Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

216 ENVY AS THE SUBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY
expression of envy and is very far from being the one and only way of
curing it. But Nietzsche is wrong in assuming that there had been a
primitive state of nature where men had not been envious of each other.
However, he brings out clearly the connection between envy, the idea of
equality and the conception of social justice:
The envious man is susceptible to every sign of individual superiority to
the common herd, and wishes to depress everyone once more to the
level-or raise himself to the superior place. Hence arise two different
modes of action, which Hesiod designated good and bad Eris. In the same
way, in a condition of equality, there arises indignation if A. is prosperous
above and B. unfortunate beneath their deserts and equality. These latter,
however, are emotions of nobler natures. They feel the want of justice and
equity in things that are independent of the arbitrary choice of men-or, in
other words, they desire the equality recognized by man to be recognized as
well by Nature and chance. They are angry that men of equal merits should
not have equal fortune. 47
In a relatively short aphorism in Dawn of Day Nietzsche points out the
connection between envy and nihilism. Under the heading 'The world
destroyers' he writes:
'When some men fail to accomplish what they desire to do they
exclaim angrily, "May the whole world perish!" This repulsive emotion
is the pinnacle of envy, whose implication is "If I cannot have something,
no one is to have anything, no one is to be anything!" ,48
Because magnanimous behaviour is more enraging to a man's enemies
than is unconcealed envy, this being a 'plaintive variety of modesty,'
Nietzsche suggests that envy is sometimes used as a cloak by those who
are themselves not at all envious. 49
Resentment
In his Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche describes resentment.
All men of resentment are these physiologically distorted and wormriddled
persons, a whole quivering kingdom of burrowing revenge, inde-
47 Op. cit., Vol. 7, p. 209.
48 Op. cit., Vol. 9, p. 266.
49 Op. cit., Vol. 7, p. 172.