HEALTH PLUS:SCHADENFREUDE, the taking of malicious pleasure from another's misfortune, is a rather malevolent emotion. It is reportedly on the increase, writes MARIE MURRAY
One explanation is that it is a reaction to those who made unjustifiable fortunes during the boom years to the detriment of those who did not.
Schadenfreude can arise from a sense of injustice. It can arise as a response to people who seem to have been given, or to have claimed, unfair advantage over other people.
If that has been at the expense of others, then the demise of offenders seems to be especially justified. Pleasure is taken in witnessing it.
Schadenfreude may be summed up in that biblically thunderous expression, “Oh see how the mighty have fallen’’.
Schadenfreude regards the fall as consequent upon the climb and the injuries sustained in descent as justifiable. It is emotional reprisal against any or all who offend. It believes it has a right to rejoice when misfortune befalls them.
When we engage in Schadenfreude we enter the territory of anger, envy, retribution, vengeance and revenge. We engage in that most petty of emotions: we gloat. We “wallow’’ in righteous delight at the misfortune of the “fallen’’.
But none of these acts or emotions enhances a person psychologically. While revenge may be supposedly “sweet”, the results of psychological research into the emotional aftermath of it do not validate that. Instead, research shows that those who engage in revenge often feel worse after retribution than those who do not. Revenge is not psychologically cathartic.
The anticipated satisfaction is not achieved. Hollowness can follow what originally seemed to be a psychological solution.
There are cultural differences in relation to what constitutes an offence, what inspires Schadenfreude and what motivates retribution and revenge. Western societies are reportedly more offended by restrictions on their freedom than Eastern societies, who are reportedly most angry if they are shamed, humiliated or forced to lose face.
The difference between individualistic and collectivist societies also determines what is offensive and the degree of Schadenfreude that follows the financial, social, political or personal downfall of the identified offender.
The danger with Schadenfreude is its collective and societal dimension and disposition. Instead of the personal, individual, guilty, concealed secret pleasure that malicious envy often contains and usually restrains, societal anger can gather momentum, and reprisal can become a public preoccupation.
Then rather than merely witnessing the downfall of others, anger can become more active. It can become a scapegoating of the stereotypes who represent the identified offending group or anyone who appears to have more than another group of people. It is a dangerous activity in these times of recession.
Scapegoating leads to the public construction of blameworthy categories of people: the obvious current examples being “developers, bankers, politicians and public service workers”, as if these are institutions rather than individuals.
Rather than salving the wounds of those who feel aggrieved by the recession, scapegoating of specific categories of people fuels rumination on the injustice of how the recession came about in the first place.
It also fuels anger with those who authored it and an increased sense of injustice at rescuing culprits who have not yet acknowledged their culpability, and who appear to be immune from the financial stresses foisted upon the ordinary innocent person who is paying the price.
That is why there is malicious pleasure in the downfall of anyone identified as culpable. Schadenfreude is symptomatic of that.
People want the truth to be told. They want culpability admitted by those responsible, acknowledgement made that the problem is not of the ordinary person’s making.
They want recognition that the “collective” did not necessarily benefit by the boom and understanding that rescuing the situation is an unfair imposition on ordinary people, and that they have a right to be angry at arrogant imposition of financial penalties on them for what they did not bring about. That is all that people want. But denial of that right engenders anger and the search for revenge.
People cannot move on psychologically until the true story is told. When the truth is told, when genuine remorse is articulated and when appropriate action is taken, the need for revenge dissipates.
- Clinical psychologist and author Marie Murray is the director of the student health services in UCD