The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment

(Hardback)

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The Politics of the Wretched argues for ressentiments generative negativity, prompting a shift from ressentiment as a personal expression of frustration to ressentiment as a collective No. Inspired by Kant and Nietzsches philosophy, Zalloua identifies two modes of deploying ressentiment private and public use by substituting ressentiment for reason. This reinterpretation argues for a public use of ressentiment to universalize their grievances, to see their antagonism as cutting across societies, and to turn personal trauma into a common cause. A public use of ressentiment rails against the ideology of identity and victimhood and insists on ressentiments generative negativity, prompting a shift from ressentiment as a persona expression of frustration to ressentiment as a collective No. Reframing ressentiment as a tool to oppose the evils of capitalism, anti-Blackness, and neocolonialism, it both alarms the liberal gatekeepers of the status quo and promises to energize the anti-racist Left in its ongoing struggles for universal justice and emancipation.

Author Bio

Zahi Zalloua is the Cushing Eells Professor of Philosophy and Literature at Whitman College, USA. He is the co-author of Universal Politics, and the author of Solidarity and the Palestinian Cause: Indigeneity, Blackness, and the Promise of Universality, and Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future.