Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

ENVY IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF CONFLICT 111
In the first place the very word or concept 'conflict' partly conceals
the phenomenon of envy. If I seek to define all hostility between men as
conflict, I presuppose a concrete relationship, a mutual awareness, a
preying on one another, etc. But the envious man can, in fact, sabotage
the object of his envy when the latter has no idea of his existence, and
when true conflict exists only in the envious man's imagination and
perhaps not even there. Conflict may, of course, sound more decorous,
more democratic or more acceptable to our socially sensitive ears than
does the old, starkly unequivocal word 'envy.' If I see two men (or
groups) engaged in conflict, I have no need to ascertain which is the
inferior. But if I speak of envy I must assume that one of the two
opponents realizes the fact of his inferiority in situation, education,
possessions or reputation.
In Dahrendorf and others envy vanishes from sight, because 'conflict
situations' in which the one party's motivation arises unmistakably from
his inferior resources are simply subsumed under much more abstract
concepts, in which the concept of envy is barely discernible to most
people. For example:
All other inequalities of rank which may appear as the immediate
structural point of departure or as the object of conflict -grades of prestige
and income, unequal distribution of property, education etc.-are only
emanations and special forms of the very generalized inequality in the
distribution of legitimate power.
I would also question whether the term 'conflict' is at all suitable in
sentences such as the following:
The inequality of rank of one party in general social conflict can mean a
great many things. In this case what is meant may be inequality of income or
of prestige: conflict between those on a higher or significantly lower wage
scale; conflict between the highly regarded technicians in the printing trade
and the lowlier ones in mining. . . . 3
Between income groups and professional groups of this kind there
cannot be any real conflict; at the most it may arise when envy is
generated between unequally paid workers within the same industry, as
3 Op. cit., p. 213.