The Concept of “Ressentiment” as a Promising Theoretical Resource for the Analysis of Protests against Offensive Art

Abstract

The interest of the authors in the problem of conflicts around art, has become a constant and integral characteristic of present-day culture motivated their studying of ressentiment. The dominant discourse of protests against contemporary art is the discourse of offensiveness. The article describes several difficulties in studying the phenomenon of offence, which are in the sphere of social psychology, ethics, and philosophy of art. We suggest a hypothesis about the possibility of a common ground for conflicts that include the discourse of offensiveness: we propose to look for the source of an offence not in a work of art, but in the state of the recipients, their value attitudes, and the actions arising from them. As an auspicious theoretical resource, we put forward the concept of ressentiment widely used in philosophy and social sciences, is put. The article tracked the history of philosophical reflection on ressentiment from F. Nietzsche and M. Scheler to the beginning of the 21st century. We also highlighted the complexity and semantic ambiguity of the notion. A distinction between moral and sociо-political resentment as positive values and ressentiment as a destructive state is made. A comparative analysis of the concepts of ressentiment disclosed its social and existential foundations (“ontological ressentiment”), its role as an active and primary motivator of protest actions of a subject who feels offended. Ontological ressentiment generates an attitude toward an artistic event as a source of offence. The cultural field charged with ressentiment, seeks and finds various objects for its active outlet, and the art world becomes an attractive platform for the effective manifestation of this value attitude. The characteristics of “ontological ressentiment” revealed enabled one to explain the reactions and actions of the public, effectively protesting against contemporary art. The article also outlines the prospects of applying the theory of ontological ressentiment to the analysis of cases in the field of art.