The paper addresses the problem of the relation between ressentiment and Islamic terrorism. The analyses of that correspondence are carried out on the basis of reflections of Friedrich Nietzsche, a renowned German scholar and creator of the first theory of ressentiment, and two American researchers – Lauren Langman and Douglas Morris. In the author’s view, the transition from ressentiment to terrorism essentially stem from the mechanism of the revaluation of values and the reaction to its final product, namely compensatory values, that manifest itself in the form of fundamentalism and fanatism.
The paper aims to define the psychological foundations of lone wolf activism. The analysis that facilitated attaining this goal was based on the Nietzschean concept of resentment theory of compensatory revaluating values that explain the relationships between inferiority and fundamentalism, fanaticism, and ideologically motivated violence. Based on a phenomenological examination of the phenomenon, the author demonstrates that lone wolf activism is founded on two psychologically and sociologically determined successive processes. The first one occurs when a sense of personal inferiority becomes the source of an envy-based hostile attitude toward the world. Later on, this feeling, due to personality defence mechanisms, which bring about the falsification of “primary desires” and the generation of “secondary desires”, transforms into fundamentalism. The second process takes place when, as the result of fundamentalist legitimisation that arise on the level of social rivalry, given fundamentalism is destituted, resulting in fanaticism. The author believes that the knowledge of both processes is necessary to recognise and combat the terrorist activity of lone ideologically motivated individuals.
The paper presents a brief history of ressentiment (resentment) research in order to shed some light on the importance of these considerations for Security Studies (particularly for the analyses of the broad spectrum of issues related to ideologically motivated violence). Even a cursory overview of the usage of the created by Friedrich Nietzsche concept of ressentiment in social sciences and humanities enables to draw significant conclusions on the importance of interdisciplinarity in the development of reflection on security. Presentation of those conclusions is the main goal of this article.
Stemming from the general postcolonial theoretical tradition, the concept of self-colonisation proposed by the Bulgarian scholar Alexander Kiosev has proved inspiring to Polish scholars. This article attempts to examine more closely Kiosev’s meandering self-reflective musings on what he called his “metaphor” of self-colonization, an idea he ultimately rejected in view of the undesirable ressentiment it tends to produce. By illustrating the historical and cultural background underpinning the concept of self-colonisation I seek to identify the roots of potential intercultural misunderstanding. Above all, I focus on the consequences of the teleological approach inherent in Kiosev’s concept. Those are expressed in identifying manufactured (sic!) origins with an account which can be couched in the language of a politically and therapeutically conditioned method of research. This leads to a symmorphic deformation of those origins, aligned to the requirements of the modern world.
The paper attempts to propose a Christian reaction to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first part is a concise reconstruction of his anthropological project, undertaken on the basis of his later works. The second part presents the main reasons for the attractiveness of his work and the context in which it was written. In the last part, partly with some reference to Max Scheler’s Ressentiment and Christian Morality, the author sketches the framework of the Christian answer. (1) Placing of the idea of the fullness of new life in the center of Christian soteriology, (2) recognizing the merciful love of God to human beings as an expression of the divine perfection and power and (3) looking for new convincing descriptions of the ways to the divine transcendence against a background of the experiences of self-transcendence (eros and thanatos) are the main elements of the adequate Christian reaction to the proposal of the German philosopher.
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