Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy The Polemics of Ressentiment

The rise of populism, cynicism, fanaticism and fundamentalism challenges us to reconsider the problem of ressentiment. Characterized by Nietzsche as the self-poisoning of the will through internalising trauma in the form of a postponed and imaginary revenge, the concept of ressentiment is making a comeback in political discourse. Unlike resentment, the feeling of injustice, ressentiment is an intrinsically polemical notion. It implies a political drama in which there is no inherent good sense in its application and no universal criterion. Drawing on psychoanalysis, political theory, media theory and philosophy, this book examines a wide variety of ideological contexts, offering an examination of the divergent senses in which the concept of ressentiment is used today.