To some extent, methinks Nietzsche was onto something with the idea of ressentiment. "She has more stuff than I do -- she's a bad person!"
--- On Tue, 9/30/08, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
>
>
> "It would be instructive to refer here to Rousseau,
> who described the
> inversion of the libidinal investment from the object to
> the obstacle
> which prevent our access to the object. This is why
> egalitarianism itself
> should never be accepted at face value: the notion (and
> practice) of
> egalitarian justice, insofar as it is sustained by envy,
> relies on the
> inversion of the standard renunciation accomplished to
> benefit others: "I
> am ready to renounce it, so that others will (also) not (be
> able to ) have
> it!"
>
> Far from being opposed to the spirit of sacrifice, Evil is
> thus the very
> spirit of sacrifice itself, ready to ignore one's own
> wellbeing -- if,
> through my sacrifice, I can deprive the Other of his
> 'jouissance'... And
> do we not encounter the same negative passion also in
> politically correct
> multicultural liberalism? Is its inquisitorial pursuit of
> the traces of
> racism and sexism in the details of personal behavior not
> in itself
> indicative of the passion of resentment?
> Fundamentalism's passion is a
> false one, while anemic liberal tolerance relies on a
> disavowed perverse
> passion. The distinction between fundamentalism and
> liberalism is
> sustained by a shared underlying feature: they are both
> permeated by the
> negative passion of resentment."
>
> Zizek, p 333 _In Defnese of Lost Causes_ from the chapter,
> "Why Populism
> is Good Enough In Practice".
>
>