Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

IRREDEEMABLE GUILT 315
envy. Man seeks irritants to inflame his envy. If some of these are taken
from him, he falls back on whatever difference between himself and
. others lies nearest to hand.
Tournier, although several times indicating that he knows it is envy as
such whose existence brings about the sense of guilt, is unable to look at
it squarely, because to do so would mean accusing his fellow men of sin.
He wrestles with the problem presented by the universality of the sense
of guilt which defies all therapy and all religion. He even asks how it can
persist when men have been completely exculpated or redeemed by
divine or other acts of grace. But he never penetrates to the heart of the
matter, that is, the fear of envy in one's fellow men. For it is owing to this
fear that the feeling of guilt persists within us, even when we should
really be convinced that, from a secular or religious point of view, we
ourselves are innocent and our inequality is justified. We suspect that
theological liberation from the sense of guilt renders us even more
hateful and enviable in the eyes of others. For they say: 'First he enjoyed
the sin, and now it's forgiven him. Naturally I resent it!' And this it
is-fear of the envious evil eye-which keeps alive in man the sense of
guilt. However much Tournier strives after this insight, and close to it
though he may sometimes come, it remains beyond his reach because it
necessitates a diagnosis of the average man which, in its severity, appears
to him un-Christian.
Irredeemable guilt
Towards the end of his book, in a chapter entitled 'Everything Must Be
Paid For, ' Tournier touches on a basic trait notable in the human psyche.
Not only the atheist and the Christian in the culture of the West, but also
the Hindu, for instance, forever washing himself in the Ganges, and the
penitents in various religions-all these are tormented by a feeling that
there always remains some kind of guilt that must be expiated. Few
experiences are so difficult for human beings to digest as the acceptance
of a religious or secular act of grace.
Tournier associates this observation with the conception that 'man
defiles and degrades everything he touches.' Man cannot conceive that
evil will ever finally disappear for it must somehow conform to the
principle of the indestructibility of matter and energy. Tournier then