(1) The Toxicity of Collective Resentment
As the various criminal investigations of Donald Trump slowly inch toward their respective decisions to indict or not to indict, the country is faced once again with the prospect of unruly groups of his MAGA supporters converging in the streets to protest their beloved leader’s “persecution” - their fantasy word substitution for the word that actually pertains, “prosecution”.
The strong potential for January 6th-like mob violence in front of the courthouses where these legal proceedings will be conducted leads me to wonder about the motivation of the individuals who attend Trump’s rallies and turn to violence in the streets on his behalf. How can we account for such blind and thoughtless devotion to so flawed and unworthy an individual?
Among the many interacting components that may underlie this collective behavior, I’d like to examine just one - the phenomenon of collective resentment. Let’s first consider some of the standard dictionary definitions for the term “resentment”:
a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury (Merriam-Webster)
a feeling of anger or unhappiness about something that you think is unfair (Oxford Learner’s)
a complex, multilayered emotion that has been described as a mixture of disappointment, disgust and anger [which] can be elicited in the face of insult and/or injury; inherent in resentment is a perception of unfairness (Wikipedia)
Common denominators in all three of these definitions are: (1) the emotion of anger; and (2) the perception of having been insulted. Buddhism has a lot to say about feeling angry, but less so about feeling insulted.
As for the expression of anger, the teachings compare it to the act of throwing a burning hot stone at an enemy, whereby the stone inflicts as serious an injury to your grasping hand as it does to the unsuspecting victim it strikes.
As for feeling insulted, we have to extrapolate a bit from one of the least understood (and often the most poorly explained) concept among the teachings, that of “no-self”. Without wading too deeply into the murky depths of this idea, I will simply wiggle a few toes into the edge of those waters, and suggest that there might be an inverse relationship between an overly strong attachment to self and a heightened susceptibility to feeling insulted.
What conclusions can we draw from looking at the collective resentment of MAGA supporters through the lens of these Buddhist teachings? I think there might be two that merit further consideration:
(1) By way of explanation, the link between an inflated sense of self and a readiness to feel insulted could account, at least in part, for the intensity of the anger being displayed by so many in the MAGA crowd - as well as for the ease with which Trump is able to arouse that anger at his rallies.
(2) By way of prediction, anger’s propensity for inflicting as much damage upon the one expressing the anger as it does upon the one at whom the anger is expressed argues, unfortunately, for continued harmful group behavior by the MAGA crowd, as they become ever more emotionally volatile by their constant feelings of anger and resentment.
So where does this leave us? Not very far along, I’m afraid. This analysis suggests a possible diagnosis of the ailment, but no prescription to cure it.
What it does offer us, however, is one possible way of understanding this phenomenon of collective resentment within the MAGA world. And maybe - just maybe - if we can deepen our understanding of it, we can at some point figure out a way to initiate a process for its alleviation within, if not its full elimination from, our body politic.
(2) Resentment - A Personal Take
I’ve had my own personal history with resentment, and so I’m very well acquainted with how toxic it can be. Here, in as brief a sketch as I can muster, is the story.
My childhood and teenage years were heavily influenced by my Catholic upbringing in the late 1950s, and especially by the nuns and priests serving at my family’s neighborhood church, many of whom enthusiastically encouraged my youthful aspirations to become a priest. In those days, it was called “having a vocation” - and it was a very special thing, indeed!
At least, so my childish mind thought at the time. Without any hesitation, I spent my high school and college years secluded in a “seminary”, with only priests for my teachers and only fellow male aspirants to the priesthood for my companions.
When I emerged from the seminary upon college graduation, I was like a 20-year-old Rip Van Winkle, waking up from an eight-year sleep during which the world had moved on and left me behind. Completely inept at the most basic social skills, and totally unprepared for pursuing a nonclerical career, I stumbled through life haphazardly and unhappily for the next ten years or so.
Luckily for me, the confusion began to clear in my mid-30s, and gradually I settled down into a more satisfying life. But even as I became undeniably happier with my personal and professional circumstances, a part of me continued to wallow in feelings of angry regret over what I perceived as the emotional harm that had been done to me during my adolescent years in the seminary. I saw myself as a victim, and I resented my past with a passion.
