PTI Event: Michelle Schwarze "Why Liberalism Needs Resentment"

Since the 2016 election, there has been a lot of discussion about the role of resentment in American politics. Most self-identified liberals see resentment as anathema to a healthy democratic public. Instead, they favor cool-headed, reasoned debate and they prize political deliberation that is fair and unbiased, not impassioned, in its treatment of issues and parties. However, pushing resentment out of politics would cripple liberal societies in one of two ways: by disconnecting liberal citizens from their hard-wired rejection of harm (to others as well as themselves) or by convincing them that no resentment can be justified—and therefore that none has to be. When we assume that no resentment is ever justifiable, we take away an individual’s ability to be morally responsible for it. We thus shouldn’t seek to cast resentment out of political deliberation, but rather work toward ensuring that the demands of justifying our resentments and their expression fall equally on all members of a liberal polity.

Michelle Schwarze is an Associate Professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research centers on moral psychology and the history of political economy, especially eighteenth century moral and political theory and the moral, economic, and political thought of Adam Smith. She has been published in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, American Political Thought, and Polity and is the author of Recognizing Resentment, from which her talk will draw. She currently serves on the executive board of the International Adam Smith Society. She earned her BA from the University of Nevada and her Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis.