary political conversation. For this reason — and perhaps this reason alone — his Genealogy of Morality is worth revisiting.