The War on the West

by Douglas Murray

that have closed and open scars “and make themselves bleed to death from scars long-since healed.” Such people may drag down their friends, family, children, and everyone else around them, says Nietzsche. And the only answer is that someone must stand over the person (an “ascetic priest” in Nietzsche’s telling) and say the most difficult thing. Which is that they are quite right. It is true. “Somebody must be to blame: but you yourself are this somebody, you yourself alone are to blame for it, you yourself alone are to blame for yourself.” Nietzsche recognizes that this is difficult, but if this was to be said, then if nothing else, one thing at least might be accomplished, which is that “the direction of ressentiment” could be “changed.”7 Others responded to Nietzsche’s insights—notably Max Scheler and Helmut Schoeck. They added to it by noting that resentment relies always on playing A off against B. In particular, where A is praised solely and wholly in order to denigrate and devalue B.8 In all matters, whether to do with money, sex, or anything else, no man feels that the scales are weighted in his favor. And so just as the men of resentment talk about “justice” while meaning “revenge,” so it is that something is disguised within their talk of “equality.” For anyone who talks of “equality” will find an inbuilt problem. Only a person who “fears he will lose” will demand equality as a “universal principle.” It is a speculation, says Schoeck, “on a falling market. “For it...