In ressentiment morality, love for the small, the poor, the weak, and the oppressed is really disguised hatred, repressed envy, an impulse to detract, etc., directed against the opposite phenomena: wealth, strength, power, largesse. When hatred does not dare to come out into the open, it can be easily expressed in the form of ostensible love—love for something which has features that are the opposite of those of the hated object. This can happen in such a way that the hatred remains secret. When we hear that falsely pious, unctuous tone (it is the tone of a certain socially-minded type of priest), sermonizing that love for the small is our first duty, love for the humble inspirit, since God gives grace to them, then it is often only hatred posing as Christian love.

About This Quote

About Max Scheler

Max Scheler was a 19th-century German philosopher. Max Ferdinand Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers, Scheler developed the philosophical method of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Read more on Wikipedia →

More quotes by Max Scheler