Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

250 POLITICS AND THE APPEASEMENT OF ENVY
of a wise, benevolent 'general will' (the influence of Rousseau is plain).
How, given such a premise, can such an all-embracing body, the society
or the community, be envious? Envious of whom? Of itself or of its
offspring? The question obviously lends itself to a reductio ad absurdum.
Only by pointing out how it is that individuals succeed, by
disguising their personal envy under a cloak of social concern, in raising
it into an apparently supra-personal demand, or how generalized envy
can be whipped up to pathological level by certain demagogues-i.e.,
can be exacerbated to the point of ostracism-only then does the
inconsistency between Ranulf's theory of ostracism and modern social
theory disappear.
The nature of this inconsistency emerges very clearly in Ranulf's
dispute with Professor Gernet. Gernet begins by describing ostracism in
a way that accords with Ranulf's:
'He who interferes with democracy, who disturbs the conditions of
equality, who elevates his pride above the group, draws down upon
himself the effects of a collective "jealousy. " ,21
Much to the regret of Ranulf, Gernet finds the use of the word
'jealousy' (presumably used erroneously in this case to mean 'envy')
questionable:
To understand the expression 'jealousy of the people' in a grossly democratic
sense would be to commit that error of interpretation which consists
in ascribing perfectly conscious and reasoned motives to an institution of
which they would always fail to explain the peCUliarities. In such a domain
nothing is easier than to oppose psychology to psychology. There is jealousy
in Ostracism-granted, but there is also fear .... There is fear of oligarchy
and tyranny. . . . Behind this common-sense teleology it is necessary
to seek, in the institution itself, the profound idea to which it gives
expression. 22
Ranulf is right in saying that a methodological reservation of this kind
is characteristic of a pupil of Durkheim. And even though a sociologist
should never be satisfied with a purely psychological explanation of the
21 Ranulf, op. cit., p. 137, ref. Louis Gernet, Recherches sur Le deveLoppement de La
pensee juridique et moraLe en Grece, Paris, 1917, pp. 402 ff.
22 Ranulf, op. cit., pp. 137 f., ref. Gernet, op. cit., p. 404.