Women's Lib as a Ressentiment Movement

The women's liberation movement is a ressentiment movement, following the definition of ressentiment offered by Nietzsche and analyzed by Scheler. The word ressentiment translates as "resentment," and within it is subsumed the concept of power relations in a social setting, with one group having ascendancy over another, producing a long-term feeling of resentment that builds until it is expressed through revolutionary change. Nietzsche in his Genealogy of Morals analyzes the history of moral structures and indicates that this history presents a series of conflicts between two different moral attitudes. He identifies the one as the attitude of Rome, the attitude of power and of those who have power, and the other as the attitude of Judea, the attitude of the downtrodden, the attitude of the masses. The masses do not have political power, but they are able to impose their morality universally, as it did in the West against the power of Rome through Christianity. This has set up a structure lasting for centuries, a structure in which there is an ongoing struggle between the opposing forces of good and evil, symbolized by the struggle of Rome against Judea. The morality imposed by the masses is generated by and infused with ressentiment. Over time, the morality of the masses has overcome the evil of Rome and has gained ascendancy, a position it holds today and has for some time ((Nietzsche 52-53).

Scheler discusses some of the ways in which the normal precepts of the pr

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Category: Psychology - W