Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

116 ENVY AS SEEN BY THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
right to, but simply with the desirability of, what is denied; it is also a matter
of indifference whether the asset is denied him because a third party owns
it, or whether even its loss or renunciation by the latter would fail to procure
itforhim.6
Jealousy or envy?
Simmel's definition needs greater precision: the expression 'jealousy'
should be restricted to an asset upon which there is a legitimate claim,
even if the jealous man is subjectively mistaken about his possible loss of
that asset. A child in a family undoubtedly has a true a priori claim to its
parents' kindness, help and love, yet it may be tormented by jealousy of
its siblings if it only believes it isn't getting enough. Conversely, the
husband whose wife is estranged from him has a right to claim her
affections even though, seen objectively, her alienation is genuine.
Simmel's final observation is wholly correct, namely, that the envious
man, in certain circumstances, does not even want to have the coveted
asset, nor could he enjoy it, but would find it unbearable that another
should do so. He becomes ill with annoyance over someone else's private
yacht although he has never wished to board a ship in his life.
Simmel clarifies this further:
Jealousy ... is determined in its inner direction and tone by the fact that a
possession is withheld from us because it is held by another, and that were
this to cease, it would at once become ours: the feelings of the envious man
turn rather upon the possession, those of the jealous man upon the possessor.
It is possible to envy a man's fame without oneself having any
pretensions to fame; but one is jealous of him if one believes that one is
equally or more deserving of it. What embitters and corrodes the jealous
man is a kind of emotional fiction-however unjustified and senselessthat
the other has, so to speak, taken the fame away from him. 7
To continue with the example of fame, there is a further distinction to
be made: if there is only one foremost literary prize and one poet has
6 G. Simmel, Soziologie. Untersuchungen aber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung,
Munich and Leipzig, 2nd ed., 1922, p. 210.
7 Op. cit., pp. 210-11.