The History of Ressentiment in Iran and the Emerging Ressentiment-less Mindset

Abstract

Two dichotomies, one that resents the West and another that admires it, seem to have long polarized both Iranian intellectuals and the public imagination. Darioush Ashouri discusses this issue in terms of “ressentiment,” a term he borrows from Nietzsche. This study puts Ashouri's scattered views within a Nietzschean framework to form a coherent theory, and places it against the background of a brief history of ressentiment in Iran. It then argues that signs of a ressentiment-less young generation, mostly university students, seem to be appearing, and a certain kind of social behavior on Facebook and a work by the Iranian musician Mohsen Namjoo are analyzed as evidence of this emerging mindset.