Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

'THINGS DON'T LIKE ME' 179
trays, is part of man's basic equipment and will exercise a disruptive
influence in the very societies that depend upon an eventual utopian state
of egalitarianism, this is nowhere hinted at in his novel.
Olesha describes a clash between the envious and the envied man
which is devoid of all tragedy because the 'hero' was already consumed
with envy and aware of his own impotence in the face of the new society,
before meeting the commissar. His envy, analysed in the novel, of the
latter's way of life brings about no change in his total character. At the
end of the story he is just where he began-in the gutter.
What is notable, however, is this: Even the hate-ridden, unrealistically
ambitious ne'er-do-well Kavalerov cannot stand the thought that the
commissar might see his letter as an expression of envy, and treat it with
contempt. He is ashamed to be recognized as an envious man, for he
knows how ineffectual his furious letter would then be. Hence he is glad
when he thinks he has got his letter back, although, as it turns out, he in
fact has the wrong letter in his pocket.
A writer in Russia ten years after the revolution, admittedly filled with
resentment against those who are successful, regards it as a matter of
course that envy, if recognized, is something to be ashamed of, and that
the envier knows himself to be ineffectual. This is essentially no different
from what human beings have felt everywhere and at all times.
Since the end of the Second World War, however, a new 'ethic' has,
astonishingly, come into being, according to which the envious man is
altogether acceptable. Progressively fewer individuals and groups are
ashamed of their envy, but instead make out that its existence in their
temperaments axiomatically proves the existence of 'social injustice,'
which must be eliminated for their benefit. Suddenly it has become
possible to say, without loss of public credibility and trust, 'I envy you.
Give me what you've got.' This public self-justification of envy is
something entirely new. In this sense it is possible to speak of the age of
envy.
'Things don't like me'
Some of the passages in Olesha's novel are very illuminating for the
phenomenology of envy. Kavalerov feels that he is not loved by the
things of the world. He always relates the malice of objects to himself,