Como se pensar em uma postura ativa em relação ao ressentimento

Abstract

Ressentiment is an affection that has probably accompanied humanity since the beginning of time. Since the Iliad, and later in Aristotle, we identify works in which this affection is mentioned and explained. But it was with Nietzsche, in the 19th century, that ressentiment was studied and thought of as, besides a consequence of interpersonal relationships, the mode of production of values of what the German called slave morality. Recently, thinkers like Wendy Brown have rescued the term to address the rise of far-right groups. Other scholars have realised that ressentiment is an affection that ignores political spectrums. Despite being "ambidextrous", the way we deal with ressentiment can be divided in two ways: actively or the reactively. To characterise the first case, we use another Nietzschean concept: the transvaluation of all values. As a way to exemplify this whole ressentiment system, we use the theory of the critic Roberto Schwarz about the agregado and favour and the literature of Machado de Assis, who was one of the Brazilian writers who best explored, even if indirectly, all the ressentiment that composed the Brazilian society in the 19th century.