Anger: from Old
Norse angr (grief), Latin angere, angor (strangle). Related German
angst (dread), English anxiety, anguish.
Resentment: anger,
bitterness, ill-will. Related French ressentimment
(Wikipedia) sense of
hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a
sense of one's own inferiority/failure onto an external scapegoat. The ego
creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be "blamed" for
one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in
oneself, but rather by an external "evil."
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Anger and Losing
Losing things is maddening. When I lose glasses, wallets,
keys, notebooks, I get pissed off at the evil gremlin who keeps moving them
from the places I just put them like the washer/dryer where both my socks were.
I know it’s not the result of getting older because, when I think back, I
realize I’ve lost these things consistently all my life. It still makes me mad.
Losing words, balance, stamina, and maybe the use of a limb
because of a fall does indeed seem to be the result of getting old. But these
losses incite more regret than
madness. And losing friends and family brings grief beyond regret.
Losing a job or income might make me angry. And if that is combined with the loss of dignity, meaning,
and purpose, I experience resentment
and look for or make up those who caused it. I can’t fight abstract systems or
the gods, so I settle on persons who I consider enemies. I resent the
immigrants taking my jobs, the rich corporate CEO who moved my job overseas,
the new university graduate--a woman no less--courted by employers. And I
resent the intellectuals who explain it away with abstract economic theories. I
join forces with others like me to bring down these evil people profiting from
my loss. And I link myself with a self-proclaimed winner who will lead me to
confront and win against my enemies.
Losing a sense of worth in a changing world and society,
where my values are no longer appreciated, where behaviors, which I was taught were
wrong, are now acceptable, where language I habitually use is no longer
considered correct, where the groups with whom I identify are considered
backward, where people once seen as inferior to my social identity are moving
ahead of me, I identify with those who have a general sense of malaise and
experience. That is what those
intellectual elites label ressentimment.
Resentment and the Rise of Trumpism
The rise of Trumpism and other alt-right movements in Europe
and the popularity of demagogues (leaders
who seek support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by
using rational argument) like Chavez, Modi, and Putin have fueled a plethora of
analyses by political professors and pundits.
Alt-right movements
advocate political-economic nationalism against globalism. They promote a sense
of cohesion among races and ethnicities, through strong borders, and limited
immigration over against a mingling of peoples with diverse traditions and
religions. They go so far as to preview a war of civilizations often
characterized as the European and Christian originated West over against the
nativist and Muslim originated East and Mid-East. They appeal to the “common
man” over against the elites and condemn the media when they see it upholding
the “establishment.”
A more cultural and philosophical analysis of the rise of authoritarian
populists of left and right
that I have found very useful for understanding what is
happening to my country and my world is The Age of Anger by Pankaj
Mishra. Mishra claims that we have been here before—which is why he subtitles
his book A History of the Present. The roots of the current anger that
fuels the Trumps, Modis, Dutertes, Driesangs, Chavezes, Le Pens, are the same
that fueled the Mussolinis, Stalins, Hitlers, Huey Longs of the 20th
Century, and many others in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Modernity and Resentment
Anger, and especially its appearance as ressentiment, is a reaction to modernity which started in Europe
but now has spread to the rest of the world. It is a reaction by those who had
great expectations for industrialization, technology, and the progress that
come from rational self-interest, but are losing out. Mishra examines the
actions of people who experienced that resentment and of the theories of
leaders who stirred the embers of anger into negative solidarity based on fear
of loss and hatred for those they blamed.
The European Enlightenment, impacted by both the Protestant
Reformation and increased contact with Eastern cultures was a source of great
wonders in philosophy and art and especially in science and technology. It led from
the divine right of kings to republican governments, from agricultural barter
and craft mercantilism to industrial capitalism, from tribal and feudal
cultures and superstitions to modern times. But modernity is built on
assumptions, paradigms, and myths that need to be questioned if we are to
understand and deal with its undesirable consequences.
Students of thinking, engrossed
in ancient and current studies in philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology,
and neuroscience, understand, in Douglas Hofstadter’s terms, that thinking is
the evolved capacity to use categories, metaphors, and analogies (all
constructed images) useful for communicating to others both dangers and
opportunities. With words, symbols, images, metaphors--all human artifacts--humans
can project feelings, make connections, and anticipate possibilities. A myth,
an elaborate story of our place in the cosmos, is an extended metaphor that
serves an important function: giving us a sense of meaning and purpose.
