Thou Shalt Not!
By: Prachi Jain
Tags: Pride, Human Behavior, Emotions, Schadenfreude, Envy

Pride, Envy and now this?

Recreated from Images Taken from Pixabay

I was driving at 60 in a 45-mile zone on a county road, as was the ugly green sedan alongside me. It veered into my lane without warning which led me to brake hard and swerve. Just as it should be, the avatar of the hiding-highway-patrol filled up my rearview mirror with flashing lights. I muttered, slowed down and waited to be pulled over for speeding or swerving. When the cop overtook me to pull over the green sedan, the devil in me thanked the divinity, smiled a little, sang a song and drove away.

The feeling was sadistic at the plight of the rogue sedan, and a little more.

What was it?

It was schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude is a German word which refers to the act of “taking pleasure in the misfortune of others”

Besides our abundant egos, we humans also have a sufficient amount of envy, jealousy, and sadism coursing through our blood. Although most of us don’t set out to deliberately hurt anyone, we secretly take pleasure when someone we don’t like lands in a pickle. We may even rejoice, thereby practicing schadenfreude.

It is one of humanity’s most complex of feelings — twisted yet not overly spiteful, stressful but pleasure inducing — evil, but in a small-ish dose.

Photo by 7 SeTh on Unsplash

Schadenfreude to me is a conflation of jealousy and the state of mind at a particular time. It’s the satisfying, full-bellied, deep-throated laughter you emit when the town grinch can’t sell his house or the Ever-Miss-Correct faces criticism. It’s the ostentatious elongation of the spine and the raising of the chin on noticing that the traffic on the opposite side is barely moving while you are cruising smoothly. Or the smug curl of the lips when a politician you despise is caught in a scandalous situation or the verbalizing of “karma-is-a-b****” expletive over the arrest of celebrities who use their crisp greenbacks to tamper with the college admission process.

It is when you are relieved at the comeuppance of someone.

Aristotle was way ahead of the game analyzing this human emotion almost 2000 years ago. He referred to it as epichairekakia. So it is safe to assume this emotion is not new to mankind. And, we have also harbored and nurtured it over the centuries.

Schadenfreude in Literature

Our texts, both classic and modern, are teeming with characters rejoicing the customary ‘fall’ of others.

Iago in Othello revels in the misery of Othello after planting the seeds of mistrust in his marital life. Alexander Dumas fleshes out the emotion of jealousy in the Count of Monte Cristo and in Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s relationship with Heathcliff is the reason why Nelly gets emotional and describes Catherine as “wild and evil.”

Today, the addictive display of oneself on social media has cultivated an atmosphere of critical evaluation, increasing the tendencies of judging, insecurity, and one-upping bolstering the emotion of schadenfreude — one wardrobe malfunction, one unglamourous image, or one less LIKED post at a time.

PRIDE as a sidekick to schadenfreude

We are a whirlpool of emotions and pride, the more popular cousin, prevents us from accepting that we are a schadenfroh person. It performs stupendously and brilliantly manages to hide schadenfreude behind its sheen of self-love and gloat.

Famously known is the camaraderie of writers(a sham); laced with pride, envy, and schadenfreude, theirs is a toxic cocktail.

Hemingway wasn’t so subtle about bad-mouthing Fitzgerald and condemning his work; Leo Tolstoy had a notorious antipathy towards Shakespeare, and when Thackeray spread the news of Dickens having an affair after his divorce, Dickens retaliated by letting his protégé, Edmund Yates, publish a scathing attack on Thackeray.

Many other writers were ridiculed by their peers. This is what Derek Walcott had to say about Naipaul:

“I have been bitten. I must avoid infection

Or else I’ll be as dead as Naipaul’s fiction.”

The difference between Envy and Schadenfreude

When one is envious of another person’s fortunes /versus one experiences schadenfreude at someone’s misfortunes.

It’s like despising your neighbor for having a Ferrari but rejoicing when he/she wrecks it.

Can we do something to better ourselves as human beings?

Our inherent built-in tendencies for jealousy and our competitive disposition don’t leave much room for taming this emotion. A spiritual and conscientious mind does help curb the feeling to some extent, but this ‘shameful joy’ is so intrinsic in us that it rears its ugly head even when we try to suppress it. Corporate team-building exercises, motivational memes, and religious discourses only help alleviate it for a select few.

These select few have made self-introspection as intrinsic as breathing and because they constantly keep a check on themselves, schadenfreude is shredded to bits as soon as it they feel it coming.

The next time your conscience takes a shellacking, remember to take a deep breath and maybe, just maybe, the feeling will pass.

Disclaimer: I have attempted to explain an inherent human emotion and a well used literary device.

I do not, however, intend to undermine the efforts made by the saintly who have ameliorated themselves to a higher level by conquering basic human follies.