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For people interested in philosophy, I'd say the concepts of "Ressentiment" and "Slave Morality" from Nietzsche (from the late 1800's no less!) are super releva

For people interested in philosophy, I'd say the concepts of "Ressentiment" and "Slave Morality" from Nietzsche (from the late 1800's no less!) are super relevant today and can be applied to the left or right political camps. > The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of resentment becoming creative and giving birth to values—a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says "no" from the very outset to what is "outside itself," "different from itself," and "not itself": and this "no" is its creative deed. This volte-face of the valuing standpoint—this inevitable gravitation to the objective instead of back to the subjective—is typical of "resentment": the slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires objective stimuli to be capable of action at all—its action is fundamentally a reaction. —Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52319/52319-h/52319-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52319/52319-h/52319-h.htm) Here is a video comparing Nietzsche's "Ressentiment" and Dostoevsky "Underground Man": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmgI08iIAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmgI08iIAg

jariel 6y ago
This is really quite interesting and I think speaks to the character of a lot of supposedly political views. In the war of ideas, I think it helps to classify them simply as 'antagonist' and 'normative' instead of anything else. When people are young and they don't have power, they may feel aggrieved (possibly legitimately so, or internalise the grievances of other groups), or even simply want to 'rage against the machine' (i.e. what they perceive to be 'a machine'). This aggression may be creative, but I think often it's a visceral intellectualism. It's a 'challenge to power' through a vector of ideas and ideals. But the vector is actually not as important as the motivating impetus ... which is the 'challenge' not the 'ideal'. But this mentality does not at all lend well to the ugly, grinding, material reality of power and real management of systems. Castro had some legit things to say about Cuba pre-revolution. But what happened when he actually took charge? A few nice things, but then it went pretty quickly into despotism. If your identity is caught up in antagonism and you live and breathe lofty, impractical slogans that never actually have to be tested because they're never going to be actually tested, what happens when you do get power, and then have to deal with the bureaucracy, unions, police, very legitimate violent threats (internal and external), geopolitical shenanigans, poverty, yada yada? Any ideologue who actually tried to do a good, responsible job, would be considered a total sellout by his own vanguard. It's odd because often real change does come from some of the more legitimately aggrieved voices ... at the same time, I'm not sure if waves of revolutionary leaders are able to handle 'the 99% of the rest of the job'.

jariel 6y ago

This is really quite interesting and I think speaks to the character of a lot of supposedly political views. In the war of ideas, I think it helps to classify them simply as 'antagonist' and 'normative' instead of anything else. When people are young and they don't have power, they may feel aggrieved (possibly legitimately so, or internalise the grievances of other groups), or even simply want to 'rage against the machine' (i.e. what they perceive to be 'a machine'). This aggression may be creative, but I think often it's a visceral intellectualism. It's a 'challenge to power' through a vector of ideas and ideals. But the vector is actually not as important as the motivating impetus ... which is the 'challenge' not the 'ideal'. But this mentality does not at all lend well to the ugly, grinding, material reality of power and real management of systems. Castro had some legit things to say about Cuba pre-revolution. But what happened when he actually took charge? A few nice things, but then it went pretty quickly into despotism. If your identity is caught up in antagonism and you live and breathe lofty, impractical slogans that never actually have to be tested because they're never going to be actually tested, what happens when you do get power, and then have to deal with the bureaucracy, unions, police, very legitimate violent threats (internal and external), geopolitical shenanigans, poverty, yada yada? Any ideologue who actually tried to do a good, responsible job, would be considered a total sellout by his own vanguard. It's odd because often real change does come from some of the more legitimately aggrieved voices ... at the same time, I'm not sure if waves of revolutionary leaders are able to handle 'the 99% of the rest of the job'.