Gödels theorem in
mathematics proves that there is no complete system of knowledge that does not
rest on undefined terms and assumptions which can always be revised towards the
building of a new system. Our modern language, our science, philosophy, and all
our knowledge are founded in the myths we accept collectively often without
notice.
The Myths of Modernity
There are three myths
undergirding modernity:
The first is the Myth of
the Invisible Hand that guides society through rational self-interest in a
free market. There are two parts to that myth 1) that humans generally act, or
should act, rationally and 2) that markets are or can be free.
The second is the Myth
of Nationalism. This myth assumes that people fare better with their own
kind, within boundaries that maintain cultural identity, that there are
different races each with their own capacities, some better than others with
the most fit that will survive and thrive. If the first centers on rational
self-interest, this centers on national self-interest. This myth feeds into the
next myth that history is a struggle among civilizations among nations
The third is the Myth of
History, the myth that human history has a meaning and purpose. This myth
takes two forms: 1) history as cyclical and 2) history as linear. The cyclical
theory of history is the myth of revolution, like the inexorable recurrence of the
seasons from death to birth, growth, cultivation, and death. The linear theory
with an end to history enshrines progressive being-on-the-side-of-history
thinking. Historian Timothy Snyder
identifies the “history of inevitability” that goes in one direction with a
finality that leaves us comatose; and the “history of eternity” that goes around
and round and leaves us in deep hypnosis. Both remove us blissfully from
responsibility.
Mircea Eliade, cited by
Howe, authored many studies of the myths of archaic societies. Myth is the
story by which the members of a tribe and society find their meaning in the
cosmos. The story is reenacted in special times and places providing moral
guidance in day-to-day life. Myth and ritual, the cosmic story with its telling
and reenactment, are the stuff of religion and morality. In Eliade’s terms, all
theories of history are myths. Epochs, eras, and cycles are imaginative
constructions we employ to try to understand ourselves and our world.
In archaic hunter-gathering
and then in early farming communities, the stories connect to the cycle of life
and death in rhythm with nature. Each new year, the people are led to enact the
devastation of the old world. And out of this chaos without rules, there is a
ritual rebuilding of what was (the golden age) or what will-be (the new age).
As Biblical studies demonstrate, linear theories of history, in contrast with pagan cyclical notions, emerge in the High God or monotheistic creation religions of nomadic societies. They culminate in Hegel and disciples who project an end or culmination to history—a manifest destiny, a new Jerusalem, a moral arc to history, a reign of God, an Omega Point, inevitable progress, the American Dream, and being-on-the-side-of-History.
As Biblical studies demonstrate, linear theories of history, in contrast with pagan cyclical notions, emerge in the High God or monotheistic creation religions of nomadic societies. They culminate in Hegel and disciples who project an end or culmination to history—a manifest destiny, a new Jerusalem, a moral arc to history, a reign of God, an Omega Point, inevitable progress, the American Dream, and being-on-the-side-of-History.
Biblical experts call this Judeo-Christian-Muslim linear
thinking “eschatology”—the study of final events, while they often identify
“Apocalyptic behavior” with cycles of devastation and rebuilding. Cyclical or
eternal recurrence thinking is revolutionary—what does around, comes around,
again and again like the revolution of the stars in the night sky. But linear
or eschatological thinking is, in Albert Camus’s, terms rebellion over
revolution whereby a brand new can defy without devastating the old to make
progress.
Modernity’s three myths relate to 1) modern economy or homo economicus as an animal endowed
with reason (animal rationalis) who
can sort out its material interests and act accordingly, 2) modern politics
which is fundamentally tribal by which homo
socialis is able to cooperate with his kind to compete with and overpower those
of other kinds, and 3) modern culture by which homo religiosis is oriented to certainty in meaning, a transcendent
purpose, and absolute truth behind appearances.
Each of these myths have set up expectations: 1) growing
wealth, 2) victory in conflict, and 3) ultimate purpose here and hereafter.
