Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

136 CRIMES OF ENVY
asset that is culturally-Le., aesthetically-over the head of the culprit,
has been used since 1794, when Bishop Henri Gregoire of Blois first
coined the term in connection with the alleged destruction of works of
art in Rome, during its occupation by the Vandals in 455. The few
belated works on vandalism available from twentieth-century German
sources are concerned exclusively with showing that the Vandals
did not behave in Rome like 'vandals.' To us, the point under dispute is
irrelevant.
Like arson-though its victim is usually someone known to the
envious man-mere vandalism, which may of course be arson, is an act
that can best be accounted for by resentment or envy. Vandalism is a
recurrent, everyday phenomenon of American life, and is practised more
especially in new schools for the children of the poorest classes, particularly
those of minority groups. On November 20, 1959, a leading article
in the New York Times expressed indignation at the fact that architects of
new schools were compelled to take account of possible vandalism. New
school buildings in New York City were to have fewer and smaller
windows, and these were to be protected by wire netting, steel bars and
fences, thus making schools look like prisons. This influence of vandals
upon school architecture was a result, according to the Times, of the huge
number of acts of vandalism in New York. After the opening of a new
school in East Harlem in February 1959, 589 windows had been broken
by November. In 1958 the New York Department of Education had to
replace 160,000 windows and make good the damage done by 75 cases
of arson. Various observers believe that one reason for the increase of
vandalism in the United States is the authorities' reluctance to make a
direct approach to the culprits' parents for compensation.
It would seem to us that the frequent acts of vandalism, particularly in
new, modern and well-equipped American schools built for the underprivileged,
are evidence of the envy-motive behind the criminal act. To
the slum child, the daily contrast between his 'home' and the school's
air-conditioned chrome-and-glass luxury is an irritant. If he is also
burdened with learning difficulties, he sees school as a world to which he
will never belong. He knows that when his schooldays are over there will
be no comparable place of work waiting for him. What, then, is more
probable than that he should give free rein in vandalism to his rage and
resentment? Revealingly the chronic acts of vandalism by high-school