The War on the West

by Douglas Murray

It is one of the saddest realizations we have as a species: not just that everything is transitory but that everything—particularly everything we love and into which love has been poured—is fragile. And that just as the line between civilization and barbarism is paper-thin, so it is a miracle that anything at all survives, given the fragility of all things plus the evil and carelessness of which men are capable. What is it that drives that evil? Many things, without doubt. But one of them identified by several of the great philosophers is resentment (or “ressentiment”). That sentiment is one of the greatest drivers for people who want to destroy: blaming someone else for having something you believe you deserved more. Among those who have been interested in the question of ressentiment was Friedrich Nietzsche. It is alarming how specifically he diagnoses the type. At one point, he writes that any psychologist who wishes to study the subject must recognize that “this plant thrives best amongst anarchists and anti-Semites today, so it flowers like it always has done, in secret, like a violet but with a different scent. And just as like always gives rise to like, it will come as no surprise to find attempts coming once more from these circles, as so often before to sanctify revenge with the term justice—as though justice were fundamentally simply a further development of the feeling of having been wronged—and belatedly to legitimize with revenge emotional reactions in general...