The difference between true friends and frienemies.

A young boy whose family had just purchased a big new house with a theatre room was surprised and saddened that some of his friends didn't want to come over to watch a movie, and they even seemed to like him less because of it. His parents had to teach him a hard lesson about the difference between true friends and frienemies. About how some people resent success and are filled with bad feelings of envy as well as feelings of jealousy. Jealousy is not envy. They are two entirely different things but the words have, sadly, become interchangeable today. Furthermore, jealousy and envy have come to be seen as always bad, when the truth is a little more nuanced than that. I'll return to this distinction in a moment.

It is important to teach our children to recognise people who resent other people's success. "Notice who doesn't applaud when you win." But it is also important to recognise that many people even resent people who can enjoy the success of others. Some people resent you being happy for them. They really wanted to make you green with envy!

There's an old line which says, "85% of people don't care about your problems and 15% of people are glad you have them." We need to learn to watch our hearts and recognise when we are gladdened when bad things befall others or when we cannot take joy in another's good fortune.

I'm lucky, I think, because I have always been able to enjoy and revere the successes of others. I am happy when my friends succeed, or good things happen to them that might never happen for me. I feel like I've always had it, and because--not having any kids of my own--it would have been very easy to resent the joy others get from their children. Instead I rejoice with them when their kids do great things. I share in their joy. It feels great. Don't get me wrong, I still delight in schadenfreude, but I am not a guy who is going to resent you because you're kicking butt.

The crucial distinction lies in Thymos

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But let's not get too far off track, perhaps the distinction is best explained by thymos. Megalothymos is that desire to become a person of distinction; the desire to be things like saintly, rich, beautiful, powerful, or super-talented, et cetera. Megalothymos is the aristocratic spirit which recognises a natural and valuable hierarchy in things. Isothymos is entirely different. Isothymos is the levelling desire that nobody be better than anyone else, which feels distinction as an insult or reproach, which resents the success of others, and which quickly ascribes greed or sinister motivations to those who have more of something. The person infected with isothymos is more comfortable being just another face in the crowd, and is obsessed with things like equality of outcomes or equity. Isothymos is the egalitarian spirit. It not just envious and covetous, it is vengeful. The people who try to tear you down are almost always the people beneath you. But I digress.

Jealousy is the fear of losing something you already have.
Envy is the craving for something someone else already has.
Covetousness is the desire to take something some else has.
'Ressentiment' is that particularly pernicious form of resentment which combines envy, covetousness, and impotence, with animus--even vengeful feelings--toward the person who possesses what is desired.

Envy CAN be a good thing so long as it is joined with reverence not accompanied by covetousness or animus. Often our envy of genuine achievement motivates us to become better people. I truly enjoy being with people I admire and whose examples inspire me.

Covetousness and ressentiment are always bad.

Our trilateral government is based on jealousy. Each of the branches jealously guard their specified powers and thereby act as supports of a teepee which, by leaning against each other, keep the whole structure upright.

The boy in our story might have friends who are both envious and jealous. On one hand, they have bitter feelings that their friend now has something they wish they could have and their pride is wounded that they don't have it, but on the other hand they fear that their friend is becoming better, a different person who will no longer like his less affluent friends. They jealously wish to keep the friend the way he is, at their level and don't want him to rise up the socio-economic ladder.

The distinction between Pride and Self-Esteem

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Let me also add two other distinctions here regarding the terms pride and self-esteem. Pride can be good and bad also. It's been said that pride is the root of all sin. That may very well be true, but there is a kind of pride that comes from genuine achievement also and it is tied to self-respect.

Self-esteem is linked to pride in a more nuanced way. We need to have a fair amount of self-esteem (faith or belief in one's self) to have the courage to do most everything. We are supposed to love ourselves. But it can be taken too far, of course. Narcissism is often an overcompensation for feelings of inferiority or self-loathing, but perhaps a majority of narcissists truly do love themselves, and only themselves. It is a malignant self-love. It is my belief that narcissism is the result of the sin of pride when it consumes every part of the psyche. This is unhealthy pride, and when we say that something "wounded his pride" it is really his self-esteem that feels the reproach.

So perhaps the best way to understand self-esteem is to contrast it with self-respect. We could say "that guy has way too much self-esteem" and immediately everyone knows what kind of person we are talking about. But if we were to say "that guy has way too much self-respect," somehow the words don't ring true. How can someone have too much self respect? Somehow that term is bound with humility and prudence. He has guarded against being tainted by vice or wickedness, pettiness or envy, he has fastidiously taken care to not waste time or do bad things so that he can remain pure and accomplish great things. Self-respect is a protector of the gift of life. This kind of self love encourages healthy pride. Somehow we sense that this kind of pride can't be wounded by others, even if they have done something hurtful to him, mocked, insulted, or caused an injury or injustice to him.

Sadly, our schools no longer teach these distinctions, and so society has largely forgotten them. Worst, our schools have for forty years embarked on a massive project to inflate our children with a phony sense of self-esteem while simultaneously denigrating the importance of self-respect. They have exalted tolerance (don't judge, call nothing sinful, base or barbaric) and disparaged distinction (nobody is better than anyone else). What damage has been done by this is incalculable because now we have divested our society of the capacity for discernment and now everyone believes they are the best. It is the era of participation trophies.

Regret but no Remorse

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Christopher Lasch called what we have given birth to a "culture of narcissism." But I fear we are beginning to go past even this. Narcissists may act shamelessly, but they still faintly feel a sense of shame and guilt, although they'll do anything to stake out their blamelessness. They still have a functioning conscience which whispers to their consciousness what is right and wrong, good and evil. Being a narcissist means never having to say you're sorry. They are not capable of genuine remorse. They can regret things, but remorse is not in their emotional repertoire.

Quickly, the difference between remorse and regret could be demonstrated by pointing out the difference between "I regret that I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar" or "I regret that something I said hurt your feelings" but remorse says, "I feel terrible about myself because I am a cookie thief" or "I am ashamed that I have been mean, cruel, or inconsiderate to another person and hurting their feelings." With remorse comes a genuine motivation to repent and become a better person. Regret tends to explain everything away as simple mistakes on which no blame can be affixed.

What distinguished narcissists from sociopaths and psychopaths is the conscience; that inbuilt navigation system which point always to true north; toward the good and normative. Sociopaths and psychopaths don't have a functioning conscience at all. They don't feel the slightest pangs of guilt or shame. In fact, they will delight in using your quaint morality against you to achieve their aims.

Think about that the next time you see the No Regrets logo. Pop culture tells our emerging generation to kill their conscience. Not only are we raising a society of people without shame, self-respect, or the capacity for genuine remorse and redemption, we are telling people to stuff themselves with fallacious but flattering self-esteem and to not to regret a damn thing they ever do.

The devil never tempted more successfully than when he pulled on the heartstrings of wicked pride to silence the counsel of our conscience. The opposite of all the weak and wicked things we've discussed above is also their cure; love. When we've banished remorse and regret, humility and hierarchy, when we've exalted self-esteem, showy sentimentalism, universal tolerance, and when we've rewarded the ingrate and the disgruntled grievance-mongers marching under the banner of social justice, is it any wonder that it seems the world is losing its capacity for love?