Rage, Ressentiment and the Populist Right: A Marxist Psychoanalytic Approach

• In Event: 3566 - Capitalism and Its Crises: Economic, Political, Ecological

Abstract

The crises of legitimacy, economic, political and cultural (Habermas) are now endemic within advanced capitalist countries-and such crises at the level of system, migrate to the life worlds of motivation, emotion and identity that impel social mobilizations on the right to restore a past imaginary of a glorious age now lost, or progressive movements than envision a post capitalist world of genuine freedom, equality, democracy, self-realization and universal human dignity. But given the conditions of our time, rage, fear and ressentiment have been mobilized by the right in the USA, MAGA, Holland, Austria, Poland, Hungary etc. To understand this move, a Marxist critique, following the Frankfurt School, needs consider the socal psychological as well as political economy. Ressentiment is rooted in a sense of inferiority and the jealously of what the rich and powerful may have and who they are. Further this ressentiment, based on a repressed envy, is tied to feelings of powerlessness, shame, and anger. Anger and hatred can often be ways of avoiding negative feelings and at the same time symbolically expressing anger that provides one compensatory feeling of agency and empowerment Moreover this ressentiment is typically incorporated within a value system that provides the "good and decent people" with explanations for their condition that leaves them blameless while providing them with moral justification for the disdain toward the "treacherous" elites.” At this point we began to see how populism appeals to authoritarianism and its tendencies to submit to authorities and project aggression to a hated "enemy". But a crucial element of right populism is that ressentiment directed to the "evil" elites. Many populists will then submit to charismatic populist leaders, some of whom may actually be allied to the elites, but who quite cleverly mobilize and manipulate populist anger in order to further their own agendas.

Authors

• Lauren Langman, Loyola University-Chicago

• George Lundskow, Grand Valley State University