*The Politics of the Wretched * *argues for ressentiment *'s generative negativity, prompting a shift from ressentiment as a personal expression of frustration to ressentiment as a collective “No”.*Inspired by Kant and Nietzsche's philosophy, Zalloua identifies two modes of deploying ressentiment – ...

*The Politics of the Wretched * *argues for ressentiment *'s generative negativity, prompting a shift from ressentiment as a personal expression of frustration to ressentiment as a collective “No”.*Inspired by Kant and Nietzsche's philosophy, Zalloua identifies two modes of deploying ressentiment – private and public use – by substituting ressentiment for reason. This reinterpretation argues for a public use of ressentiment *, for the wretched to universalize their grievances, to see their antagonism as cutting across societies, and to turn personal trauma into a common cause.

A public use of ressentiment rails against the ideology of identity and victimhood and insists on ressentiment's generative negativity, its own rationality, prompting a shift from ressentiment as a personal expression of frustration to ressentiment as a collective “No”. Reframing ressentiment as a tool to oppose the evils of capitalism, anti-Blackness, and neocolonialism, it both alarms the liberal gatekeepers of the status quo and promises to energize the anti-racist Left in its ongoing struggles for universal justice and emancipation.