Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

228 ENVY AS THE SUBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY
censure of pride, which is called a sin. It may be presumed that those
who feel pride are fewer than those who ascribe it to others and begrudge
it them.
Within the nuclear family, that is, between husband and wife, parents
and children, envy, Raiga feels, should not be found. Among themselves
they are equal, and the good of each one contributes to the good of the
whole small group. As experience shows, however, the social structure
of the family is in many cases unable to obviate tormenting and destructive
feelings of envy among its members. (Here Raiga is not speaking of
jealousy, to which the family is particularly prone.) Thus he postulates a
possible cause for jealousy between husband and wife which has since
been substantiated-in American experience, for instance. Because a
number of professions and careers have been thrown open to both sexes,
it can happen that one member of a couple becomes the other's competitor,
earns more, gets better reviews or, if each has a different
profession, enjoys more agreeable conditions of work. 72
In his chapter on envy between friends, Raiga gives various examples,
mostly from fiction, to prove the thesis that even among close friends it
is better for each, by an excess of modesty, to beg constant forgiveness
for his superiority. 73 Bacon, however, had early recognized the inefficacy
of this tactic.
Raiga compares the proneness to envy of the inhabitants of small
provincial towns to those of Paris, finding that the mutual envy so
characteristic of the village community or the small town appears
equally in the metropolis, but in individual circles such as the professions,
neighbourhoods, between inmates of the same house, etc. In
the capital city envy exists in a number of 'enclaves,' which Raiga
describes in a separate chapter. 74
Envy in France
Towards the end of the book, Raiga turns to envy in democracy. He
contributes nothing to the various discoveries made by individual nineteenth-century
writers, such as Jacob Burckhardt and Nietzsche. Some
72 Op. cit., pp. 65 ff.
73 Op. cit., p. 83.
74 Op. cit., p. 99.