Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

114 ENVY AS SEEN BY THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
What is even more striking is the fact that when, in present-day
European investigations as to why working-class parents are reluctant to
send their children to grammar school, envy and the Schadenfreude of
neighbours, mentioned in so many words in the answers to the questions,
are disguised by the sociologists with elegant flourishes like 'affective
distance' or 'traditionalism buttressed by social sanction': 'Our neighbours
think we're too big for our boots and are just waiting for things to
go wrong.' 'My buddy said, "Don't go and get ideas into your head.'" ,
'They think we're stuck up, and are just waiting for him to drop out.'
'They say, "Look at the show-off." ,5
Perhaps contemporary sociology is so ready to overlook the phenomenon
of envy, a sensation which arises primarily in the aggressor,
because it looks predominantly for interaction, for social interrelation.
Anyone who concerns himself principally with social contacts and
interaction is all too likely to neglect the behaviour of those who keep
aloof and regard with envy and resentment the very people with whom
they are not in social contact. But again, in applauding healthy and
regular social interaction, we must not forget that this may occur between
persons one of whom is intensely envious of the other.
As various criminal cases show, envy may be a very well-concealed
and well-disguised form of behaviour whose victim discovers it in
friend, servant, colleague, nurse or relative only when it is already too
late. Shakespeare depicted a character of this kind in Iago. As a rule,
envy is partly the result of social proximity, although this may be
replaced by memory or imagination. The man who is marooned on an
island, in the depths of the country or in prison imagines what he is
missing, and what others-whether he knows them or not-are at that
moment enjoying; he envies them without any social contact. One has
only to recall the Count of Monte Cristo.
Today the social scientist is constantly being asked for a formula for
the ideal society. But if envy is taken to be one of the chief causes of
social friction, conflict, sabotage (minor and major) and various forms
of crime, it is very difficult to determine whether it will best be
5 R. Dahrendorf, Bildung ist Biirgerrecht, Hamburg, 1965, pp. 70 f. Here Dahrendorf
refers to J. Hitpass, Einstellungen der Industriearbeiterschaft zu hOherer Bildung,
Eine Motivuntersuchung, 1965, from which the quoted remarks of the workers who
were questioned derive.