These correspond to the three drives identified in ancient philosophy: the
desire for life or the satisfaction of life’s needs, the desire for recognition
or having place and status, the desire to know and have meaning; and to the
three spheres of human existence: economic, political, and cultural. These
expectations are being frustrated for most of modern humanity. And so, we have
the modern ressentiment, malaise, and
angst from which arises this Age of Fear, Anger, and Depression.
Regarding the needs
of biological life. It is true that gross domestic product (GDP), the
monetary value of all finished goods and services has increased throughout the
world but in a mounting unequal way. And while more of life’s necessities are
being met for more people than in ancient and medieval ages, there are huge
numbers of people and communities who have inadequate nutrition, shelter, health
care, and income. Moreover, the very condition of life, the earth, is being
wasted and destroyed.
Regarding the
possibilities for the common good. Common goods, including assembly,
speech, and collective action that shapes a safe and just community were
cultivated in modernity. But national boundaries are fortified and persist that
foster antagonism and permanent war. The commons have never been more
threatened through the rational individualistic belief system that would equate
community with the sum of individuals totally neglecting the fabric of
relationships that hold them together.
Regarding the meaning
and dignity of human persons. In modernity worth is measured by productive
accomplishment that can be quantified by monetary value. The persons who have
the most accumulation of things and the highest capacity to consume direct the
markets of economy and the policies of government that protect them. Persons
aspire to either achieve this capacity or to ensure that their progeny will
achieve it. Education, morality, leadership, and religion are valued primarily
insofar as they advance persons and nations monetarily. Moreover, this
“advancement” is measured in relation to the achievements of others.
Individualism, tribalism, and aggression can all be traced
to the genetic make-up of the human species as it has evolved. And so has
cooperation, community, and civility have roots in our genetic constitution.
But in modernity individualism has become rational self-interest, tribalism has
become nationalism, and aggression has become perpetual conflict in which fewer
win and more lose at least relatively. The more modernity and its ideals have
prospered, the more it is being attacked by those being left behind who are
envious or depressed--especially those who see no path to achieve modernity’s
ideals and actualize its myths.
The Postmodern Turn
The European Enlightenment like earlier enlightenments in ancient
Athenian Greece, the Islamic golden age under the caliphates, and the peak of
Chinese culture in the Tang dynasty made reason the base of authority,
legitimacy, truth, and justice. Scientific method using rules of logic,
empirical inquiry, and verification by evidence and the judgment of scholars
was used to question conventional wisdom and the superstitions and idolatries
of religion.
The European Enlightenment, following the Protestant
Reformation and worldwide discoveries, ushered in modernity in Europe at the
end of the 17th century, spreading to the Americas in the 18th
century and throughout the world in the 19th and 20th
centuries.
Modernity is characterized by 1) rationalism and the
rationalization of the economy through industrial capitalism as described by
Adam Smith, 2) nationalism and the organization of societies into bounded
states ruled by central governments which held a monopoly on the means of
violence as described by Max Weber, and 3) coherent belief systems with shared
values and attitudes with God as the Principle of Reason, Judgment, and Will
working His Way in History, as described by Baruch Spinoza to G.W.F. Hegel.
Thus, the three myths of modernity as described above frame
the 1) belief that reason and rational behavior can achieve the absolute in
Nature and History over emotion, common sense, superstition, and supernatural
revelation, 2) belief that ethnic groups gathered in nation-states in conflict
vying for hegemony and exceptionalism can achieve the perfect society, and 3) belief
that history as a conquest of nature including the earth and its resources to
produce consumables through industry. The nationalistic World Wars and the Cold
War, the rationalistic culmination of science and technology, and the globalization
of economy, culture, and politics are challenging the assumptions of modernity,
including its myths, belief systems, and the behaviors they generate.
The postmodern insight was the transition from reason as an entity
or event to thinking as an evolved human behavior. I think therefore I am, says
modernity. But what does it mean to think, asks postmodernity? The focus moved
from reason in the world and in history to thinking as an activity of
confronting and creating the world. The focus moved from what language,
science, art, religion and all the human activities were encountering in the
world to the very activity of thinking. We began to think about thinking. We
began to discover the nervous system coordinated by the brain by which our
bodies interacted with the environment through images or symbols.
