Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

MURDER FROM ENVY 133
When questioned about his motive for wanting to strike Mrs. Hodge,
David was at a loss to explain. He said, 'I don't know,' several times.
Then he finally said, as tears came to his eyes, that he didn't know, but he
guessed it was because other women always had so much more than his
mother. Although pressed for more specific information, David was
unable to put into words any better explanation for his actions. The
similarity of this motive to the one attributed by the French novelist
Eugene Sue, as we shall see in Chapter 10, is astounding. Later, in an
interview following the re-enactment of the crime, on March 15, 1960,
David stated in a conversation with an officer that if his reason for
committing the crime were to be expressed in one word, it would
probably be jealousy, but, as before, he was unable to explain why the
mother of his friend was the victim.
In 1963 a seventeen-year-old Negro in Georgia, U.S.A., shot a school
friend. The alleged motive was jealousy of the victim's being elected
head of their class. Before this, it was stated, the culprit had 'out of envy
torn down several of his victim's election posters.,6
In the spring of 1957, in the neighbourhood of Detmold, West
Germany, a Thrkish music student was murdered by a Greek music
student. Of this case a journalist wrote: 'What was the motive? Detectives
groped their way blindly until they received the following information:
both young men were studying singing at the Detmold Academy
of Music. . . . The murdered man was the more gifted and successful.
Socially, too, the Thrk had shown himself to be superior. ,7
The envious murderer, whose motive should not be confused with that
of the armed robber, is widely encountered in ethnological literature
dealing with primitive peoples. For example, intense envy might arise
among members of a South Sea Island canoe crew if, during a long
voyage undertaken for barter trade, one of their number did better than
the others. Poison and black magic were often his lot. 8 It cannot be said
too often that there is no sign that any primitive community, however
simple or however tightly knit, has ever inspired its members with that
6 The Atlanta Journal. October 28, 1963.
7 G. Zoller, 'Scotland Yard in Wiesbaden,' Rheinischer Merkur, March 18, 1960,
p. 24.
8 R. R Fortune, Sorcerers of Do bu. New York, 1932, p. 210.