Age of Anger

Age of Anger Plot Summary

Introduction

In January 1919, Gabriele D'Annunzio, an Italian poet and nationalist, led a small band of militants to occupy the Adriatic town of Fiume. This seemingly minor event marked the beginning of a new political era characterized by spectacle, charisma, and violent rhetoric. D'Annunzio's theatrical occupation, complete with daily speeches from his balcony and elaborate rituals, created a template for political demagoguery that would soon be adopted by Mussolini and later by fascist movements across Europe. This moment exemplifies how our modern political landscape was shaped by the angry reactions to rapid social and economic change. The world today is experiencing a wave of rage that seems to defy conventional political categories. From ISIS to resurgent nationalism, from anti-immigrant movements to religious fundamentalism, we are witnessing what appears to be a global epidemic of violence and hatred. These phenomena share deeper historical roots than we might imagine. By exploring the intellectual and emotional origins of our present crisis, we can better understand how the promises of modernity—individual freedom, material prosperity, and rational progress—have for many turned into experiences of humiliation, marginalization, and destructive rage.

Chapter 1: The Enlightenment's Shadow: Rousseau's Critique (1750-1789)

The mid-eighteenth century witnessed a profound intellectual rebellion against the Enlightenment's optimistic vision of human progress. While philosophers like Voltaire and Diderot celebrated reason, commerce, and cosmopolitanism in the elegant salons of Paris, Jean-Jacques Rousseau emerged as the first systematic critic of modernity itself. Born to a watchmaker in Geneva in 1712, Rousseau experienced material deprivation and social injustice more keenly than his fellow philosophes, giving him unique insight into the darker aspects of progress. In 1749, while walking on a provincial road outside Paris, Rousseau experienced an epiphany that would transform Western thought. Reading about an essay competition on whether the progress of arts and sciences had improved morality, he claimed he "beheld another universe and became another man." His revolutionary insight was that, contrary to Enlightenment claims, progress was leading to new forms of enslavement rather than liberation. In his prize-winning essay, he boldly declared that "the arts and sciences" were merely "garlands of flowers over the chains which weigh us down." Rousseau's critique extended beyond abstract philosophy to the psychological experience of modern life. He argued that commercial society made people obsessed with comparing themselves to others, creating a culture of envy, hypocrisy, and moral decay. "Sincere friendship, real esteem and perfect confidence are banished from among men," he wrote. "Jealousy, suspicion, fear, coldness, reserve, hate and fraud lie constantly concealed under that uniform." In his novel Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse, he described Paris as a place where "many masks but no human faces" could be found, where everyone was tyrannized by the fear of other people's opinion. Against this moral corruption, Rousseau advocated a society where virtue and human character rather than commerce and money were central to politics. He idealized Sparta—small, harsh, self-sufficient, fiercely patriotic, and defiantly uncommercial. In this vision, the corrupting urge to promote oneself over others could be counterbalanced by the surrender of individuality to public service and community pride. This militant cultural nationalism would later inspire movements across the political spectrum—from Romanticism to socialism, from anarchism to fascism—providing the intellectual framework for those who perceived themselves as abandoned or marginalized by modernity's relentless march forward.

Chapter 2: Cultural Nationalism: Germany's Response to Humiliation (1800-1848)

The period between 1800 and 1848 witnessed the birth of cultural nationalism across Europe, particularly in the German-speaking lands. Following the French Revolution and Napoleon's conquests, many Germans experienced a profound sense of political fragmentation and cultural humiliation. The Holy Roman Empire consisted of hundreds of states with different customs and dialects, making political unity seem impossible. Yet this very weakness would generate a powerful intellectual response that would transform world history. Johann Gottfried Herder emerged as the philosophical father of cultural nationalism during this period. Initially attracted to French culture, Herder became disillusioned after visiting Paris, declaring that Germans must "Spew out the ugly slime of the Seine. Speak German, O you German!" He rejected the French Enlightenment's universalist claims and instead promoted the idea that each nation has a particular character expressed in its language, literature, and traditions. Herder's concept of the Volk—a people united by language and culture rather than political institutions—offered a new way to imagine community in response to French military and cultural dominance. Napoleon's devastating defeat of Prussia at Jena in 1806 intensified German cultural defensiveness. Johann Gottlieb Fichte delivered his famous "Addresses to the German Nation," arguing that Germans were a pure, original people (Urvolk) whose mission was to regenerate humanity. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the "father of gymnastics," promoted physical education as a means of national regeneration, expressing the view that "Let man be manly, then woman will be womanly." Ernst Moritz Arndt went further: "I will my hatred of the French, not just for this war, I will it for a long time, I will it forever... Let this hatred smoulder as the religion of the German folk." This cultural nationalism was further fueled by the discovery and sometimes invention of supposedly ancient Germanic poems and myths. The Brothers Grimm collected folk tales not merely as entertainment but as expressions of the German national spirit. Composers like Wagner would later transform these myths into powerful artistic expressions of German identity. Meanwhile, philosophers like Hegel developed theories of historical development that gave Germany a special place in the unfolding of world spirit, providing intellectual justification for cultural exceptionalism. The revolutionary year of 1848 would test these nationalist ideas across Europe. Initially welcomed by German intellectuals as the dawn of freedom, the revolutions ultimately failed to deliver political unity. This failure deepened the sense that Germany must follow its own path to modernity, one that emphasized cultural authenticity over political liberalism. The German experience of cultural nationalism would provide a template for many other peoples feeling left behind by progress—from Russia to India, from Japan to the Middle East—establishing a pattern of responding to perceived humiliation through assertions of cultural superiority that continues to shape our world today.

