Narratives of Success and Failure in Ressentiment: Assuming Victimhood and Transmuting Frustration among Young Korean Men

Abstract

In this article, we examine toxic masculinity, anti-feminist, anti-globalisation, and anti-military conscription positions in the narratives of what constitutes success and failure among young South Korean men during the COVID-19 pandemic. Misogynistic accounts attributed to the globalised effects of neoliberalism and its evolution through South Korean meritocratic competition, compounded by the social isolation of the pandemic, remain a puzzle psychologically, despite their toxic emotionality. We use the analytical framework of ressentiment to consolidate references to moral victimhood, indignation, a sense of destiny, powerlessness, and transvaluation, as components of a single emotional mechanism responsible for misogynistic accounts. In an empirical plausibility probe, we analyse qualitative surveys with young South Korean men and examine the content of the far-right social sharing site Ilbe (일베) which hosts conversations of young men about success and self-improvement. Our findings show envy, shame, and inefficacious anger transvaluated into to moral victimhood, misogynistic hatred, vindictiveness against women and feminists, and anti-globalisation stances. We discuss how the content of these narratives of success and failure in ressentiment relates to the electoral win of the right-wing People Power party in March 2022 which capitalised on anti-feminist grievances. We also consider the socio-political consequences of ressentiment narratives in the highly gendered and polarised South Korean society and expand the study of ressentiment outside the context of Western democracies where it has been most extensively elaborated.

Ressentiment in the Manosphere: Conceptions of Morality and Avenues for Resistance in the Incel Hatred Pipeline

“…Almost half of incels identify as non-white [78,83]. Despite ranking at the bottom of the incel hierarchy, Ethnicels make up almost half of the community [78], and incel-related movements and sentiments are rising across Asia [20,84]. In South Korea and Singapore, the incel movement harbours feelings of injustice, victimisation, and inability to cope with a "perceived feminisation" of society [20], along with sentiments of "losing girls to immigrants" [84] (p. 3).…”

“…For the content analysis coding, the unit of analysis was a single post, with some posts being singular statements, whilst others were entire paragraphs. Within each post, we coded ressentiment using markers of anger, envy, victimisation, shame, powerlessness, and injustice, following theoretical and empirical studies in the field [1,20]. We recognise that this coding scale does not address the temporal aspect of ressentiment as an emotional mechanism.…”

“…Recent studies on incels have shed light on the widespread prevalence of moral devaluation and the propagation of moral emotions like hatred, anger, and resentment within the insular online spheres of the incel community. These online spaces often serve as "gateway portals to hatred" [18][19][20][21][22] as documented in the literature.…”

“…Our approach expands upon these studies by delving into the intricate role of emotional mechanisms, which function as psychological processes that transform initial emotions into different emotion outputs as well as shape individuals' perceptions of themselves and the world around them [24][25][26]. We focus specifically on the emotional mechanism of ressentiment, which has recently been linked to incel moral emotionality [20,22,27]. Ressentiment transforms self-targeting emotions of envy, shame, and inefficacious anger into other-targeting moral emotions of hatred, contempt, and resentment, while reinforcing a morally superior sense of victimhood [1] 2 .…”

“…Furthermore, by uncovering evidence of ressentiment in the moral blaming of women and the contempt, anger, disgust, and endorsement of violence in the manosphere, we add to extant studies by highlighting the analytical value of ressentiment for understanding moral emotions of contempt, hatred, and resentment as outputs of a systematic process of emotion transformation which transmutes the original emotions of envy, shame, and inefficacious anger [20,22,27,35]. By studying how young people recognise and react to the proliferation of hate speech on social media, and their reflections on potential consequences of censorship, we add to studies focusing on counter-narratives of acceptance and resistance [36] a psychological examination of the misogynistic incel moral framework.…”