Problemos ISSN 1392-1126 eISSN 2424-6158

2022, vol. 102, pp. 105–117 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15388/Problemos.2022.102.8

Online Hating as Modern Manifestation of Nietzschean Ressentiment

Maria Sinelnikova
Department of Philosophy
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
Lviv Polytechnic National University
Email sinelnikova.80@ukr.net
ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6085-6087

Abstract. The article analyses the modern phenomenon of hating in the light of the Nietzschean concept “ressentiment”. It is concluded, that hating can be considered as a kind of the ressentiment experience. This confirms the legitimacy of the “hating ressentiment” concept introduction, which identifies a hater as a person of ressentiment. Hater uses his destructive potential to harass online and persecute everyone whose position or opinion he/she does not share. When all the resources of unfounded criticism of the hater are exhausted, he/she resorts to ressentiment, online. Due to this, ressentiment acquires a new form of expression, namely, hating ressentiment, which is defined as a radical and acute form of ressentiment, corresponding to the form of hatred with which a hater treats everyone in whose place he/she would like to be.
Keywords: haters, ressentiment, Nietzsche, “sour grapes” syndrome, “crab mentality”

Neapykanta internete kaip šiuolaikinė nyčiškojo resentimento raiška

Santrauka. Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas šiuolaikinis neapykantos fenomenas nyčiškosios resentimento sampratos kontekste. Daroma išvada, kad neapykanta gali būti laikoma tam tikra resentimento patirtimi. Tai patvirtina „neapykantos resentimento“ sąvokos įvedimo teisėtumą, kai nekenčiantis kitų žmogus įvardijamas kaip resentimento žmogus. Nekentėjas naudoja savo destruktyvų potencialą tam, kad galėtų įžeidinėti kitus virtualioje aplinkoje ir persekiotų visus, kurių pozicijai ar nuomonei jis / ji nepritaria. Kai išeikvojami visi nepagrįstos neapykantos ištekliai, jis / ji griebiasi pasipiktinimo internete. Taigi resentimentas įgauna naują išraiškos formą – tai neapykantos resentimentas, kuris apibrėžiamas kaip radikali ir ūmi resentimento forma, atitinkanti neapykantos formą, kurią nekentėjas nukreipia į kiekvieną, kurio vietoje jis norėtų būti.
Pagrindiniai žodžiai: nekentėjas, resentimentas, Nietzsche, rūgščių vynuogių sindromas, krabo mentalitetas

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Received: 04/06/2022. Accepted: 31/08/2022
Copyright © Maria Sinelnikova, 2022. Published by Vilnius University Press.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction

Haters have always existed, but with the popularization of social networks, “… there are more of them than ever, and they are louder than ever” (Baer 2016: 17). Therefore, hating here is characterised primarily as a modern phenomenon, connecting its functioning with the online space, in which people express their opinions / criticism more freely than anywhere else. There are very few specific studies of hating, and there is not even a clear definition of this phenomenon (Malecki et al. 2021: 1). With this in mind, it is proposed to consider hating through the prism of the Nietzschean concept ressentiment. This will provide an opportunity to clarify the essence of online hating and help expand the interpretation of ressentiment, introducing it into the field of philosophical reflection.

Usually the concept of ressentiment is associated with Nietzsche, who used it to explain a revolution in morality (Andrijauskas 2020: 71). The philosopher interpreted ressentiment as the basis of moral weakness and falsehood, and a timeless response of the weak to the success and luck of the strong, which became the basis of the Christian religion. The religion is still alive, although its influence in the context of morality is definitely diminished. Later, Scheler (2018 [1915]) tried to expand the meaning of ressentiment by adding a social component to it. Since then, the concept of ressentiment has often been used to explain various ideologies and doctrines, such as Nazism, racism, communism, feminism (Aeschbach 2017), populism (Hoggett 2018), grievance politics (Capelos and Demetris 2022), leadership (Ciulla 2020), etc.