Just as Copernicus led us to see that the earth revolved
around the shining sun, Kant helped us see that reality revolved around our thinking
mind. Just as Newton led us to understand how our solar system was a minute speck
of the milky way galaxy, Nietzsche and Heidegger helped us to understand that human
existence is but one way of being in the world. Thinking about thinking pushed
us to transcend modernity.
Thinking about thinking raised questions regarding the
absoluteness of reality, the certainty of science, the meaning and end of human
history, the eternal value of human being and behavior. By thinking about
thinking, guided by philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and evolutionary
psychology, we are made aware of what is formal and what is formal in thinking,
in the difference between slow deliberate critical thinking and fast habit-driven
thinking, and between consciousness and the pre- or sub-conscious aspects of
thinking.
Postmodernism is identified with the forfeiture of the
absolute, the victory of uncertainty, objectivity through intersubjectivity, and
the social construction of reality. It is also identified with universal doubt
and inquiry, the relativizing of values, the unmooring of science and religion,
and the undermining of the assumptions, myths, and beliefs of modernity.
Response to Modernity Under Fire
One response to modernity is acceptance in the belief system
or myth and ideals of modernity, but reacting with resentment because of
continual frustration to prosper monetarily, the loneliness of individualism,
and failed attempts to reach the promised American Dream or return to the
golden age of innocence. This is the response of neo-reaction that retreats
more into self-interest, nationalism, and religiosity. It is the response of
those who feel left behind, who have followed the teachings of their parents
and their churches, who have watched their beliefs ridiculed, who feel that
they do not count and have no purpose. They want to revive what they believed
was true for all times. They want to make America (or Germany or Indonesia)
great again.
I conjecture that the present crisis in culture (including
morality and religion), in economics (including rational market driven industry
and new mission driven production), and in politics (especially the
redefinition of democratic republicanism) is at root a spiritual crisis. A
crisis of soul, of character, of collective self-consciousness. It rests on a decision of who we personally
and socially want to be as we face a very uncertain future.
Another response is to question and revise the myths of
modernism, use both the Enlightenment and the postmodern turn to pass beyond
the Age of Anger and Resentment into a new Age of Responsibility and Hope.
The Steve Bannon (and so
Donald Trump) worldview of the conflict between nationalists and globalists,
the clash of Western Christian and Eastern Islamic civilizations, and the
destruction of the administrative state, as he outlined in his talk to the
Conservative Political Action Conference, has been influenced by Neil Howe and
Willian Strauss, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.
For Howe and Bannon, history
is cyclical with four repeating eras: first High, to second Awakening, to third
Unraveling, to fourth Turning, then back to High. Since 2008, we are in our
fourth Turning or Crisis stage which has never before, Howe says, finished
without a war. He easily selects events in American history that illustrate
each of the stages we have been enduring.
Linear theory with an end to history enshrines progressive
being-on-the-side-of-history thinking. This thinking has a purpose in history
which is outside human thinking and behavior in Nature or God, in a Creator
Alpha and/or an End Omega. Historian Snyder in his
book On Tyranny calls this historical inevitability.
History is working its way out and we can get on Its side by going with the
flow or not. This is the history of religious monotheistic fundamentalists by
which we follow the Will of God as found in divine revelation. It is also the
history of those scientific historians who discern a pattern that is already
there as did Aquinas and Hegel and or discover a law of nature that determines
events as did Karl Marx and Adam Smith. It is the myth of both modern conservatives
and liberals, traditionalists and progressives.
Cyclical theory is the myth of
revolution--harvest, destroy, seed, cultivate, harvest, destroy, round and
round, or as Howe says "inexorably." Snyder calls this the myth of eternity that often occurs when the myth of progress is
frustrated. Eternal recurrence replaces teleology. It is linked also to
generational theory in which generations are named with special characteristics
that react against the previous generation. The metaphor here is the pendulum
as opposed to the path to the top of the mountain. Though sometimes the
metaphors are mixed by graphing a perpetual line of circles or circle of lines.
