Ressentiment â when the weak, who cannot bear to compare themselves to the strong, take out their envy on them by redefining strength as morally wicked and weakness as honorable, humble, and good.
Ressentiment feeds our society's corrosive impulse to limit its own potential. The weak drag down those who are strongâalong with everyone elseâso that we may all share in equal mediocrity. "Equality of outcome," as the socialists say.
Ressentiment is the cultural inferiority complex from which the Socialist-Woke mind virus spreads. It's why we are afraid of successful entrepreneurs and gifted students in schools. They force into view the uncomfortable truth that some individuals are uniquely capable of greatness.
The fallacy is the belief that it's a zero-sum game, that one person's success necessarily comes at the expense of another's. There may be no cultural mindset that is more destructive to civilization.