This proves that ressentiment is a conceptually complex, “fluid and free-floating” (Hoggett 2018: 403) phenomenon so as to limit its interpretation exclusively to the Nietzschean version. It is stated that the concept of ressentiment needs to be reconstructed and rethought, it should be interpreted more broadly, i.e. as a problem relevant to modern network culture, in which it has irradiated in all possible directions, and acquired new forms of expression. One such form is hating ressentiment, a phenomenon that is not new, but practically unexplored. To explain its essence is the main goal of this article. The article seeks to highlight both common and distinctive features between it and the Nietzschean concept of ressentiment. The research revealed their similarity, but not identity.

It is believed that identifying the hater as a person of ressentiment will help to better understand his/her motivation, and further research will allow developing a ressentiment approach in revealing the essence of online hating and the peculiarities of its functioning. The main objectives of this article are: firstly, to clarify the essence of modern hating as a product of ressentiment and the peculiarities of the formation of hating ressentiment; secondly, to investigate the causes of hating ressentiment and determine how it differs from other negative emotions that lead to its occurrence; thirdly, to analyze the essence of the “sour grapes” and “crab mentality” syndrome as manifestations of hating ressentiment.

Hater, the Person of Ressentiment. The Formation of Hating Ressentiment

It seems that hating is a completely understandable and common phenomenon that is not always perceived negatively. For some, the presence of haters is an indicator of their success (Baer 2016), for others it is a necessary element of the functioning of social networks, there are people who denote it as an absolute evil, and there are some who still cannot determine their attitude to online hating (Lange 2007). We will treat hating as a negative phenomenon, since hateful comments, according to Lange, are the major contributor to the discouragement of self-expression on the site (2007: 3). Due to this, many people have stopped, reduced or changed their online activity. According to a survey in the USA in January 2020, the number of such users was 36%¹

There is no unanimous definition of the hating phenomenon, as it includes a wide range of offensive behavior. Therefore, a specific version of the notion hater is suggested, namely, haters are Internet users who broadcast hatred, insult, abuse and provoke everyone whose opinion or position they do not agree with. These are the people who post negative comments that do not contain any constructive criticism or any useful information. With this, haters try to insult or humiliate others for no apparent reason. Besides, the phrases they use are repetitive, unimaginative, and similar to those of other haters (Lange 2007: 7). This proves their massiveness and standardization, which is manifested in the so-called “crab mentality”, that will be considered in the third section of the article.

To realize their goal (public expression of a negative attitude towards a certain person or object), haters often use the destructive potential of ressentiment. Undoubtedly, ressentiment is not the only source of hating, but it is one of the least studied. With this in mind, we suggest to distinguish hater from a hater of the ressentimental type. Hater is a person who resorts to hating because of a bad mood, an unpleasant incident or an unhappy coincidence. It can be assumed that such a state is usually short-lived, it is the so-called involuntary hating. For instance, one did not get the desired position, which was given to the colleague, who, in one’s opinion, did not deserve it. Because of that, one started hating the person online. However, over time, one realized that the colleague was more deserving the position he/she received, as a result of which one’s desire for hating vanished.

For hating motivated by ressentiment, it is suggested to use the concept of “hating ressentiment”, which is defined as a more radical and acute form of ressentiment, that corresponds to the form of hatred with which the hater treats those in whose place he/she would like to be. These haters think they deserve what you have, and, what is more, they think they deserve to be you. Therefore, there is an important difference between a sudden, episodic desire to hate, which disappears when the circumstances that provoke it disappear, and the constant desire to hate everyone and everything (hating ressentiment), which becomes a permanent feeling and an invariable trait of a person’s character. For example, even when I get what I want (a job, a car, a husband, etc.), my desire to hate does not go away because there is always a new reason for my frustration and, consequently, a new reason for my online hating.

Still little is known about psychological factors underlying this negative phenomenon (Sorokowski et al. 2020: 1). To clarify this point, it is proposed to analyze the mechanism of formation of hating ressentiment, which includes a number of key points: 1) self-hatred and its inversion, namely, hatred of the other, perceived as a personal “enemy”; 2) weakness and the feelings of inferiority combined with resentment, envy and vengeance; 3) the desire to abdicate responsibility for one’s own failures and transfer it to the other; 4) further declarative and false denial of the value system of the other / “enemy” with a secret desire to take complete possession of it (“sour grapes” syndrome); 5) attraction to the massive, the “herdlike” (“crab mentality”); 6) readiness to cross any boundaries for the sake of success and recognition; 7) failure of achieving which provokes unbridled aggression and unmotivated hatred.

