Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

SOCIOLOGICAL AMBIVALENCE 113
viction that I, from direct and observed experience, am following what I
adjudge to be the right law, the proper standard, need not cause me to
envy my opponent and need not arouse his envy against me. This could
only happen after the conclusion or settlement of the conflict, when the
loser was compelled to realize that for some reason he had obeyed the
wrong law (wrong not only in pragmatic terms but revealed as false in the
light of reappraisal). The consequence may then be intense anger,
resentment, envy, against the victor: Why wasn't I clever or experienced
enough to see at once that my choice of values was objectively the wrong
one?
But so long as both opponents in the conflict situation believe unhesitatingly
and firmly in the absolute, or at any rate overwhelming,
rightness of the accepted law upon which they take their stand, the entire
conflict can be played out in circumstances that are completely devoid of
envy.
And even when both opponents voluntarily recognize the same rules
in a contest, or in business competition, they can remain untouched by
any feeling of envy while the conflict is still in progress, as long as
neither side knows who is going to win.
Sociological ambivalence
In 1965 an American sociologist, Robert K. Merton, published an essay
in which he grappled laboriously with new concepts, on the subject of
'sociological ambivalence,' in which problems of envy were patently
involved but were left untouched. Merton speaks of the ambivalence
produced by the social structure between teacher and pupil when the
pupil who has finished his education is unable to find a position comparable
to that of the master. Later Merton investigates the 'hostile
feelings' which society appears to harbour towards self-employed professionals,
despite their manifest contributions to the general welfare. Here
again he introduces the concept of ambivalence, coined by Eugen
Bleuler in 1910, and shies away from the much simpler primary notion
of envy. 4
4 R. K. Merton and E. Barber, 'Sociological Ambivalence,' in Sociological Theory,
Values, and Sociocultural Change. Essays in Honor of P. A. Sorokin, ed. E. A.
Tiryakian, New York and London, 1963, pp. 92 f., 95, 106 f.