Racism, Resentment, and the Reinvention of Truth: Tracing the Contours of the De-colonial Turn

Abstract

The basic hypothesis of this essay is that racism breeds resentment and resentment reinvents truth. But the dialectical relationship between these phenomena calls for a particular understanding of racism, that is as non-recognition, and a particular understanding of resentment, that is, that it leads to the reinvention of truth in the Nietschean sense of an epistemological reaction against a dominant epistemology. This essay establishes a theoretical basis for the relationship between these phenomena using recognition theory as it originates in Hegel and is adapted to the colonial context by Fanon. Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment and Scheler's interpretation of this are used to develop the contemporary understanding articulated by Elizabeth Morelli. The essay then explores these ideas in the contemporary South African context in the light of the decolonial turn.  The essay concludes with a short theological reflection.