Oh, there you are Little Prince of Pity,
Are you related to the Duke of Enmity?
Sure you are; you know you are, so admit it;
Just acknowledge it and be done with it.
Or is your pity the hidden whisper of fear?
Do you fear those who you should emulate?
Do you label all of them as being pitiful —
because you are not accomplished in their ways?
You cannot love the unapologetic – can you?
That is understandable, love is not universal.
But do you have to fake grief for them?
That is most unkind of you, little Prince.
It approaches ruthlessness; yes it does,
Little Prince Pity, indeed it does.
Possibly it hides your anger,
your internal impulse for revenge.
But you have not the confidence,
to carry out a meaningful revenge,
you anticipate it in your mind,
however, you cannot carry it out.
Why don’t you appreciate them,
if only for your own sake?
Possibly you will learn from them,
maybe even go so far as to surpass them.
Your pity is a radiance of falseness,
A corona made for you, Prince of Pity,
Pity is the emotion that they do not want,
pity replaces your envy and contempt.
Envy is an emotion you are capable of,
isn’t it little prince, spoiled little dauphin,
Did your wet nurse pronounce you as perfect?
Or was it the evil Viscount of Vengeance?
Allow me to suggest the quieting of your anger,
that is a good first step for overcoming false pity,
mildness is the medicine for meaningful thought,
it overcomes spite, insolence and contempt.
It replaces your shame with clarity,
you will see a new way to observe truth,
you will find envy as meaninglessness,
it will be replaced with merited fortuity.
You will no longer fear failure,
and all of its related emotions,
hysteria, anxiety, and apprehension,
you will become The Knight of Knowledge.
A receptacle for assurance and truth,
free of logical defects and disadvantages,
a person — that is by nature — yourself,
free of anger directed at individuals or class.
THE FOLLOWING IS FROM:
Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morals/(Behold Man)”
“While the noble man lives in trust,
and openness with himself,
the man of ressentiment* is neither,
neither upright nor naive nor honest,
and straightforward with himself.
His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places,
secret paths and back doors,
everything covert entices him as his world,
his security, his refreshment;
he understands how to keep silent, how not to forget,
how to wait, how to be provisionally self-deprecating,
and humble.
A race of such men of ressentiment*,
is bound to become eventually cleverer,
than any noble race;
it will also honor cleverness,
to a far greater degree;
namely, as a condition of existence of the first importance.
How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!
—and such reverence is a bridge to love—
For he desires his enemy to become himself,
as his mark of distinction.
He can endure no other enemy,
than one in whom there is nothing to despise,
and very much to honor!
In contrast to this, picture ‘the enemy,’
as the man of ressentiment* conceives him—
and here precisely is his deed, his creation;
he has conceived ‘the evil enemy,’ ‘the Evil One,’
and this in fact is his basic concept, conceit and contempt;
from which he then evolves,
as an afterthought and pendant,
a ‘good one’—himself!”
* Ressentiment: in philosophy and psychology, is a special form of resentment or hostility.
The sense of weakness or inferiority and perhaps jealousy in the face of the “cause” generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one’s frustration. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability.
Ressentiment is not to be considered interchangeable with the normal English word “resentment”, or even the French “ressentiment”. While the normal words both speak to a feeling of frustration directed at a perceived source, neither speaks to the special relationship between a sense of inferiority and the creation of false morality.
