Reactionary States of Mind as the Holocene Ends

This article draws on both psychoanalysis and social theory to deepen our understanding of ressentiment — the complex of feelings revolving around suppressed grievance first identified by Nietzsche and Scheler. In highlighting important differences between authoritarian and totalitarian states of mind, it situates the recent return of the former in the context of the deepening climate crisis and the end of the Holocene. Modernity's foundational belief in progress is periodically shaken by crises for which there seem to be no obvious solution; in such times of profound uncertainty, society may be subject to a veritable plague of toxic feelings and fantasies that fuel various forms of political reaction. The paper connects psychoanalytic analyses of grievance and the 'nursing' of ressentiment with contemporary climate denial and reactionary politics, arguing that the inability to mourn underlies both.