Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

JEALOUSY IN THE GROUP 355
attained, and everything that can be communally owned has long since
been collectivized, there will always be something left that will be a
cause for envy and hence will constitute a danger to the community;
mere time-space existence as an individual and private person is enough
to irritate. Then there is the reverse situation: in such groups there may
be individuals who enjoy exceptional popularity and respect, whose
advice, encouragement and company are much sought after. These
people may arouse envy in those whom nobody comes to see.
Buber's demand that everyone should be constantly available is a
crucial one for the utopia of the egalitarian, envyless community. It
postulates a society totally devoid of authority. A characteristic of every
person having authority is his selectivity, which must be accepted by
anyone seeking audience. Every hierarchy, and indeed any effective
division of labour, presupposes that individuals must be able to husband
their time, even to the point of avarice. It is here, in particular, that the
greatest difficulties in the life of the kibbutzim have arisen.
In itself, general and friendly availability is one of the most agreeable
of personal traits. But it is quite patently impossible for any minister,
psychotherapist, doctor, lawyer or employer to be literally always available
to everybody. The socialization of the individual's time, towards
which many utopias tend, is an absurdity. Yet the fact that it must remain
a prerequisite so long as man continues to strive for the 'true' community,
a form of existence without any private property whatever, demonstrates
the vanity of that desire.
Jealousy in the group
Thus the problem of envy is most acutely apparent in the lot of a man
who wants to keep himself to himself, and seeks solitude because he
wants to think and, perhaps, to create something new. The individual
who is capable of the desire to be alone and of enduring, or even of
enjoying, solitude for a while, affronts the rest and incites the envy of the
collective. Those incapable of being alone are angered by the successful
escape from social control achieved by anyone who knows how to be
alone. The power of the group over the individual is almost entirely
dependent on man's inability, generally speaking, to live without group