Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENVY
possession is generally similar to that already possessed (often it is,
indeed, exactly the same and it is only in the resentful child's imagination
that it appears finer, newer, more expensive, bigger and better). Unconsciously
the envious one almost expects, so to speak, that his emotion
will be aroused by minimal differences between himself and another,
just as it was during his childhood and adolescence.
The Viennese psychiatrist Victor E. Frankl, with the intention of
establishing a basis for existential psychotherapy, and drawing upon his
experience in a concentration camp, has in his writings shown repeatedly
how relative is the degree and extent of human suffering. The more
uniformly oppressive and destructive an environment appears to the
outside observer, the more its victim, in the course of his daily suffering,
is able to discover and fasten upon what is positive among those qualitative
differences which are perceptible to him alone. Now the fact that
there is no stage of environmentally caused human suffering at which
those involved are unable to sense, at any given moment, perceptible
inequalities in their respective lot, permits, Frankl says, the existence of
reciprocal envy even in this situation. He recalls the feeling of envy
aroused in him by the sight of a squad of ordinary prisoners, presumably
able to have baths and to use toothbrushes. But there was something else
to envy among the inmates of the concentration camp: the frequency
with which prisoners were beaten up varied according to the particular
guard supervising their work. Again, those prisoners were found enviable
whose work did not necessitate their wading through deep, soft clay,
etc.
Yet Frankl also shows that even the most appallingly maltreated and
handicapped person is able, in the interests of his psychological well-being,
to extract new strength for the future from this very experience of
impotence. I
Comparative ethnology leaves no room for doubt as to the universality
of sibling jealousy. While in a particular culture it may be subdued to
some extent, most primitive peoples are acutely aware of this problem,
often resorting to remarkable taboos so as to avoid its worst consequences.
1 V. E. Frankl, Man's Searchfor Meaning, Boston, 1962, pp. 33,43,45,63. This is a
new edition of From Death-Camp to Existentialism, Boston, 1959. First German
edition: EinPsychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager, 1946.