Post a Comment On: Internal Monologue

Sullivan used the Nietzschean term ressentiment to describe the crucible in which the twisted morality of the Islamic terrorist is forged. I think he is right to do so. Reading Wikipedia's definition of ressentiment, the aptness seems pretty clear:
Ressentiment is a profound sense of resentment, frustration, and hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, generated by a sense of weakness/inferiority and feelings of jealousy/envy in the face of the 'cause', that ultimately generates a rejecting/justifying 'value-system' or morality that exists as a means of attacking or denying the perceived source of one's own sense of inferiority.
(I know there's been some controversy about Wikipedia recently, but this definition fits what I recall of my study of Nietzsche.) I think its pretty easy to see how this might apply to Islamic terrorists: they see that the West is extremely powerful (and bullying) and sexually permissive relative to their own societies, and out of the resulting ressentiment generate a moral system that both attacks the morality of the West and, by glorifying death, somewhat mitigates the vast power difference between the two.

But when Sullivan refers to the feelings of Islamic terrorists, he calls it "Nietzsche's ressentiment, but with God re-attached". I'm not sure what he meant by saying "but with God re-attached". When did ressentiment become detached from God? My understanding is that for Nietzche, ressentiment is one of the primary generative forces behind Christianity. So it wasn't detatched from God, indeed it gives birth to the very nature of the Christian morality. Certainly, ressentiment could exist in non-Christian and non-religious contexts, but when Nietzsche uses the term he's always referring to it as the wellspring of Christian moral thought. One of Sullivan's readers points this out:
You are correct in saying that the Muslim mind set is that of Nietzsche's ressentiment. However, you err in saying "but with God re-attached." We all know that Nietzsche had his Zarathustra declare that god is dead (god was dead, at least in those days). But the death of god followed the advent of ressentiment by many centuries. In fact, god was historically and conceptually attached to the concept of ressentiment from the beginning.The reader then goes on to state how ressentiment is also the foundation of the very Christianity to which Sullivan subscribes. I can't quite follow the whole argument the reader makes. But the general thrust seems to be this: although it is true that one can mount a critique of terrorist morality using Nietzche's concept of ressentiment, one can use it to mount an equally sharp critique Christianity (and, I would add, many of the foundations of liberal democracy, such as equality). Indeed, that's what Nietzche himself used the concept for in Beyond Good and Evil and On the Geneaology of Morals.

Although I certainly see strains of ressentiment in Judeo-Christian texts and in the morality espoused by some Christian groups and denominations, I don't agree that it is central to all manifestations of Christianity. There are some forms of Christianity that seem to flow from a tremendous source of strength and goodness (what they would call God, I'm sure), rather than creep forth in perverse reaction to envy and powerlessness. But the "You may be having fun now, but God will kick your ass in the end!" sentiment does seem to be alive and well in the monotheistic traditions of the world today. In fact, numerous parties seem to be doing everything they can to bring on what they believe will be the ultimate ass-kicking (for everyone else, of course). Alas, this usually involves people getting killed.