The starting impulse for the formation of hating ressentiment is hatred, which can be defined as a persistent feeling of anger / malice towards a person or an object. According to L. Donskis (Donskis 2003: 24), “I hate, therefore I am” (“Оdi ergo sum”) – this is how the slogan of all haters, affected by feelings of ressentiment can sound today. It is suggested that such hatred is distinguished by its duration, direction, essence and purpose. First of all, it is a long-term feeling², which can be characterized as “chronic hatred” (Fischer et al. 2018: 312). In this way, it differs from the hatred of the hater, where it acts as an episodic emotion.

Hate is never the first reaction to the other, it has a strong biographical component (Szanto 2020). This confirms the opinion that haters, like ressentimental individuals, are not born, they acquire this habit. Therefore, hating, like ressentiment, can be interpreted as a psychological state, the center of which is a feeling of pain, discomfort or disappointment (Poellner 2011: 123). In an effort to free themselves from them and from uncomfortable thoughts about themselves as unworthy, haters look for a suitable victim to blame for their own incapability. The object of hater’s hatred is usually clearly focused, and the goal of hating is precisely defined. However, this type of hatred is more characteristic of the hater who targets a specific victim, because of a specific incident (as in the case of the colleague).

In contrast, the hate object of hating ressentiment is often generalized and interchangeable. For example, one always hated his/her blonde friend Anna, who, one

believes, constantly ruined one’s life. This is the so-called “malicious hate” (Ferran 2021: 16), provoked by the realization that one will never be like one’s friend, which is why one actually hated her. But over time, one’s hatred for Anna can turn into hatred for all blondes, and later – for all women, whom one will consider as potential competitors and malicious enemies. Therefore, one will hate women (and not only blondes) more intensively and aggressively than men on the social networks. Based on this, it can be assumed that the focus of hatred of hating ressentiment is often blurred, because it does not inform the hater about how the property of the object worthy of hatred is related to its goal, i.e. destructive criticism.

Such hatred can be defined as irrational, because the hater, under the influence of ressentiment, hates the other not for a certain feature or property of him/her, but simply for the fact that he/she exists. With this in mind, the hatred of hating ressentiment can be considered as existential – the haters hate the other because they themselves would like to be in his place. The inability “to become the other” motivates the hater to look for the causes of his/her own failures from the outside, although the real reason is hidden deep inside. “Quite right, my sheep! Somebody must be to blame: but you yourself are this somebody, you yourself alone are to blame for it, you yourself alone are to blame for yourself” (Nietzsche 2006: 94).

Many researchers note that a person of ressentiment displaces his negativity mainly on a weaker one (Aeschbach 2017; Demertzis 2020), that is, he/she directs his/her hatred to a more accessible object that is unable to strike back. In contrast, hating ressentiment directs its hatred mainly at the stronger object, choosing a higher goal to be its target. The objects of criticism of a ressentimental hater are mostly famous and successful people, stars and celebrities, not, say, John the Mechanic. A certain rational point of hating ressentiment is noticeable here, since the victim is not chosen at random. Celebrities usually have a much larger audience than the average person, which increases a hater’s ability to be heard. The hater’s rhetoric cannot also be based solely on irrational factors, it includes a moment of reflection, the search for pain points of the “enemy”, the choice of bullying mechanisms, etc.

According to Ferran (2021: 7), hatred in the hating ressentiment is active, feelings and action tendencies are combined there in a unique manner. Whereas Nietzschean ressentiment forces a person to repress his/her hatred, waiting for the right moment to express it, which may never come. Perhaps that is why hating ressentiment better reflects the true nature of hatred, realizing its destructive potential. This is facilitated by the purpose of hating ressentiment, which is not about to cause pain and not to try to change a person or to make him/her realize his/her mistake and repent, but to destroy the hated object, figuratively or symbolically. Due to this, the hatred of the hating ressentiment acquires the form of self-affirmation: it is not only important for the hater to be superior to the object of his/her hatred, he/she seeks to destroy him/her.

