The Globalisation of Resentment: Failure, Denial, and Violence in World Politics
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Elisabetta Brighi |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829816643174 |
| Subject Matter | Conference Articles |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2016, Vol. 44(3) 411 –432
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829816643174
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The Globalisation of
Resentment: Failure,
Denial, and Violence in
World Politics
Elisabetta Brighi
University of Westminster, UK
Abstract
Through the lenses of contemporary terrorism, this article charts the rise of global resentment
against the background of the multiplication and denial of failure. The article examines
resentment and ressentiment as emotional responses to different kinds of failure: failure of
justice and failure of recognition, respectively. It then investigates their place in the affective and
moral economy of the global age, teasing out the key distinctions between the two emotions
and assessing the strengths of the claim concerning an ever expanding diffusion of ressentiment
in late modern times. Through inroads into classical and contemporary political theory, the
article seeks to rescue resentment from the relative hegemony of ressentiment. The article
closes with a reading of the Paris terror attacks of 7 January 2015 and 13 November 2015,
that seeks to disentangle the different forms of resentment mobilised in these acts. By raising
the issue of the moral value of resentment, the article ultimately seeks to address the question
of how to cope with failure while holding on to emancipatory, counter-hegemonic, and self-
affirming political practices.
Keywords
terrorism, resentment, emotions
Corresponding author:
Elisabetta Brighi, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 32–38
Wells Street, London W1T 3UW, UK.
Email: e.brighi@westminster.ac.uk
643174MIL0010.1177/0305829816643174Millennium: Journal of International StudiesBrighi
research-article2016
Conference Article
412 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 44(3)
1. See Psychology Today, ‘The Gift of Failure’. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.
com/collections/201408/the-gift-failure. Last accessed 20 December 2015.
2. For critical commentaries on positive psychology, see Tim Dartington, ‘The Therapeutic
Fantasy: Self-love and Quick Wins’, in Politics and the Emotions, eds. Paul Hoggett and
Sam Thompson (London: Continuum, 2012); Sam Binkley, ‘Happiness, Positive Psychology
and the Program of Neoliberal Governmentality’, Subjectivity 4, no. 4 (2011): 371–94; Paul
Verhaeghe, What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-based Society (London:
Scribe, 2014); and Nicole Aschoff, The New Prophets of Capital (London: Verso, 2014).
3. James Der Derian, ‘Global Events, National Security, and Virtual Theory’, Millennium:
Journal of International Studies 30, no. 3 (2001): 669–90; Patricia Owens, ‘Accidents Don’t
Just Happen: The Liberal Politics of High-Technology ‘Humanitarian’ War, Millennium:
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide ’em. This shall make
Our purpose necessary and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call’d purgers, not murderers.
– William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene I
It is commonplace for pop psychology today to invite their readers to embrace, rather
than resist, failure. Invoking a supposedly timeless wisdom that stretches from Confucius
to Sylvester Stallone, self-help magazines such as Psychology Today urge readers to
cease looking at failure as one looks at an unappealing birthday present, and to start wel-
coming failure as a gift, disappointment as a growth opportunity, and defeat as a path
leading to complete mastery of the resilient self.1 A good dose of denial, disavowal, and
effacement is normally involved in a process often presented as a therapeutic ‘quick fix’.
While the unresolved feelings or incongruent actions that may have precipitated failure
are mostly left unscrutinised, the concrete relationships in which such outcomes have
emerged are glossed over, just as the wider social, cultural and political context becomes
conveniently elided. In a therapeutic fantasy turned nightmare, the focus turns obses-
sively to the self and its expected ability to adapt and reconfigure towards personal
success, achievement, and happiness.2 Rather than a moment of appearance and truth,
generative of new possibilities and configurations, failure is sidestepped, managed, and
superseded. Its denial renders it barren.
Contemporary global politics is awash with failure. The failure of a liberal post-
Cold War ‘New World Order’, the failure of financial and monetary systems, the fail-
ure of climate change governance, the failure of the Global War on Terror, the failure
of the Arab Spring, the failure of democratisation processes, the failure of EU migra-
tion policies – the list goes on. On the one hand, political processes have been rendered
more complex, disaggregated, unpredictable, prone to accidents, and to the multiplica-
tion of risk – including the risk of failure – by globalisation.3 On the other hand, the
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