It was not until I took up the study of Buddhism in my late-50s that I started to realize the toll this resentment had been taking on me. The relevant teaching here is known as “the second arrow”. In simplest form, it holds that any misfortune that befalls us in life is equivalent to being shot by an arrow (the first arrow). The wise action to take in response is always to get the arrow removed and the wound treated as quickly as possible. But instead, we often waste precious time indulging in the unwise reaction of bemoaning our fate. “Why did this happen to me?” “And who shot that arrow anyway?” “It’s all so unfair!” Et cetera, et cetera. In the throes of this unhelpful reactivity, we in effect shoot ourselves with another arrow (the second arrow).
Which is exactly what I did. The seminary experience and the challenges I encountered in its aftermath were the first arrow, and it took years to heal that wound. The resentment about that experience and those challenges were the second arrow, and it took decades to recover from that self-inflicted wound.
That first arrow was unwelcome, but it happened due to causes and conditions beyond my control. The second arrow was equally unwelcome, but unlike the first one, it never had to happen, and it was always under my control.
In my case, resentment was a personal choice - and for too many years, it was a highly toxic one.
(3) Postscript
Interesting reading from the past few weeks:
Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist Matthew Desmond offered a compelling new explanation for the persistence of poverty in America … “The primary reason for our stalled progress on poverty reduction has to do with the fact that we have not confronted the unrelenting exploitation of the poor in the labor, housing and financial markets. Poor families are shut out of homeownership because banks are disinclined to issue small-dollar mortgages, and they are also shut out of public housing, which now has waiting lists that stretch on for years and even decades. Struggling families looking for a safe, affordable place to live in America usually have but one choice: to rent from private landlords and fork over at least half their income to rent and utilities. If millions of poor renters accept this state of affairs, it’s not because they can’t afford better alternatives; it’s because they often aren’t offered any. The unprincipled act of trapping the poor in a cycle of debt has existed at least as long as the written word. It might be the oldest form of exploitation after slavery. The deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s heightened competition among banks. Many responded by raising fees and requiring customers to carry minimum balances. In 1977, over a third of banks offered accounts with no service charge. By the early 1990s, only 5 percent did. Big banks grew bigger as community banks shuttered, and in 2021, the largest banks in America charged customers almost $11 billion in overdraft fees. Just 9 percent of account holders paid 84 percent of these fees. Who were the unlucky 9 percent? Customers who carried an average balance of less than $350. The poor were made to pay for their poverty. Poverty isn’t simply the condition of not having enough money. It’s the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that.”
New York Times opinion columnist Charles M. Blow framed the potential upcoming indictments of Donald Trump as a test for America and its ability to live up to its moral ideals … “We’re at a point in the nation’s history where we are called to endure what I call the inconvenience of the necessary, a point at which something is morally right — and morally unavoidable — but the political timing is problematic. We’ve faced these moments before, and too often we’ve eschewed the moral position for the political one — from allowing Reconstruction to fail and allowing Jim Crow to rise, to delaying acknowledgment of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, to the about-face on police reform in the face of a public panic about crime.
Moving forward, unapologetically and righteously, with the prosecution of Trump is another test that our country faces and another chance our country has to make the right — or wrong — choice.”
Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How To Be an Anti-Racist”, wrote passionately and persuasively about the cultural backlash against socially engaged intellectuals whose work - like his own - extends well beyond the comfort zone of traditional philosophers and historians … “Behind the scenes of the very public anti–critical race theory, anti-woke, and anti–anti-racism campaign waged mostly by Republican politicos is another overlapping and more bipartisan campaign waged mostly by people who think of themselves as intellectuals. Both campaigns emerged in reaction to the demonstrations in the summer of 2020 that carried anti-racist intellectuals to the forefront of public awareness. These intellectuals not only highlighted the crisis of racism but, in the process, started changing the public conception of the intellectual. Their work was more in line with that of medical researchers seeking a cure to a disease ravaging their community than with philosophers theorizing on a social disease for theory’s sake from a safe remove. We need the model these new intellectuals pursued to save humanity from the existential threats that humans have created, including climate change, global pandemics, bigotry, and war. But when anti-racist intellectuals expose the crisis of racism, push back against efforts to problematize people of color in the face of racial inequities, enrich our essays with lived experiences, point to racist power and policies as the problem, and advocate for research-based anti-racist policy solutions, we are told that ‘truth seeking’ and ‘activism’ don’t mix.”
Thanks for reading this issue of TLBR. Look for the next one in three weeks, posting on Wednesday, April 19th.