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SCHADENFREUDE
“A neighbour’s ruin is relished by friends and enemies alike.” (La Rochefoucauld)
Shameful joy
There is an episode of The Simpsons entitled, When Flanders Failed, in which the Simpsons’ inoffensive neighbour Ned Flanders opens a shop selling specialist goods to left-handers. When the business fails, Homer is delighted. This prompts his daughter Lisa to ask if he has ever heard of schadenfreude. He hasn’t, of course, so Lisa defines it for him: “It’s a German term for ‘shameful joy’, taking pleasure in the suffering of others.”
The French moralist, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, once wrote: "In the misfortunes of even our greatest friends we take a certain pleasure." He was absolutely right. It’s a curious quirk of human nature that we are apt to experience a tinge of satisfaction whenever we hear about the failures, misfortunes and humiliations of others - even those to whom we bear no ill will.
Schadenfreude and Freudenschade
Some years ago, I earned a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Liverpool. At the time, I was disappointed to receive a passing grade rather than a much-hoped-for Distinction. When an acquaintance of mine heard about this he could barely conceal his delight, and insisted on sharing the ‘good news’ with everyone we met. “Have you heard? Gary got his master’s... He got a pass.”
Not content with privately gloating over my failure to achieve a top grade, he felt the need to rub my nose in it publically. Schadenfreude in its highest degree!
Schadenfreude, then, is pleasure derived from others’ misfortunes. There is also a related emotion which consists in deriving sorrow from others’ good fortune. The made-up word freudenschade is sometimes used to label this feeling.
Years ago, I learned that an acquaintance of mine had inherited a valuable house from his grandmother. To my shame, I found myself irritated by the news. He was a perfectly nice guy who had never done me an ounce of harm, and yet I resented his good fortune. Even worse, I still experience feelings of resentment whenever I think about it today.
Why is this? Why do perfectly nice people, like myself, feel a shameful joy when we learn of others’ misfortunes, or experience a shameful sorrow when we learn of others’ successes? The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gave what I think is a very insightful and satisfactory answer to this question in his 1882 work, The Gay Science:
"Schadenfreude originates in the fact that, in certain respects of which he is well aware, everyone feels unwell - is oppressed by care or envy or sorrow: the harm that befalls another man makes him our equal; it appeases our envy. If, on the other hand, he happens to feel perfectly well, he nonetheless gathers up his neighbour's misfortune in his consciousness as a capital upon which to draw when he himself faces misfortune: thus he too experiences schadenfreude."
We are all inclined to feel ill at ease when we judge ourselves inferior to someone else. When that other person suffers setbacks or losses we lose this sense of inferiority, and therefore feel better about ourselves. This is the origin of schadenfreude.
Since Nietzsche’s time there have been a number of scientific studies of schadenfreude, and these have tended to confirm his insights. People with poor self-esteem are more likely to experience schadenfreude than those with a good self-image; and they feel it most intensely when it is directed towards those they envy most.
Not to be savoured
Although we all experience schadenfreude from time to time, we generally feel ashamed of ourselves for doing so. It may be a natural - and therefore understandable - response to others’ misfortunes; but it is also, at bottom, an ignoble and rather shabby emotion. It is a guilty pleasure, and not one to be indulged in.
The last word goes to one of my favourite thinkers, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) who possessed the happy knack of being able to express a great deal in a very few words: “To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish.”
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