Nietzsche’s Critique Of ‘Resentment’ And Our Religious Moralising

By Mugees Ul Kaisar

Religious discourse and religious life can be positively enriched by significant external critiques from various sides/angles. Whilst participating within a religious cosmos, one may – over time – lose sight of a few things that occasionally some good external critics may point out or refocus our attention towards them. Let us, very briefly, rehearse Nietzsche’s critique of “resentment” to refocus the psychological dimension of our religious lives to rejuvenate its inner integrity.

To start with, we may note that many religious people tend to forget one critically crucial point & that is religion (or for that matter any “body of thought”) as “content” is one thing and the religious “subject” trying to appropriate that content is something else. Though, most of the religious intellectual thought & spirituality together aim at bridging that very gap by engineering a specific subjectivity wherein “thought” intersects with “being” (i.e. intersection of ilm & amal) but nevertheless, in the initial stages (at the very least), the distinction between “subject” & its absorption of “content” remains alive. Now, why did we turn our attention to this distinction at the start? The point that we are trying to make is that religion or any “content” for that matter may be perfect in and of itself but individual person as a “subject” is not. 

The whole discourse on “niyyah”/intention & “nifaq”/hypocrisy within Islamic tradition is a case example. One may offer “salah” in the most perfect form i.e. fulfil the “content” part fully but if one does it to merely show off then the whole act becomes a meaningless mechanical exercise owing to the inauthenticty of the subject; here, the inner “subject” intervenes between “content” and its harmonious/smooth/sincere application/absorption which aims at the transformation of the subject itself. In the case of show off, subject transforms the “content” for its own projection rather than allowing the (divine) “content” to completely transform and re-orient its own subjectivity. Thus, human being as a subject is the central node within religious dynamics, which we often tend to forget.

Now, where does Nietzsche come in all this? The point is that our psycho-spiritual quality of life is damaged by what Nietzsche calls “resentment”. We are referring to Nietzsche here – even though such formulations may be found both inside and outside of the religious discourse – for the reason that in Nietzsche it receives a particularly potent psychoanalytic precision which is pregnant with transformative potential, if properly internalized. Now, the first thing that we should begin with is by noting the fact that most of the moralizing, downplaying & ridiculing that takes place particularly from religious point of view, Nietzsche would say, has its roots in “resentment” (or at least the possibility is always there) i.e. since I am not out there in the world, active & highlighted, whereas others (mostly “irreligious” folk) are, but I still wish to subdue them (because for Nietzsche this inner will/desire to dominate is one of the essential drives within human psyche & thus inevitable); therefore, what I do is that I invent a psychological trick by positing that so & so is useless because this whole active posture in life is useless – it is nothing but mere love of “duniya”, it is insincerity, so & so is arrogant, they are “evil”, so on and so forth. 

This applies to resentment per se and not just religious moralizing. Resentment is part of human reality & thus manifests within both religious and secular settings. Since Nietzsche primarily targeted religious moralizing that is why this article primarily focuses on that. But it takes on various shapes and forms. A person, for example, who is not active in the world whilst seeing others at the front or lags behind others in one thing or the other, if finds himself developing an allergic hateful reaction towards them, should immediately become cognizant of the inner resentment which might be taking the outer garb of ostensible criticism of the so-called flaws and faults of so & so just to subdue them psychologically.  

Irrespective of the inner motivations of “others” & irrespective of the question whether love of “duniya” is evil or not (i.e. the “content” in and of itself is s separate matter, which in this case is the correct statement within Islamic tradition) but all of that is of no concern to me as a subject. What is of concern to me here is the fact that how am I appropriating that content as a subject? In the case of inner resentment, as explained above, I am only using religious morality to satisfy my own inner resentment. I might be quoting the right “content” which might be correct in and of itself but since I am a “subject”, I do not invoke any content as an empty vessel but rather the content passes through a particular mode of being. Nietzsche’s question for the one who moralizes, judges and scolds others would be that whether the person is doing it objectively or is it a mere epiphenomenon of one’s own inner hidden hate, jealousy, arrogance & resentment.  

Nietzsche thinks that most of the moralizing that takes place has nothing to do with the pursuit of Truth but rather it is merely symptomatic of inner hidden resentments against this & that. When we moralize, the question that we should ask ourselves is that, are we sure within ourselves that we are acting as mere “channels” of God’s message or is it the case that our own inner hatreds or arrogance or jealousies or superiority complex or resentments are merely putting on a religious garb. Whether it be our religious clerics sermonizing people on pulpits or our youth fighting tooth & nail on religious disputes, Nietzsche’s warning of “resentment” is an eternal reminder. 

It is for this reason that Islamic tradition organically developed its own science of the soul in the form of diverse schools of tassawuf to avoid “resentful” religiosity. Why is this all important? We may provide two main reasons: a) firstly, the whole function of “religion” amounts to human transformation which creates a particular mode of being that enables one to get through this world in the most beautiful way, given all the vagaries of life, i.e. it teaches life of “ihsan” so that one is prepared for one’s eschatological station. Resentment damages this mode of being and liquidates the whole transformative potential & objective of religion. And secondly b) this lesson is of the utmost importance for our psychological wellbeing which is most definitive of one’s quality of life i.e. inner resentment, contradiction & hypocrisy tortures the soul from within whereas organic mode of being which amounts to living as “one” inside out creates joyous mode of being.

Whether it be infighting within masjid committees or patronising advice that people throw at each other on social media platforms, the debates and fights within offices or schools, neighbourhoods or friend circles, all the rebukes given for one reason or another; all of these call for attention. Nietzsche would invite us to properly see whether the reasons we give to ourselves as to why I rebuked so and so, why I fought with so and so, why I hate so and so, why I looked down upon so & so- are really the true reasons behind these actions i.e. the “apparent” reasons we give to ourselves like: “this is for truth”, “I am giving God’s message”, “I am trying to help them”, “I am just conveying truth”, etc or the actual truth is that there are deeper resentments/jealousies/hatreds which are beneath these cooked up reasons and thus form the real genesis of all these fights. This self introspection, if done with sincerity, will eventually help individuals arrive at a certain mode of being where the previous “cooked up” reasons might in truth become the actual reasons for one’s actions, stemming from within. 

• Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer 

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