Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

GOOD AND BAD LUCK, CHANCE AND OPPORTUNITY 285
Yet where one of these concepts exists in a society, it plays a crucial
part in controlling the problem of envy. Man can come to terms with the
evident inequality of the individual human lot, without succumbing to
envy that is destructive of both himself and others, only if he can put
the responsibility on some impersonal power-blind chance or
fortune, which neither he himself nor the man favoured is able to
monopolize. 'Today it's the other man who is lucky-tomorrow it may
be I.' We derive the same consolation from the expression 'to have bad
luck.' Thus what is involved is no providential God, whose favours
can be won by special zeal in worship or a pure way of life, for this
would most surely induce that bitter, consuming envy of the 'holierthan-thou'
fanatic, so amply corroborated by history-as in the witch
trials, for instance.
Oddly enough, there is also a half-way stage: while a culture may have
a concept of disparate fortunes, of inequitably distributed opportunity,
members of that culture may not quite dare to count on their luck. For
they continue to be afraid that there may be other powers or gods,
projections of their fellow men, who will vent their anger upon those
very mortals on whom the arbitrary goddess of fortune has smiled. This
was the stage reached by the ancient Greeks.
In English there are two words, 'happiness' and 'luck,' for the one
German word, GlUck. But whereas the balanced and fulfilled mental
state which is happiness depends in the final analysis on the individual
himself, to have good or bad luck is something quite independent of
effort, prediction or human intervention. It is perfectly possible to envy
the other his serenity and happiness, because it is obvious how much this
depends on his work and the way he behaves, but by definition it is
virtually impossible to envy him for being just lucky. Thus the English
language, by using these expressions, takes some of the potential envy
out of human relations.
A sportsman, a schoolboy or a businessman who has scored an
unusually brilliant success, thus becoming a possible object of envy, will
simply shrug his shoulders and say: 'I suppose I was just lucky.' In this
way, though usually unconsciously, he seeks to disarm possible envy.
The English word 'luck,' indeed, derives from Middle High German
gelUcke, which in the above sense of the term is defined as follows: an
aimless, unpredictable and uncontrollable power which shapes events
either favourably or unfavourably for the individual, the group or the