Chapter 3: The Cult of Violence: From Rhetoric to Action (1890-1914)

The period from 1890 to 1914 witnessed an unprecedented glorification of violence across Europe and beyond. This cult of violence emerged from a complex mix of social Darwinism, imperial competition, technological change, and cultural pessimism. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, many intellectuals and artists rejected what they saw as the bourgeois mediocrity of liberal society and embraced more extreme visions of individual and national regeneration through violent conflict. In Italy, writers like Gabriele D'Annunzio and Filippo Marinetti celebrated war as "the world's only hygiene." The Futurist Manifesto of 1909 glorified speed, technology, youth, and violence, declaring that "beauty exists only in struggle." Similar sentiments appeared in France, where Georges Sorel developed the concept of the "myth" as a mobilizing force that could inspire revolutionary action regardless of its rational validity. His Reflections on Violence (1908) influenced both fascists and communists with its celebration of violence as a creative force that could revitalize decadent societies. This fascination with violence was not limited to fringe movements but permeated mainstream European culture. Colonial wars were portrayed as necessary for national vitality and masculine vigor. When Italy invaded Libya in 1911, Marinetti marveled at the "remarkable symphony of the lead shrapnel" and the "sculpture wrought in the enemy's masses by our expert artillery." Even liberal intellectuals like Max Weber spoke of the "wonderful" prospect of war and greeted guests at his home in his reserve officer's uniform when World War I began. The cult of violence represented a radical rejection of Enlightenment rationalism and liberal progress. It drew on Nietzsche's critique of bourgeois society and his call for a "transvaluation of all values," though often in ways that distorted his thought. It also reflected anxieties about masculinity in an increasingly bureaucratic and commercial world. Writers like Maurice Barrès in France and Heinrich von Treitschke in Germany warned that peace and prosperity were making men soft and urged a return to heroic virtues. This celebration of violence as regenerative and purifying would have catastrophic consequences when the Great War finally erupted in 1914, unleashing destruction on a scale that even the most fervent advocates of heroic action had not anticipated.

Chapter 4: Authoritarian Temptations in Modernizing Societies (1920-1945)

Between 1920 and 1945, societies undergoing rapid modernization frequently turned to authoritarian solutions for their social and political problems. The aftermath of World War I created conditions of economic instability, social dislocation, and political uncertainty that made liberal democracy seem inadequate to many across Europe and beyond. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent rise of fascism in Italy and Germany represented different responses to the same fundamental crisis of modernity. In Germany, the Weimar Republic struggled with hyperinflation, political violence, and the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi movement under Adolf Hitler offered a seductive alternative that combined modern mass politics with romantic nationalism. Hitler promised to restore German greatness while preserving traditional values against the threats of communism, cosmopolitanism, and cultural decadence. Similar movements emerged across Europe, from Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists to the Iron Guard in Romania, each adapting fascist ideas to local conditions while maintaining the core elements of ultranationalism, leader worship, and violent anti-liberalism. Japan's path to authoritarianism demonstrated how modernization created similar tensions outside Europe. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan rapidly industrialized while maintaining traditional power structures. By the 1930s, military leaders had gained control of the government, promoting a vision of imperial expansion justified by claims of racial superiority and divine destiny. The Japanese experience showed how the pressures of catching up with Western powers could lead to aggressive nationalism and militarism, even in a society with very different cultural traditions from Europe. The appeal of authoritarianism was reinforced by influential thinkers who rejected liberal individualism. Carl Schmitt argued that politics was fundamentally about the distinction between friend and enemy, not rational debate. Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher of Italian fascism, declared that "for fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends." These ideas found receptive audiences among those disillusioned with liberal promises of progress and prosperity. The Great Depression beginning in 1929 intensified the authoritarian temptation worldwide. As democratic governments struggled to address economic collapse, authoritarian regimes seemed more decisive and effective. Even in the United States, there was admiration for Mussolini's ability to "make the trains run on time." The period from 1920 to 1945 thus revealed a fundamental tension within modernity itself: the same forces that produced unprecedented material progress also generated profound social and cultural dislocations that liberal institutions struggled to address. This tension would continue to shape political developments long after the defeat of fascism in 1945, as modernizing societies around the world confronted similar challenges.

