We can’t blame the system (that would require revolution) and we can’t blame ourselves (that would require despair). So we blame them . And we silently, secretly, invert the values. We don’t want what they have. We are better than that. Their success is their hidden failure.
Scheler, a student and then critic of Nietzsche, took this idea and ran with it. He agreed that ressentiment is a poison. But he argued it’s not just a tool of the weak against the strong. It is a specific emotional mechanism —a long-term, repressed hostility born of impotence. max scheler ressentiment pdf
But it is a liberating one. Because Scheler, unlike Nietzsche, leaves the door open. He believes we can overcome ressentiment through ordo amoris —the proper order of love. To love the good for its own sake, to affirm strength without hating weakness, to see the grape as sweet even if you cannot reach it. We can’t blame the system (that would require