The key points of such annihilation are the devaluation of the victim and the ideology of the hater (Navarro et al. 2013: 11). This ideology leads the hater to believe that his/her behavior is perfectly acceptable. As a result, he/she devalues the object of his/her hatred, evaluating it as immoral, evil and incapable of change (Salice 2020). Such an ideology presupposes the presence of a certain self-deception, due to which the ressentimental hater hides the true motives of his/her hatred, replacing them with other concepts, such as justice. Although in fact this kind of haters “thirst to be hangmen!” (Nietzsche 2006: 90), and the notion of “justice” is used to give “legitimacy” to one’s public condemnation.

In consequence, it is suggested that the ressentimental hater no longer identifies him/herself as a victim (as a ressentimental person usually does), but on the contrary, he/she feels like a punishing avenger. They no longer feel anxious, like a ressentimental person, but act confidently and decisively, they do not complain and do not seek to evoke sympathy, but blame and criticize. This prompts to think that a hater of the ressentimental type does not always act anonymously, as Suler believes (2004: 321). Such haters often speak under real names and accounts, thereby demonstrating their confidence and audacity. Thus Suler is right that such determination is facilitated by the online format, which provides “the online disinhibition effect” (2004: 321), which allows the online hater to behave in a way that he does not normally behave in real life.

The inability to exist in the current format is the psychological basis of the formation of hating ressentiment, which can be interpreted as an anthropological state that changes human identity. Social networks that promote narcissism and self-admiration are becoming a key factor in this transformation today. Every profile, every account shows a perfect picture, a perfect image that rarely corresponds to a real person. This dichotomy of the Internal self and external image turns into an ontological gap within human identity, which leads to the formation of self-ressentiment. The cause for its appearance is the inability of a person to match the network image created by him.

Correspondingly, the individual falls into a trap, transforming from a subject of hating ressentiment to its object, falling into the phenomenology of total dependence on the changing opinions of others. This leads to fragmentation, fluidity, and even human dissociation. Subsequently, he/she disappears as a self-sufficient unit, turning to such ressentiment aporia as “one-dimensional man” (Marcuse), “reified person” (Baudrillard), “entertaining citizen” (Bauman) and “interpassive person” (Žižek). All of them are united by the fact that they cease to feel their transcendence in relations with the others, finding themselves in a situation of total oppression, hate and alienation. Over time, this leads to the loss of sense of reality and its replacement by the simulacrum of virtuality.

Hence, hating ressentiment always presupposes the triumph of the imagination over reality. The hater tries to discredit the very existence itself and construct a new one on a shaky ressentiment basis. This reveals the ontological aspect of hating ressentiment and on its basis a person builds his or her own ontological identity. Therefore, the hater, as a man of ressentiment, constructs being more than he/she actually lives it. What helps to understand hating ressentiment not in terms of its manifestations, but in terms of reasons is the refusal to think in favour of response, the refusal of self-determination in favour of identification, the refusal of meaning in favour of individual ideas, and the refusal of the whole in favour of fragments. But which is most important – it causes the renunciation of responsibility, which leads to renunciation of one’s own selves.

The Main Components of Hating Ressentiment: Resentment, Envy and Vengeance

The basis of hating ressentiment is a combination of resentment, envy and vengeance. The stimulus for their activation is hatred and a long feeling of helplessness. The first component of hating ressentiment is resentment – a real / imagined infringement of human dignity. Hating ressentiment, in its turn, is a certain taste of resentment, a person’s instinctive response to wrongdoing that oppresses and nourishes his irritation. Like hating ressentiment, resentment is a repressed reaction that avoids direct confrontation and seeks to quell the pain inflicted by others. The resentment is of social colouring, its emergence is due to the existence of social inequality and injustice. Therefore, resentment, similar to hating ressentiment, can be defined as social adaptation, a kind of self-defence caused by the unrealized human need for recognition.

Another aspect of the resentment that makes it akin to hating ressentiment is the “burden” of the past or “evil memory”. They encourage the hater to constantly restore the memory of the original suffering, experiencing a traumatic event over and over again. With the help of this the hater “feeds” his ressentiment, often overestimating the importance of the resentment inflicted on him. Such an “inability to forget” (Schaap 2002) gives the hater a temporary reassurance and a sense of moral superiority: “You are evil therefore I am good” (Nietzsche 2006: 64). This makes it clear that haters often comment on their own resentments and pain, rather than real posts and facts of the social networks, which turns them into a “hatred detector” (Posłuszna and Posłuszny 2016: 88).

