INFERIORITY AND VIOLENCE - ISLAMIST TERRORISM SEEN AGAINST THE RESSENTIMENT THEORY

Abstract

The paper addresses the problem of the relation between ressentiment and Islamic terrorism. The analyses of that correspondence are carried out on the basis of reflections of Friedrich Nietzsche, a renowned German scholar and creator of the first theory of ressentiment, and two American researchers – Lauren Langman and Douglas Morris. In the author’s view, the transition from ressentiment to terrorism essentially stem from the mechanism of the revaluation of values and the reaction to its final product, namely compensatory values, that manifest itself in the form of fundamentalism and fanatism.