Disinformation, Truth, and Ressentiment

This is a common picture of disinformation many of us may recognize. An individual or organization deliberately spreads false, misleading, or decontextualized information to deceive a targeted audience (Wardle and Derakhshan 2017). Disinformation actors may use several strategies to make their false claims seem credible; from clickbait, attention-grabbing headlines to manipulated or fabricated content, or even the use of comedy or satire. The goal, however, is always the same: to instill false beliefs about a specific issue or question, either for political or economic gain, or to cause harm. One recent infamous example that meets this criteria is Donald Trump’s claim that migrants are eating cats and dogs, echoing debunked accusations against Haitian migrants. This, the story goes, is a paradigmatic instance of disinformation.

Does this picture truly capture all that disinformation is? It doesn’t, or at least not fully. On this standard understanding, the deception in disinformation is purely explained in terms of the falsity of the content shared and the false beliefs it generates, with the assumption that its sociopolitical effects can be offset by debunking the initial falsehoods or by promoting media literacy efforts. I grant that disinformation often takes this form. But there are other, more subtle, forms to deceive.

Disinformation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The claims disseminated by disinformation actors are often embedded within pre-existing narratives that people rely on to make sense of the world. Even Trump’s remarks built on time-worn prejudices about Haitians. Crucially, when woven within certain narratives, these claims play a dangerous role: they fuel emotional responses such as resentment, fear, or a desire for revenge. Russia has long exploited this strategy to target Russian minorities in post-Soviet states (Szakács and Bognár 2021). Through troll factories and state-sponsored media like Russia Today and Sputnik, Russia propagates recurring narratives about a weak, decaying, Russophobic, EU that represses its minorities and serves as a puppet to NATO. In doing so, Russia offers an explanation for the (actual or perceived) grievances of Russian minorities, presenting itself as a strong country capable of protecting their Russian identity. Ultimately, the goal is to fuel resentment, sow distrust, and provoke political turmoil.

I don’t mean to single out Russia as the (sole) malign actor. My point, rather, is that Russia’s campaigns don’t align with the common conception of disinformation. While Russia often spreads false content, the truth value of the information is often less important than its ability to reinforce certain narratives that offer a deceptive interpretation of current events. In this context, truthful information that exploits grounded grievances can be often more effective in deceiving. The deception, however, does not come straightforwardly from the false, inaccurate, or decontextualized content shared or the particular false beliefs it produces, but from the way it gives credence to a narrative that disposes those who accept it to systematically misinterpret the world, others, and themselves.

In my dissertation, I attempt to flesh out this idea by appealing to what Paul Katsafanas calls narratives of ressentiment. Ressentiment is a term of art introduced by Nietzsche, and later further developed by Scheler, to describe a poisonous, self-reinforcing, form of resentment. Resentment, in its usual form, subsides when the wrong that gave rise to the emotion is addressed or corrected, or when the offense no longer feels significant. In ressentiment, emotions like resentment are experienced from a position of impotence, where any potential response to resolve them (e.g., through retribution or even violence) is repressed, leaving the resentment to fester. Over time, this resentment and the feelings of impotence grow, and eventually this affective pressure is released by projecting onto others what one cannot bear to think about oneself. Thus, one comes to believe not that one is simply impotent, but that a malicious and oppressive group is responsible not only for the initial perceived wrong, but also for every one of one’s grievances. Narratives of ressentiment exploit emotions like resentment and the impotence that persons may feel by portraying them as victims of ever-growing wrongs inflicted by a vicious, powerful group. In other words, these narratives foster ressentiment, and thus lead those who endorse them to misjudge the evaluative reactions that certain events warrant.

It's no accident that narratives of ressentiment share a similar structure with the narratives that actors like Russia use to spread disinformation. If this is correct (and this is something that I am still exploring in my dissertation), then narratives of ressentiment reveal something crucial about disinformation: its aim is not only to instill false beliefs, but to fuel a complex affective state that pulls persons away from reality.