One should also note a number of differences between resentment and hating ressentiment. Resentment is more specific and aimed at a clearly defined object. Whereas hating ressentiment is much more abstract, because it transmits its grievances to the whole world. Most often, resentment arises from human abuse, while hating ressentiment has its roots in more general dissatisfaction with various aspects of life or the cruelty of the world at large. Due to this, it is often accompanied by other negative emotions and affects, such as hatred, aggression, revenge, while resentment mostly acts on its own. In addition, the hating ressentiment regards its object from above, and the resentment perceives the other on an equal footing. It does not try to destroy it, but only wants the offender to receive a deserved / fair punishment.

In view of this, it should be noted that resentment is a more natural and benign emotional reaction. It is usually short-lived and not so destructive as hating ressentiment, which finds a deeper emotional response in the human soul, becoming pathological and poisonous. In addition, resentment is based on moral requirements, acting as a kind of moral protest and manifestation of righteous moral anger. Whereas hating ressentiment, while cultivating the resentment, produces inversion of values and falsifies the value tablets (Scheler 2018 [1915]: 26). Which is why it is a more complex and internally contradictory phenomenon, the essence of which is the sublimation of feelings of inferiority into a special system of morality.

Often hating criticism is driven not so much by resentment as by envy. It is the egoistic inability to accept the happiness of the other, the desire to own what the other owns. Over time, envy can turn into a more complex form of dependence on the other, namely, hating ressentiment. For the most part, the so-called destructive envy is involved in its formation – a negative emotion that motivates a hater to take malicious actions to eliminate / devalue someone else’s success and achievements. Through ressentiment, envy shows all its destructive potential at the level of consciousness, emotional experience and hater activity. At the same time, it shows its most radical form, namely, the envy not to some trait, talent, property, etc. of another person, but envy to what he/she is, and to the very way of his/her being. This is the so-called existential envy (Scheler 2018 [1915]: 9), which has the same existential meaning as the hating ressentiment, i.e. in order to envy the existence of the other, you must lose your own. Therefore, the degree of envy, as well as the degree of hating ressentiment, is determined by the degree of human self-sufficiency. This means that envy reflects a person’s intimate feelings more than resentment, which exposes the existential level of functioning of hating ressentiment.

Envy, like hating ressentiment, can be attributed to reactive emotions that weaken the will and force the hater to focus on external factors such as the opinions and assessments of the others. This leads to psychological poisoning, which can be transmitted both externally and internally. If envy is directed outward, it coincides with ressentiment, i.e. the hater tries to harm the object of his envy. And if envy is directed inward, it turns into self-ressentiment. In this case, the haters try to destroy themselves since they are unable to appreciate their own selves.

Not all cases of envy should be considered a manifestation of hating ressentiment, as well as not all cases of hating ressentiment should be regarded as an expression of envy. Hating ressentiment is not just about envy, which sooner or later exhausts itself, its roots are much deeper. Penetrating into the human personality, it becomes a constant and defining feature of their character. Due to this, hating ressentiment becomes a self-affirming form of human identification. Which is usually used by those who are unable to oppose the world in other practical ways and reward themselves with imaginary revenge.

In view of this, it is worth considering the connection between hating ressentiment and the impulse of vengeance. They are united by two points – inhibition of the instantaneous response to the resentment and the postponing of the corresponding reaction to a more convenient time. Because of this, revenge with a clearly defined object turns into scattered, diffuse vengeance. In this way, it consolidates its position in the structure of the personality and takes the form of hating ressentiment in its worst manifestation – húbris. The full range of negative hater emotions, such as arrogance, disdain, hypertrophied selfishness, audacity, and so on is fully manifested in it. Unable to cope with them, the hater, according to all the rules of conspiracy of the social networks, begins to use other (more hidden, bolder and more insidious) forms of retribution.

Using Nietzsche’s terminology, we can say that hating ressentiment activates the human desire / will to power, which is achieved through acts of vengeance. Making the other suffer is a simple, effective, and “primitive” way to gain power. It proves that hater is concerned with power or rather, with the lack of it (Solomon 1994: 98). In the ressentiment the hater is attracted by his strength, through which he compensates the lack of power in real life. This reveals the paradox of hating ressentiment – what begins as powerlessness seeks a way out for its often destructive power.

