Abstract
This chapter argues that Améry’s account of resentment is influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche’s account of revenge and ressentiment and that resentment provides an existential means which assists Améry in refiguring his social standing as a Holocaust survivor in post-war Europe. He elaborates his account while concurrently drawing out the limitations of Nietzsche’s account. From Améry’s standpoint, his theory of resentment is fit to expose the horrors of the Holocaust that the demand for reconciliation and assimilation strives to repress. His steadfast commitment to resentment is an existential mechanism to resist the oblivion that post-war Europe expects from Jewish communities.
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Notes
- 1.
Yirmiyahu Yovel, ‘Sublimity and Ressentiment: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews’, Jewish Social Studies, April 1997, Vol. 3(3), p. 18.
- 2.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals. Walter Kaufmann (Trans.) (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), pp. 36–7.
- 3.
Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Trans.) (New York: Zone Boons, 1999), p. 99.
- 4.
Jean Améry, At the Mind’s Limits. Sidney Rosenfeld & Stella Rosenfeld (Trans.) (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 70. Heretofore it will be cited as AML.
- 5.
Dania Huckman, ‘Beyond Law and Justice: Revenge in Jean-Améry’, The Germanic Review, Vol. 89(2), 2014, pp. 233–48.
- 6.
AML, p. 68.
- 7.
Dania Huckman, ‘Beyond Law and Justice: Revenge in Jean-Améry’, The Germanic Review, Vol. 89(2), 2014, p. 236.
- 8.
AML, p. 69.
- 9.
AML, p. 69.
- 10.
Encyclopedia Judaica. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (Ed.) Vol. 15, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), pp. 62–3.
- 11.
AML, p. 69.
- 12.
AML, p. 69.
- 13.
AML, p. 64.
- 14.
AML, p. 70.
- 15.
AML, p. 70.
- 16.
Bernard Reginster, ‘Nietzsche on Ressentiment and Valuation’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, June 1997, Vol. 57(2), p. 287.
- 17.
Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Daniel Heller-Roazen (New York: Zone Books, 1999), p. 100.
- 18.
AML, p. 70.
- 19.
C. Fred Alford, ‘Jean Améry: Resentment as Ethic and Ontology’, Topoi, Vol. 31(2), 2012, p. 231.
- 20.
Jean Améry, ‘Nietzsche the Contemporary’ in Jean Amery: Radical Humanism Essays. Sidney Rosenfeld & Stella P. Rosenfeld (Trans.) (Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 92.
- 21.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. R.J. Hollingdale (Trans.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 317. Italics in the original.
- 22.
Ibid., p. 317.
- 23.
AML, p. 68.
- 24.
AML, p. 71.
- 25.
R. Jay Wallace, Ressentiment, Value and Self-Vindication in Nietzsche and Morality. Brian Leiter & Neil Sinhababu (Ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 111.
- 26.
Alan Itkin, ‘Introduction: The Untimely Jean Améry’, The Germanic Review, Vol. 89, 2014, p. 199.
- 27.
AML, p. 71.
- 28.
AML, p. 71.
- 29.
Dania Huckmann, ‘Beyond Law and Justice: Revenge in Jean-Améry’, The Germanic Review, Vol. 89(2), 2014, p. 236.
- 30.
AML, p. 71.
- 31.
Aaron Ridley, Nietzsche’s Conscience: Six Character Studies from the ‘Genealogy’ (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 22.
- 32.
Niklas Luhmann, Observations on Modernity. William Whobrey (Trans.) (Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 3.
- 33.
AML, p. 72.
- 34.
AML, p. 72.
- 35.
Dennis Klein, ‘Locality and the Hidden Realities of Genocide’, Historical Reflections, Vol. 39(2), 2013, pp. 34–5.
- 36.
Alan Itkin, ‘Against the Natural Consciousness of Time: Trauma and Ethics in Jean Améry’s Beyond Guilt and Atonement’, The Germanic Review, Vol. 89(2), 2014, p. 262.
- 37.
AML, pp. 72–3.
- 38.
AML, p. 75.
- 39.
AML, p. 76.
- 40.
Jean Améry, ‘Wasted Words: Thoughts on Germany Since 1945’ in Jean Amery: Radical Humanism Essays. Sidney Rosenfeld & Stella P. Rosenfeld (Trans.) (Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 88.
- 41.
AML, p. 76.
- 42.
AML, p. 77.
- 43.
AML, p. 77.
- 44.
AML, pp. 79, 81.
- 45.
Michael L. Morgan (Ed.), The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader (Wayne State University Press), p. 146.
- 46.
Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (Ed.) Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 6, 2nd ed. (Macmillan Reference, 2007), p. 672.
- 47.
Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy: A Preface to Future Jewish Thought (Basic Books, 1973), p. 55.
- 48.
Ibid., p. 63.
- 49.
Michael L. Morgan (Ed.), The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader (Wayne State University Press), p. 159.
- 50.
David Patterson, Emil L. Fackenheim: A Philosopher’s Response to the Holocaust (Syracuse University Press, 2008), p. 7.
- 51.
Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy: A Preface to Future Jewish Thought (Basic Books, 1973), p. 206.
- 52.
David Patterson, Emil L. Fackenheim: A Philosopher’s Response to the Holocaust (Syracuse University Press, 2008), p. 10.
- 53.
Michael L. Morgan (Ed.), The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader (Wayne State University Press), p. 37.
- 54.
Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy: A Preface to Future Jewish Thought (Basic Books, 1973), p. 46.
- 55.
Michael L. Morgan (Ed.), The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader (Wayne State University Press), pp. 288–9.
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Jean-Marie, V. (2018). Améry and Nietzsche on Resentment, Collective Guilt, and Historical Revisionism. In: Reflections on Jean Améry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02345-4_3
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