Resentment and Ressentiment

In the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, Friedrich Nietzsche formulated, and Max Scheler further developed, the concept of ressentiment. Nietzsche linked this emotion with the rise of Christian morality, while Scheler linked it primarily with the formation of the bourgeois ethos in Western Europe. The present paper endeavors to show similarities and differences between the emotion thus designated and the more commonly recognized emotion of resentment. Moreover, conceptual analysis of these emotions necessarily leads to consideration of the social situations likely to give rise to each, as well as their likely outcomes. This latter discussion strongly suggests a needed modification of Nietzsche’s and Scheler’s conceptualization of ressentiment.