Maleficent Obsession
The Long Dark Tunnel of Resentment
I have been reading Max Scheler's Ressentiment, an analysis of the inversion of moral values that occurs when someone who is in an inferior position, unable to strike out openly in vengeance and wrath, and unable to eliminate the condition that makes him feel inferior, turns the virtues of the superior into vices, and sees his own hatred, weakness, envy, and vindictiveness as virtues. Nietzsche said that Christianity was a religion of ressentiment, but Scheler corrects him on that crucial point, affirming the generous rejoicing in excellence that characterizes the saint. If saints strive with one another, it is in the happiness of giving. They are indifferent to that bourgeois competition, says Scheler, which takes the place of the saintly and the courtly, and which perceives inequality as at best a necessary evil, and at worst an evil to be obliterated, even at the cost of liberty or of many a masterwork that never will be wrought.
The premise of political ressentiment in our time is that if laws were just and if people were not racist or sexist or whatever else is considered opprobrious, equality would result. But what if the premise is not true? What if the condition that galls, the condition of inferiority in some respect that the man or woman of ressentiment cannot forget, is irremediable, because it is a fact of nature generally, or of the nature of the individual in question? What if it is remediable, but only by a cultural renewal that, with all the good will and determination in the world, must require two or three generations to accomplish?
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on history from the online archives
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
31.1—January/February 2018
on Ragnarök, an Extreme Weather Event & the Paths to Conversion by Timothy J. Burbery
14.6—July/August 2001
The Transformed Relics of the Fall
on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
more from the online archives
14.6—July/August 2001
Three Bad Ideas for Women & What to Do About Them by Frederica Mathewes-Green
34.1—January/February 2021
Jesus' Astonishing Other Teaching on Marriage by James Ware
30.2—March/April 2017
The Education of Children Takes Generations of Fidelity by W. Ross Blackburn
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
