Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

'LOSS OF FACE' IN CHINA AND AVOIDANCE OF ENVY 67
From this the merciful effect of private property is evident, though it
is seldom recognized. It is not the cause of destructive envy, as the
apostles of equality are always seeking to persuade us, but a necessary
protective screen between people. Wherever there have ceased to be any
enviable material goods or where these have for some reason been
withdrawn from envy's field of vision, we get the evil eye and envious,
destructive hatred directed against the physical person. It might almost
be said that private property first arose as a protective measure against
other people's envy of our physical qualities.
In the village of Aritama, where everyone trembles before everyone
else's envy, Reichel-Dolmatoff discovered only the following degrees of
relationship where black magic could not be practised-hence those in
which a large measure of envy can evidently be suppressed: between
father and son and between mother and daughter, although even here
there may be considerable tensions. Between husband and wife, among
siblings and in any other form of kinship, on the other hand, there are
very frequent cases of malicious witchcraft. Outside the family, anyone
and everyone is suspect.
In some tribes-for instance, the African Lovedu-envy-motivated
sorcery takes place almost entirely among relatives, while there is little
to fear from strangers. This again testifies to the importance of social
proximity in envy. In Aritama, on the other hand, suspicion is so general
that no one will say of a clearly innocuous person that he does not
practise black magic, but rather, that he is not known to do so (,Todavfa
no se Ie ha sabido ,).14
'Loss offace' in China and avoidance of envy
Again, the Asiatic's proverbial fear, especially evident in Imperial China,
of 'losing face' is basically nothing more than a ritualized attitude
designed to avoid envy, and more especially a form of self-training to
avoid the Schadenfreude of others. This was clearly demonstrated by Hu
Hsien-chin, an anthropologist, in a study ofthe Chinese concept of 'face'
published in the United States in 1944. 15
14 Op. cit., p. 404.
15 Hu Hsien-chin, 'The Chinese Concepts of "Face" " American Anthropologist, Vol.
46, 1944, pp. 45-64. .