Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

CULTURAL CONTACTS 405
democracy's ideas about the equality of man should be held responsible
for arousing rebellious, envious feelings in the less favoured, particularly
where these concepts, within the framework of a cultural contact, are
introduced into a rigidly stratified society. Barnett rightly points out,
however, that the typical process of aristocratic rejection and popular
acclaim of foreign innovations is a universal phenomenon, quite irrespective
of the moral, political or religious principles of the newcomers.
Thus, during the Second World War, when the Japanese occupied the
Palau Islands, they made no attempt to implant in the very class-conscious
islanders the idea of human equality which, indeed, Japanese
teaching and practice both denied; Palau children were taught that they
belonged to a biologically inferior race. Nor could the Japanese have any
objection to the local hierarchy, based on family and age, which corresponded
to their own. But, as American researchers under Barnett were
to discover after the islands had been recaptured, the results of the
Japanese occupation were the same as everywhere else: only families of
traditionally high rank retained their original forms of cultures and their
customs. 9
Barnett cites two examples from missionary history; one is of the
influence gained by Mormons among the New Zealand Maori, where the
Western preachers obtained access to the primitive culture through
chiefs who had been unsuccessful in the internal struggle for power.
Barnett sums this up in one sentence:
'Envious men innovate to compensate for their physical, economic or
other handicaps; and other envious men who are struggling under the
same handicaps, find their solutions appropriate and appealing; certainly
more so than do their complacent rivals. ,10
Yet it should be asked whether Barnett's expression 'envious men'to
whom he attributes so considerable a role in innovation-does not
rather mean persons who, whatever their motives, are cold and distant in
regard to their own culture, their tradition and the power elite of their
own group. It is true that a faint sense of envy may lead to a decision, in
the sense of 'Now we shall see!' or 'I'll show them!' and hence may
represent a creative motive in the civilizing process. But it might be
9 Op. cit., p. 406.
lOOp. cit .• p. 403.