Ressentiment, Shame, and Accusation within Progressive Identity Politics

The universal mechanism for correction has been inverted for ulterior purposes.

Readership: All; Men; Single Men;
Theme: Identity, Image, and Impressions
Reader’s Note: In this essay, suffixes have been added to ressentiment to form different inflexions.
Length: 1,300 words
Reading Time: 3.5 minutes

Introduction

In The Disease of Decadent Christianity (2022-4-29), J. M. Smith explained an older argument (originating from Nietzsche) about how Ressentiment within Christianity has debased the religion. I explored this further in The Decadent Christian (Ressentimentalism) (2022-5-18), in which I showed that ressentimented Christian beatitudes parallel the cultural trend of fourth wave intersectional feminism. This is a harbinger of evil that I wish to remind the reader to pay close attention to when reading/watching the news or interacting with others.

During my study of ressentiment in writing this post, I found a few other articles which describe ressentiment from different perspectives and how the rot of ressentiment has infected our lives in various ways. Learning how the tentacles of ressentiment have affected our lives may deeply affect some readers. So this post and another coming up will relay some noteworthy concepts that deserve our greater attention.

One such article was Doug Wilson’s No Forgiveness at All for the Pasty White Orcs of Northern European Descent (2022-5-9). In this essay, Wilson paints a precise illustration of the ressentiment within Woke Identity Politics (although he does not label it as such). To concisely capture the description of how ressentiment is applied to police the progressive narrative, I’ve extracted relevant excerpts from two sections of Wilson’s essay, The Shame Factor, and As Woke as the Devil. [Images and section titles have been added. Some passages have been reordered for ease of comprehension.]

The Shame Factor

“Every social organization polices its own ranks. Not only so, but every social organization has shame as one of the tools in their toolbox for maintaining order. This is true of unrighteous societies, and it is true of righteous ones. The difference between them does not concern whether or not shame is used, but rather what things that society determines to be shameful. Again, not whether, but which.”

“When societies punish, one of the most potent elements of the punishment needs to be shame. When a society is stable and secure, this assigned shame almost always works.”

In times past, s1ut shaming saved many young women from the CC and reduced the number of spinsters drinking up the wine cellar. It also kept families together and men out of the divorce mill and the pall mall.

“…a society is in the process of being taken over by an alternative worldview when a large portion of the population adopts an alien standard of ethics, one that glories in what the older order used to believe was shameful.”

We are now witnessing this revision in full force. Clown world takes front and center stage in politics, education, and social media. Christianity and anything remotely traditional is scorned to shame if not criminalized.

“So you know that a society is falling apart when a large portion of the population is shameless, not humiliated by anything. When that happens, you have reached the point where the center does not hold. That society is in the process of disintegrating, as vast swaths of our generation are doing right this minute. We have a conceited generation, filled with narcissistic helium, who feel themselves to be, in de Tocqueville’s apt phrase, “more than kings, and less than men.” This is where we are.”

An Honor to be Shamed

One of the ongoing points of discussion on this blog is how there is a general attitude of dishonor and disrespect towards good men, while immoral and unethical men receive honor and respect. As a result, men see little value in being honorable or respectable.

“Every Christian believer who wants to withstand this pressure needs to understand the mechanism of the trap, how the pressure works. That mechanism is called shame.”

“So the only Christians who have been able to stand against the pressures of this woke jihad are those Christians who have been inoculated against the world’s shaming devices. This is why I would like to thank the powers that be for giving all [Christians] years to practice on this. Some of the believers who might tend to be the most susceptible to this kind of pressure would be our women…  Contrary to [our] expectations, the effect has been quite liberating.”

“As far as the apostles were concerned, it was an honor to be dishonored. It was a grace to be disgraced. It was their glory to be beaten and abused. And when that switch has finally flipped, they have no power over you whatever.  That is Christian liberty.”

According to Wilson’s argument, it stands to reason that good men might expect to be shamed within a corrupt culture, and if they choose to endure such derision, it is a strong indicator that they are truly good, and not simply posture posing for self-righteous virtue signaling. So a partial answer to the ongoing point of discussion is simply that we live in a corrupt society. This is quite apparent and so we already know this at some level. Although this does not offer much comfort or encouragement, it does provide a modicum of consolation.

He couldn’t endure the shame.

The Accusation Factor

“The beating heart of identity politics is accusation. This is what makes it diabolical, through and through. Too many people think of the devilish spirit in terms of severed goats’ heads, guttering candles, black clothing and fingernail polish, and pentagrams. That’s just junior high devilish stuff. The devil is a high accuser, riding into the council of the gods on his high horse. He accuses Job of hypocrisy and time serving (Job 1:9-11). He accuses the brethren day and night before the throne (Rev. 12:10). “Does that white boy serve God for nothing? Look at all his stinking privilege.” He draws himself up to his full height, with his neck full of righteousness, and he points a censorious finger at you and all your sorry ways. Not only so, but his ministers are filled up with the same kind of peevish righteousness (2 Cor. 11:15). They can’t handle any of that stinking privilege either, and if you have any of it on you, you are going to hear about it.

Compare this shining and self-approving self-righteousness to the way of the cross. For all their professions of love for the ideals of egalitarianism, they hate God’s version of it — the leveling power of the cross. In the cross, God closes the distance between His holiness, on the one hand, and all princes and all beggars on the other. All men are equally guilty in Adam, and all men contribute sins of their own. The beggars use two-dollar hookers, and princes fly to Epstein’s island. All men are corrupt and morally diseased, and this most certainly includes those who have conveniently and quite self-servingly dubbed themselves to be in a sacrosanct victim class. Before His holiness, God flattens every man.”

Related

• Max Schaeler, Ressentiment (ca. 1915) (PDF)
• Dalrock: Lovestruck (2013-4-15)
• Σ Frame (Jack, Dante Emerson): The Evolution of Feminism as a Series of Cultural Movements (2018-1-15)
• Σ Frame (James Lawrence): Against The Naturalistic Fallacy (2018-2-12)
• Dalrock: Experts at failing. (2018-9-10)
• Σ Frame (Jack): The Blue Pill, Feminism, and Sin (2018-10-26)
• Σ Frame (Jack): Defiled, not “special” (2018-12-19)
• Σ Frame (Jack): The Tone Police – to protect and serve the rabble (2019-1-12)
• Σ Frame (Jack): The Egosyntonic Art of Tone Policing (2019-5-31)
• Σ Frame (Jack): The Morphing Ethical System in the U.S. (2020-6-26)
• Σ Frame (Jack): Hitting bottom must be necessary. (2020-11-6)
• Σ Frame (Jack): Progressive (2020-11-10)
• Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): The Demise of the Christian Life Script (2021-3-10)