Chapter 5: Islamism and the West: Shared Intellectual Origins

The relationship between modern Islamist movements and Western political thought is far more complex than the common narrative of a clash between Islamic tradition and Western modernity suggests. In fact, contemporary Islamism emerged from the same intellectual crisis that produced European fascism and communism—the struggle to reconcile traditional values with rapid social and economic change. The first generation of Islamist thinkers were products of Western-style education who selectively adapted European ideas to address the challenges facing Muslim societies under colonial rule and afterward. In 1970s Iran, Ali Shariati became the intellectual forefather of the Islamic Revolution by fusing Shiite religious concepts with Western revolutionary thought. Educated at the Sorbonne, Shariati was deeply influenced by Marxist theories of alienation and anti-colonial thinkers like Frantz Fanon. He reinterpreted Islamic history in the language of modern revolution, presenting Imam Hussein's martyrdom at Karbala as a model for revolutionary struggle against oppression. This fusion of religious tradition with modern political concepts created a powerful ideological framework that helped mobilize Iranians against the Shah's Westernizing autocracy. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad's influential book Westoxification (1962) offered a critique of technological civilization that paralleled European critiques of modernity. Born in poor southern Tehran, Al-e-Ahmad witnessed Iran's transformation from an agricultural society into a modern centralized state. His ethnographic studies convinced him that "machine civilization" threatened Iran's cultural identity and economic independence. He described rural migrants in Tehran's slums who daily "sink further into decline, rootlessness, and ugliness"—a condition strikingly similar to what European critics had identified in their own societies decades earlier. In Egypt, Sayyid Qutb developed a radical critique of Western modernity after studying in the United States from 1948 to 1950. His experience of American culture—which he found materialistic, sexually permissive, and spiritually empty—convinced him that Islamic societies needed to reject Western models entirely. Qutb's concept of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance), which he applied to contemporary Muslim societies he deemed corrupted by Western influence, paralleled European fascist ideas about cultural degeneration. His call for a vanguard to lead an Islamic revolution echoed Lenin's revolutionary theory, demonstrating how Islamist thought incorporated elements from across the Western political spectrum. What's crucial to understand is that Islamists were not medieval reactionaries but products of the modern world responding to similar conditions that had produced radical movements in Europe. The ideologues of the Iranian Revolution and later Islamist movements grasped the revolutionary potential of the idea that human beings can radically alter their social conditions—an idea brought into being by the Enlightenment itself. In this important sense, they stand in the intellectual lineage of the alienated strangers Rousseau first addressed, rather than representing some irrevocably religious or medieval worldview disconnected from modern political thought.

Chapter 6: The Digital Age: Globalizing Ressentiment and Rage

The twenty-first century has witnessed the globalization of ressentiment—a psychological state of hostility against perceived enemies fueled by a sense of powerlessness and thwarted aspirations. This phenomenon, first analyzed by Nietzsche in the nineteenth century, has expanded dramatically in our digital age, connecting disparate groups across national boundaries through shared grievances and enemies. From white nationalists in America to Islamic extremists in the Middle East, from Hindu nationalists in India to populist movements in Europe, similar patterns of resentment and rage have emerged despite vastly different cultural contexts. Digital technology has accelerated this process in unprecedented ways. Social media platforms create echo chambers where grievances are amplified and extremist views normalized. The algorithms that drive engagement on these platforms tend to promote emotional and divisive content, creating what some researchers call "digital rage machines." Online radicalization follows similar patterns across ideological divides, with individuals moving from frustration to extremism through increasingly radical content. Studies have shown that ISIS recruiters and white supremacist groups use nearly identical tactics to attract followers online, appealing to feelings of alienation and promises of purpose and belonging. The economic context of globalization has provided fertile ground for ressentiment. While creating enormous wealth globally, economic integration has also produced new forms of inequality and insecurity. The promise that everyone could become an entrepreneur in the digital economy has proven hollow for many. As Pankaj Mishra notes, "We may pretend to be entrepreneurs, polishing our personal brands, decorating our stalls in virtual marketplaces; but defeat, humiliation and resentment are more commonplace experiences than success and contentment." The gig economy, precarious employment, and the hollowing out of traditional industries have created a sense of status anxiety that fuels political rage. The speed of cultural and technological change has intensified feelings of displacement and loss of control. Traditional communities and identities have been disrupted by urbanization, migration, and digital connectivity. Religious fundamentalists, ethnic nationalists, and various identity movements offer the promise of restored certainty and belonging in a world of flux. Meanwhile, the constant visibility of others' apparent success on social media intensifies the experience of relative deprivation that Rousseau identified as the source of modern unhappiness. The digital age has thus created perfect conditions for the global spread of ressentiment—combining economic insecurity, cultural dislocation, and constant invidious comparison in an environment where extremist ideologies are readily available and easily shared.