Cyclical theory is the myth for “authoritarian populism,”
which is “mass democracy” in distinction from “republican democracy.” Mass democracy undermines civil society
and its institutions trying to wipe the slate clean so that a brand-new order
can be built on the ashes of the old. That brand-new order may be a future
paradise or divine realm that is given from above (apocalyptic left) or a past
paradise or realm which was also given from above but which humans strayed
(originalist right). Mass democracy is
achieved through revolution in which there are two sides, my side/your side or
our side/their side or patriots/enemies—one evil and one good—that must
confront each other in a win-lose conflict. In that struggle, those of us
gripped by ressentiment achieve
dignity and purpose.
As Howe points out and
dismisses, other theories of history attempt to explain our place in the
cosmos: the more linear myths of nomadic peoples (associated with the Abrahamic
High God traditions) and the "chaotic" theory of history where there are
no discernable paths.
But this latter, according
to Snyder, is true history. We don’t pretend to have divine revelation of the
purpose which grounds apocalyptic expectation, nor insight into the inexorable
cycles which incites revolutionary reaction. We study history to free ourselves
from it. We accept our concrete situation so we can find the options to both
preserve what we think should be observed and change what we think must be
changed. Instead of discerning rational cycles or intuiting revealed ends of
history, we choose to take responsibility with others to blaze our trails
through the jungle, learning as we go.
From Resentment to Hope
The big question is how do we get through this late modern Age
of Anger to a post-modern Age of Hope rather than a postmodern age of cynicism
and despair. Here are some counsels:
1.
Understand the role of metaphor and myth within
our thinking and behavior, and therefore our personal and collective ability to
revise these fictions.
2.
Analyze the metaphors and myths that now sustain
late modern thought and behavior and assess the consequences of the fictions
and illusions by which we are operating.
3.
Reveal the structural aspects of these metaphors
and myths; that is, how they are economic, political, cultural.
4.
Propose alternative metaphors and myths that
suggest policies and actions that might lead to more desirable consequences.
5.
Listen, communicate, and organize persons in our
networks and communities. Keep building civil society. Do what you can through
your existing institutions, whether public or private, whether for profit or
nonprofit, whether religious or secular, to foster persons to meet each other
across cultural, economic, and political boundaries.
Most Americans do not consider themselves philosophers. They
would like to change the world, not contemplate it. Many like to think that
they are secular in the real world here and now. They want to keep any
religious sentiments to themselves or at least confined to church, synagogue,
temple, and mosque. However, action is always shaped by thinking. The story
that we fabricate and agree on is what holds us together not just as nations,
but as a species. As this-worldly as we may be, we do not escape the myths and
rites that make up the civic religion, cutting across all the specific
religions we might profess, that guides our behavior and action with each
other.
The human spirit or soul, personal and collective, is a
metaphor for the consciousness of being present here in space and now in time.
This presence ranges between our self and society, between the individual person
and the community of persons, between interior (or subjective) experience and that
from the outer (or objective) world which we catalogue and organize through
concepts, words, and models. Presence is between the poles of past and future,
in-here and out-there, self and others, none of which exist absolutely in
themselves, but only in our shared presence with each other. The more we probe,
contemplate, and give ourselves to this presence, the more conscious we become.
And the more we recognize the illusions of absoluteness, certainty, and
finality. Thus, our presence becomes transcendence. We transcend ourselves, our
answers, our beliefs, our past, our visions, and our myths. Homo sapiens is homo transcendens. If humans fix their sight on becoming homo deus (see Homo Deus by Yuval
Harari) we will self-destruct. If we confuse ourselves with the Transcendent, we
will no longer transcend.
The way out of anger and resentment is a way many spiritual
masters have taught us from the beginning of our species and throughout all the
stages and ages of our development. We must grow our souls personally and
communally. We must write the story of the universe, of life, and of humanity,
which informed by science motivates us to admit the limits and contingencies of
matter and use them to transcend by acting ad infinitum to build the humanity,
the world, and the universe in which all of us might become, as the slogan
says, all we can be. That’s a spiritual enterprise—one that underwrites our culture,
our economy, and our politics.
No, we will never be gods, but I hope that we will always be
transcending towards greater community, freedom, and knowledge. No, progress is
not inevitable. But it is possible.
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