ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of Brexit and Trump’s election victory, attention has been drawn to the so-called left-behind and forgotten. In the US especially, readers have embraced heartfelt biographies of communities torn apart by economic and cultural change. Books like Janesville or Strangers in Their Own Land tell stories of decent men and women who, through no apparent fault of their own, saw their fortunes change, their lives disrupted and their futures filled with fear and dread. Years of gradual economic decline and a growing sense of neglect, and even ridicule, gave rise to an ideational Ressentiment that went undetected until, out of the ballot box, it reared its head. While the West studied the rage that fueled the Arab Spring, four years prior, they failed to detect a growing Ressentiment within their own borders, soon to be institutionalized through the election of politicians who channeled, and possibly even shared, an identity based first and foremost on negation (e.g. anti-Clinton, anti-Obama, anti-Washington or anti-EU, anti-Brussels). The Rage-Binary Theory, presented in this book, draws a connecting line between instances of rage, like the Arab Spring, and instances of Ressentiment, like Brexit and Trump, by arguing that both events are caused by deep-seated mistreatments and injustices; and that the “civilized” lack of violence inherent to Ressentiment, once institutionalized, may end up becoming more pernicious and destabilizing than outright manifestations of violence and bloodshed.
