Master Class on Ressentiment and Democracy
Stephen SchneckFranciscan Action Network
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Open to currently enrolled undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. Copies of the readings will be provided for participants via web link.
Ressentiment is a term of art in philosophy and social theory for the psychological pathology of self-loathing that the human person may experience vis-à-vis an other who is imagined to be stronger, more noble, or “higher.” Friedrich Nietzsche famously associated ressentiment with the overturn of the ancient moral order and its replacement with Christian morality – such that glory, honor, and magnificence were replaced with humility, turning the other cheek, and poverty of spirit. Nietzsche’s understanding of ressentiment is associated as well with his broader critique of modernity, modern institutions like democracy and the market, and modern sociality as reflected in notions such as mass society and Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s “last man.”
The phenomenologist and social theorist, Max Scheler, seized on the idea of ressentiment for his own critique of modernity, but rejected Nietzsche’s argument that its provenance lies in Christianity. Ressentiment, Scheler perceived, is indeed at the heart of the crisis of modernity, but its ubiquity in the contemporary world should be traced to modern institutions, like the market and modern democracy, and not to Christianity. Christianity, he thought, is fundamentally incompatible with the psychology of ressentiment and offers the clearest hope for reversing its danger. To what extent, though, does Scheler’s hope extend to the institution of democracy?
Among those directly influenced by Scheler’s thought were Edith Stein, Waldemar Gurian, Romano Guardini, Roman Ingarden, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Karol Wojtyla.
REQUIRED READINGS
- Max Scheler, Ressentiment, tr. Lewis A. Coser, Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1994. Chs. 3 & 4.
SECONDARY READINGS
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, tr. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, New York, Random House, 1967. First Essay, especially sections 8-14. Cf.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra ,tr. Adrian Del Caro, Cambridge University Press, 2006. “Zarathustra’s Prologue,” “Of the Flies of the Marketplace,” and “Of the Tarantulas.”
SCHEDULE
1:30pm Coffee & Tea
2:00pm Welcome
2:15pm Session I
3:30pm Break
3:45pm Session II
5:00pm End, Wine & Cheese Reception
Stephen Schneck is retired Associate Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America, where he was also Director of CUA's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. He received his BA from Rockhurst University and his MA and PhD in Government from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of several books and articles in the field of political philosophy, including Person & Polis: Max Scheler's Personalism as Political Theory (SUNY Press), and a recent edited volume, Letting Be: Fred Dallmayr’s Cosmopolitical Vision (University of Notre Dame Press). He was a founding board member of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and served on the board of Democrats for Life. He is currently the Executive Director of Franciscan Action Network, in Washington, DC.
