What does it mean to be a philosopher of resentment?
It means that one is a philosopher of life, emotions, and instincts. It means that one is a psychologist who focuses on human behavior. There can be no philosophy of resentment without a theory of the human.
Being a philosopher of resentment also makes one an ethical thinker. Resentment remains a special emotion in the ethical tradition; and not merely because Nietzsche based his Genealogy of Morals on its place in history .
"Resentment" is only the most recent word for revenge, and the problem of revenge enters the ethical tradition at its inception. The appearance of the word, in fact, marks the attempt, especially on Nietzsche's part, to establish a psychological theory of revenge and its representations .
Words by Tobin Siebers | The Ethics of Criticism, Cornell University Press (1988)
Artwork by © Alexander Paul from his text The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer (1888). Courtesy of The Library of Congress