Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

SCHADENFREUDE 215
private parts of the human psyche, ,43 adopt the strangest disguises.
Whereas ordinary envy clucks as soon as the envied hen lays an egg, and
so is mitigated, there is another and deeper form of envy: ' ... envy that
in such a case becomes dead silent, desiring that every mouth shall be
sealed and always more and more angry because the desire is not
gratified. Silent envy grows in silence. ,44
Schadenfreude
There is a brilliant analysis of Schadenfreude, which, according to
Nietzsche, came into existence only after man had learnt to see other
men as belonging to his own kind, in other words, since the founding of
society:
Malicious joy arises when a man consciously finds himself in evil plight
and feels anxiety of remorse or pain. The misfortune that overtakes B.
makes him equal to A., and A. is reconciled and no longer envious. If A. is
prosperous, he still hoards up in his memory B. 's misfortune as a capital, so
as to throw it in the scale as a counter-weight when he himself suffers
adversity. In this case too he feels 'malicious joy' (Schadenfreude). The
sentiment of equality thus applies its standards to the domain of luck and
chance. Malicious joy is the commonest expression of victory and restoration
of equality, even in a higher state of civilization. 45
Nietzsche believed that 'where equality is really recognized and
permanently established, we see the rise of that propensity that is
generally considered immoral and would scarcely be conceivable in a
state of nature-envy. ,46
This sentence is at once right and wrong. Nietzsche is right in believing,
like de Tocqueville fifty years earlier, that a society thoroughly
imbued with the idea of equality will become increasingly envious as
this principle becomes institutionalized. Contrary to what its champions
since the French Revolution have maintained, equality is, in fact, the
43 Op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 22.
44 Op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 37.
45 Op. cit., Vol. 7, p. 207.
46 Op. cit., Vol. 7, p. 209.