Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

17
The Society Redeemed
from Envy-a Utopia
WHAT WOULD A SOCIETY freed from envy be like? Those models so
beloved of utopians, the tribal culture and the small isolated
society, cannot help us to picture the ideal since, as we have seen, such
communities are more afflicted by envy than any other. Nor is the past
much more informative, except for one instance, which in the present
democratic world we would sooner not recall: many observers agree that
in a hierarchically structured stable society, envy raises fewer problems
than in a society with great social mobility. I Equally, genuine transcendental
religiosity associated with a moral doctrine condemning envy can
do a great deal to combat it. It is very doubtful, however, whether any
social institution or any form of society in the past has ever known
people liberated from envy. 2
What do we mean when we speak of a society redeemed from envy?
In a superficial interpretation, and one that crops up fairly often, Alexander
Riistow for instance would have us believe that it is a social reality
in which nothing is left that is enviable. 3 Envy as here understood is,
primarily and exclusively, a consequence of what is enviable-another's
enjoyment of great estates, learning or his zest for life. The solution that
offers itself is a levelling down. Men should be made equal. Quite aside
1 D. M. Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character,
Chicago, 1954, pp. 111 f.
2 I have seen this claim made only once, in the account of a Russian missionary writing
in the nineteenth century about tribes in the Aleutian Islands; he states that the people
in question were so good-natured and happy that they did not even suffer from envy,
and would take in good part personal mishaps (such as a fall into freezing water and
becoming soaked through) without ill-feeling towards their more fortunate comrades.
(Human Relations Area Files, Yale University.)
3 A. Riistow, Ortsbestimmung der Gegenwart, Vol. 3, 1957, pp. 91 f.
341