Due to vengeance, the hating ressentiment from the reactive becomes active, because it is constantly looking for / creating “culprits” on whom to place their retribution. The hopelessness of such situation is that revenge does not release the hater and does not give him the desired harmony with the world or him/herself, it only strengthens his/her ressentiment. In fact, vengeance is as senseless as hating ressentiment, because it cannot restore what was lost. Moreover, the hater’s desire to avenge the wrongs of the past forces him to imitate the actions of the “enemy” and to reproduce the same shockingly evil deeds that led to his vengeance. Thus, the hating ressentiment turns into a “vengeful poison” (Schaap 2012), which exposes its self-destructive nature. It “is like taking poison and hoping the other man will die” (St. Augustine).

At the same time, vengeance, like hating ressentiment, carries out a kind of substitution of concepts. For what the haters “are demanding is not called retribution, but “the triumph of justice” (Nietzsche 2006: 28). This substitution is necessary to give the hater’s activity the status of fulfilling an objective and universal duty and to make his action impersonal, and his motivation uninterested. However, in reality, the hating ressentiment is typically blind to matters of justice (Elgat 2017: 4), moreover, it may hinder its implementation. The tendency to explode against all (often against the innocent), the lack of moderation and constant falsifications – all this precludes the achievement of justice, revealing the unjust motives of hating ressentiment.

In general, it can be stated that the impulse of revenge is the most favorable for the formation of hating ressentiment, which in its turn motivates acts of vengeance. However, revenge can also function outside of hating ressentiment. Moreover, the fulfilled revenge exhausts its destructive potential, while the hating ressentiment never stops. But the longer the revenge is not realized, the deeper it penetrates into the personality, and the more it contributes to the formation of hating ressentiment. In this case the object no longer matters, as vengeance turns into ressentimental passion and obsession. Thus the hating ressentiment postulates the idea of “pure” revenge, without targeting a specific object. This is revenge for the sake of revenge.

Manifestations of Hating Ressentiment: the “Sour Grapes” Syndrome and “Crab Mentality”

The final stage in the formation of hating ressentiment is a unique picture of the world, in which there is a reassessment of values to please the reactive forces of a man. Such revaluation allows the ressentimental person to relieve the severity of his/her own existential inferiority and to loathe all those who are the object of envy and hatred. Hence, the hater begins to believe that he/she will be able to regain control of his life and claim the “right” to have the ultimate criterion for assessing the behavior of the Others. This forms the ideological sphere of hating ressentiment and proves that its emergence is associated with moral problems. Due to these issues hating “ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values” (Nietzsche 2006: 20).

This reflects the value aspect of hating ressentiment, which distorts the absolute order of values in their embodiment into reality. That involves self-deception about the values themselves, and not just about the means to realize them (Reginster 1997: 292). Therefore, the values of hating ressentiment do not have an independent existence, but are only a reproduction of values borrowed from the Others. They are a simulacrum and a continuous remake, where only the name and a few recognizable details remain from the original. Such simulation is carried out for instrumental purpose, since haters often do not know the true motives of their actions due to the deliberate avoidance of self-reflection. Under the influence of values falsified by ressentiment, haters become the conductors of something foreign and external toward themselves. In this way, the hating ressentiment inspires the destruction of value constructions, creating new intercultural forms and a new content of morality (Solomon 1996: 98).

Such a “coup” in the ethics of values transforms the hater’s consciousness, exposing the phenomenological aspect of his ressentiment. This unhealthy type of worldview is manifested in inadequate thinking and aggressive behavior, that is based on humiliation and complete denial of positive values, which the hater is unable to master, so he/she “overlaps” them with the values of ressentiment. This phenomenon is apparent in the so-called “sour grapes” syndrome, which Aesop describes in his fable “The Fox and the Grapes” (Aesop 1914: 21). The moral of the fable is simple: a fox, unable to get the grapes, convinces himself that they are actually sour and that he has never wanted them.

