When bad things happen to other people
By: John Portmann.
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 242
Subjects: Suffering -- Moral and ethical aspects.; Pleasure -- Moral and ethical aspects.; Sympathy -- Moral and ethical aspects.
Description: ""Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies," Gore Vidal once observed. It's funny, it's terrible, and it's true. What is it in human nature that makes us derive pleasure from others' - even friends' - suffering? John Portmann explores this all-too-human foible - what the Germans call Schadenfreude - in the first book ever written about this universal emotion."--BOOK JACKET.

"Disagreement about suffering - what it is, who deserves it, and how much - has compelled philosophers for centuries. Portmann humanizes Schadenfreude by investigating what diverse thinkers like Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Freud, or Toni Morrison said about it. But Portmann does even more. Using Schadenfreude as a springboard, he explores pressing issues in contemporary society. For instance, what does our insatiable appetite for media images depicting power, scandal, and betrayal tell us about our culture?

And, is capital punishment a modern-day euphemism for revenge?"--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [221]-233) and index.