Table Of ContentRessentiment
Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory
Edited by William A. Johnsen
Ressentiment
Refl ections on Mimetic Desire
and Society
Stefano Tomelleri
Michigan State University Press
East Lansing
Copyright © 2015 by Stefano Tomelleri
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Contents
Foreword by René Girard · · · · · · · · · · · · · · vii
Foreword by Paul Dumouchel · · · · · · · · · · · · xv
Acknowledgments · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · xxvii
Introduction · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · xxix
chapter 1. Th e Revolt of the Slaves at the Masters’
Banquet· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·1
chapter 2. Bourgeois Philanthropy · · · · · · · · · 19
chapter 3. Th e Surprise Box of Ressentiment · · · · 35
chapter 4. Th e Last of the Scapegoats · · · · · · · 51
chapter 5. Th e Mimetic Nature of Our
Ressentiment · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 71
chapter 6. Toward a Sociology of Ressentiment · · · 91
chapter 7. From Victim-Playing to the Ethics of
Ressentiment · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 125
Conclusion· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 149
Notes · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 163
Bibliography · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 181
Index · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 193
Foreword by René Girard
Almost entirely ignored when alive, Nietzsche had a major
role in many of the philosophical and “theoretical” infatua-
tions of the twentieth century. Among our great intellectuals
he has been the only one to serve, from time to time, as the
spokesman for two extremes, whose confrontation charac-
terized intellectual movements from the beginning to the
end of the twentieth century.
Until the collapse of Nazi Germany, Nietzsche was
a great thinker of right-wing radicalism. In the second
half of the twentieth century, it was left -wing radicalism
that claimed him. He is the celebrated predecessor of the
“deconstructors,” and without whom it would have been
impossible for others to declare themselves the legitimate
heirs of the dynasty of intellectual terrorism, who, every
vii
quarter of a century, have succeeded each other on the
throne of avant-gardism.
It took until the last few years of the century to realize
that Nietzsche was no longer fashionable. Today, we cannot
reread his works without noting that, in actual fact, some of
his theses have become out-of-date. Th e opposition between
Apollo and Dionysus, for example, is a subject now only
discussed in school-leaving examinations. Zarathustra and
Übermensch are terribly outdated.
Well then, you ask me, why this book, why go back to
Nietzsche? Wouldn’t it have been better if Stefano Tomelleri
had forgotten this philosopher? I don’t think so, because,
together with the old Nietzsche, there are ideas in his works
that are incredibly topical, and in particular the one dis-
cussed in this book, ressentiment.
Ressentiment is rather an antiquated term in French and
for some time has had a meaning very similar to sentiment.
Ressentiment comes from the verb ressentir, to feel strongly,
just as sentiment comes from sentir. Before Nietzsche’s work,
the initial re did not add much to the meaning of the term.
Perhaps it suggested a certain persistence of the sentiment
viii
evoked, or its reappearance aft er being eclipsed by something
else. Ressentiment was spoken of in reference to both pos-
itive feelings, such as gratitude, and negative feelings, such
as hostility or the desire for revenge.
In general, the desire for revenge produces a revengeful
action. But if this violence is not generated, if the desire
cannot be satisfi ed, it has the tendency, like all desires, to
endure and become even more of an irritation.
In its traditional meaning, therefore, ressentiment seems
disposed, and even predisposed, to tend toward an idea of
failure or a series of failures, which, by frustrating the desire,
seem to reinforce it. It is probable that this tendency began
even before Nietzsche, but only in draft form, and without
implying that which is essential in the Nietzschean idea,
that is, the irremediable character of failure, which is prone
to having permanent eff ects on the personality of the victim.
We live in a world where many people, rightly or wrongly,
feel blocked, or paralyzed, in all their aspirations, obstructed
from achieving their most legitimate goals. Individual psy-
chology inevitably ends up resenting this permanent frustra-
tion, and the need arises for a term that expresses this state of
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