The term “cognitive dissonance” is used in psychology to describe the experiences of the Aesopian fox, which will refer to situations when our desires do not match the real state of affairs. The natural reaction to this is either a change in beliefs about reality, or (as in the case of hating ressentiment) a change / distortion of the reality itself. Therefore, “sour grapes” syndrome can be considered as one of the manifestations of the value aspect of hating ressentiment. They share a similar logic: if I cannot get something, all I have to do is convince myself and the others that I do not need it. Thus, the hater reduces all values to the level of one’s own capabilities, because “it is easy to despise what you cannot get” (Aesop 1914: 24).

This is very similar to the modern phenomenon of “crab mentality” (“crab bucket theory”). Its essence is that crabs alone could easily get out of the bucket, but when one of them tries to do so, the others pull it down, thus causing collective death (Miller 2015). The analogy is obvious here: a modern man, getting into the social networks, tries to break free from value stereotypes and standardized thinking. But instead they are burdened even more under the oppression of collective hatred. Therefore, the “crab mentality” primarily characterizes the short-sighted, myopic thinking of a modern hater, who is fascinated by a sense of ressentiment and determines all his/her actions according to the principle “If I can’t have it, neither can you” (Wilder 2015: 185). In the European literary tradition, there is an analogy of the “crab mentality”, which is usually characterized by the metaphor “a dog lying in the hay: it does not eat it and does not give it to others”.

It is this mentality that is gradually taking hold of modern haters, who, under the influence of ressentiment, are actively expressing their dissatisfaction with the fact that someone else is getting what they themselves so longed for. Therefore, for those who are trying to break through, there will always be those who will actively inhibit their progress through open and destructive hating. Thus crabs-haters try not to give anyone the opportunity to break out of the Internet bucket, dragging everyone to the “bottom”. Let there be no successful and no happy so the hater will have a pseudo-confidence that he is all right. In such a situation, there is only one way out – to be stronger than the haters’ criticism, to move forward and under no circumstances to become a “crab” for oneself.

Summing up, we can say that hating ressentiment is both a means and a consequence of changing values in the modern social networks. By directly influencing the individual and stimulating the creation of lower values, hating ressentiment forms their illusory nature, which gradually distorts the picture of the world. It can be assumed that hating ressentiment is a radical variant of “strong ressentiment” described by Aeschbach (2017: 94). It does not only reduce all values to the level of hater’s possibilities it tries to change the very scale of evaluation. In this way, habitual values are reevaluated, and, as a result, good can be perceived as weakness, evil as strength, and humiliation, persecution and harassment as a fashion trend or entertainment. According to the pitiful forecasts of researchers, the amount of hatred in social networks will only grow, and the activities of haters will become even more violent (Blaya 2019). Therefore, today it is extremely important to explicate the nature of hating and hating ressentiment in order to understand the specifics of their functioning and choose possible options for confronting these phenomena.

Conclusion

The concept proposed here is that when all the resources of unfounded criticism of the hater are exhausted, he/she resorts to ressentiment, transferring it into the online realm. Due to this, ressentiment acquires a new form of expression, namely, hating ressentiment. The list of the key differences between Nietzschean ressentiment and hating ressentiment needs to be complemented with: 1) if Nietzschean ressentiment can be formed through the stories of parents, grandparents, etc., the hater’s ressentiment involves a more personal experience of insults and humiliation; 2) hating ressentiment realizes the creative potential of ressentiment to a greater extent, giving a person more means and opportunities to change him/herself and maintain his/her “new self” thanks to the online format of social networks; 3) unlike a timid ressentimental personality, a ressentimental hater is bold and decisive, he/she does not suppress his/her negative states (envy, hatred, vindictiveness, etc.), but, on the contrary, inflames them; 4) Nietzschean ressentiment does not always arise from comparing oneself with others, while hating ressentiment is motivated only by comparing and striving to surpass others at any cost; 5) haters affected by ressentiment are more inclined to unite on the basis of hatred, harassment and persecution of their “victim”, while in Nietzschean ressentiment the indicators of social cohesion are much lower.

The introduction of the concept of hating ressentiment will help to expand the interpretation of the Nietzschean concept of ressentiment and to better understand the phenomenon of modern online hating. Which, in its turn, can help to choose the best strategy for responding / countering online hating and preventing the spread of hate in social networks.

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