Il risentimento e il desiderio mimetico. A partire da René Girard

In this article I aim to contribute to an investigation on René Girard’s Mimetic Theory analysis of ressentiment. René Girard recognized that Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment had a major role in many of analysis of the twentieth century. In particular, The Genealogy of Morals of Friedrich Nietzsche and the concept of ressentiment influenced Max Scheler interpretation of bourgeois morality and Max Weber perspective of sociology of religion. Nietzsche asserts that there is a complete and necessary coincidence between to take side of the victim and being part of a religion of ressentiment. The mimetic theory of René Girard provides us with a way to take the challenges that are made by The Genealogy of Morals and the Scheler’s, Weber’s following theoretical investigations. René Girard, more than anyone else, has wondered about the crucial node that Nietzsche has scrutinized for ressentiment, that is, the relationship between the foundations of social order and desire. By emphasizing the mimetic dimension of the human condition and searching it for the fundamental characteristics of the relationships that inform our social life, René Girard has thrown light on the social and anthropological warp and weft of the human condition in general and of the processes of affirmation of Judeo-Christian tradition.