"Why is the malaise of a dying civilization expressed through sadism rather than a kind of righteous anger? Here we must turn to Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche warned that those who are humiliated and disempowered are poisoned by ressentiment. Because they have been stripped of agency, they lack the power to harm those who they believe harmed them. In short, there is no cathartic release. Ressentiment is bred from damaged self-esteem. It festers and corrodes the soul. The powerless, and here Nietzsche is writing about Christianity as a slave religion, must expresses their ressentiment obliquely and surreptitiously, hence the coded racism, Islamophobia and supposed yearning for a return of the traditional family and “Christian” values. Ressentiment is produced by feelings of inferiority, failure, and worthlessness. And this ressentiment, fueled by self-loathing, expresses itself through sadism, what Nietzsche calls “wrecking the will” of those who are weaker or more vulnerable. Nietzsche understood that this “wrecking the will” of others imparts a perverted, sadistic pleasure. He writes in On the Genealogy of Morals,that “to see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more. . . . Without cruelty there is no festival . . . and in punishment there is so much that is festive!”" Chris Hedges on American Sadism. https://scheerpost.com/2021/06/29/chris-hedges-speaks-on-american-sadism/?
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