Chapter 7: From Romantic Rebellion to Nihilistic Terror

The trajectory from romantic rebellion to nihilistic violence has been a recurring pattern in modern history, with profound implications for our understanding of contemporary extremism. This path begins with legitimate grievances against social injustice or cultural alienation but gradually transforms into a destructive nihilism that celebrates violence for its own sake. The Russian revolutionaries of the nineteenth century exemplify this evolution, moving from idealistic dreams of social transformation to the terrorist tactics of groups like The People's Will, which assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian anarchist, articulated this revolutionary mindset most clearly. Rejecting both liberal capitalism and state socialism, he proclaimed that "the passion for destruction is a creative passion." Bakunin's disciple Sergei Nechaev took this logic to its extreme in his "Catechism of a Revolutionary," describing the ideal revolutionary as someone who "has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world." This figure, detached from all human bonds, becomes capable of any violence in service of revolution. The path to nihilistic violence typically begins with genuine idealism. Young people, often from educated backgrounds, become aware of social injustices and seek to address them. When peaceful means seem ineffective, some turn to more radical approaches, justified as necessary responses to systemic violence. Over time, the means become ends in themselves, and the original idealistic goals recede. The revolutionary develops what Albert Camus called "metaphysical rebellion"—a rejection not just of specific injustices but of the entire cosmic order. At this stage, destruction becomes an end in itself, a way of asserting one's existence in a world perceived as meaningless. This pattern has repeated across cultures and time periods. In late nineteenth-century Europe, anarchist bombings and assassinations created a climate of terror from Barcelona to St. Petersburg. Émile Henry, who bombed a Parisian café in 1894, declared that his actions were meant to show that "the bourgeoisie's golden calf would shake violently on its pedestal, until the final blow knocks it into the gutter and pools of blood." Similar justifications have been offered by terrorists from the Red Army Faction in Germany to Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. Today's nihilistic violence, whether from ISIS or white supremacist terrorists, follows this historical pattern while adapting to contemporary conditions. The modern terrorist often begins with political or religious grievances but evolves toward a celebration of violence as spectacle. As Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of what became ISIS, demonstrated, the performance of extreme violence becomes more important than any achievable political goal. The livestreamed massacres in Christchurch, El Paso, and elsewhere represent the culmination of this logic—violence as performance art, disconnected from any realistic political program. Understanding this evolution from romantic rebellion to nihilistic violence is essential for addressing the roots of contemporary terrorism rather than merely responding to its symptoms.

Summary

Throughout this historical journey, we have witnessed a recurring pattern: the promises of modernity—individual freedom, material prosperity, and rational progress—have repeatedly generated their own negation in the form of violent backlash. From Rousseau's critique of Enlightenment rationalism to the nihilistic violence of contemporary terrorists, those who feel excluded from modernity's benefits or threatened by its disruptions have sought refuge in various forms of anti-modern rebellion. Yet these rebellions themselves are thoroughly modern, using modern technologies, organizational forms, and even philosophical concepts to attack the very modernity they claim to reject. This fundamental contradiction lies at the heart of our current global crisis. The history explored in this book offers crucial insights for navigating our troubled present. First, we must recognize that the violent extremism we face today is not an aberration or a return to medieval barbarism but a product of modernity itself. Second, addressing this crisis requires more than military force or economic development; it demands engaging with the profound spiritual and existential questions that modernity has failed to resolve. Finally, we need to acknowledge that the liberal promise of universal prosperity and individual autonomy remains unfulfilled for billions of people, creating fertile ground for ressentiment and rage. Only by confronting these deeper tensions within modern civilization—between universal aspirations and particular identities, between material progress and spiritual meaning, between individual freedom and communal belonging—can we hope to find a path beyond our current age of anger.

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Pankaj Mishra

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