Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

24 ENVY IN LANGUAGE
envy is no more possible without the particular experience of such impotence
than it is without the causal delusion.
Now it is significant that, as we shall show, many primitive peoples
(e.g., the Dobuans and the Navaho Indians), as well as some village
communities in more developed societies (e.g., in Central America),
bring about the kind of causal delusion described by Scheler, not
unconsciously or subconsciously like our contemporaries in modern
societies, but with intent: my neighbour's harvest can only have turned
out better than mine because he has somehow succeeded in reducing
mine by black magic. It is this view of the world, the magic thinking of
the primitive man within us-also discernibly at work in many other
forms of superstitious compulsive behaviour-which provides the dynamic
of envy in modern, enlightened society.
Scheler declares explicitly:
Mere displeasure at the fact that another possesses the thing which I
covet does not constitute envy; it is, indeed, a motive for acquiring in some
way the desired object or a similar one, e. g., by working for it, by buying it,
by force or by theft. Only when the attempt to obtain it by these means has
failed, giving rise to the consciousness of impotence, does envy arise. 5
A definition in German
As early as the nineteenth century, Grimm's German Dictionary had a
definition of envy comprising all the essential elements we need for our
inquiry: 'Today, as in earlier language, envy [Neid] expresses that
vindictive and inwardly tormenting frame of mind, the displeasure with
which one perceives the prosperity and the advantages of others, begrudges
them these things and in addition wishes one were able to
destroy or to possess them oneself: synonymous with malevolence,
ill-will, the evil eye.'
We shall now examine the elements of the definition:
1. Vindictive, inwardly tormenting, displeasure. These represent a
feeling of aggression already conscious of impotence, so that from the
5 Max Scheler, 'Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen,' Gesammelte Werke, Vol.
3, Bern, 1955, p. 45.