RE: Poetry Sunday: Schadenfreude
How enduringly human it is to know that someone who once was uncivil toward you has now had their comeuppance. It may not be just ...
Or perhaps schadenfreude is exactly that ... "Just."
It's a concept not unrelated to "karma" and "getting your just deserts." People have an inbred sense of Fairness ... indeed, it is one of the six Moral Pillars upon which human beings universally construct their sense of right and wrong.
When we see people "get away with things" unpunished, it violates our innate sense of "Natural Justice" ... doing good should be rewarded, while doing bad should be punished.
While I'll happily admit to schadenfreude too, I've only ever felt it towards people I thought "had it coming to them." Never have I felt pleasure in the pain of a stranger or someone undeserving of a "taste of their own medicine."
While the Germans articulated a precise word for the concept, we have many phrases that express the sentiment tangentially.
As you said, it is very human. The question is whether it is wrong. And, I'm not at all certain that I believe that it is. I also feel pleasure when I see a good person rewarded.
Maybe schadenfreude is simply "feeling pleasure in seeing Justice Done."
Edit: BTW ... great poem/article. I got caught up in my meanderings and forgot to mention either. :-)
Quill
Thanks, Quill. I can always count on you for a good and articulate counter argument. I think the very nature of schadenfreude is its neutrality toward the moral order. There's nothing about experiencing joy at the misfortune of another that hints that this misfortune is well-deserved. It could be, or it might not be. It could be just that you stubbed your toe and that delighted me. Poor you, bedeviled me.
Karma is certainly someone getting what they deserved, or at least in a naturally cosmic sense. If there is anything quite like the akashic record, it is very much like an immutable blockchain for the spiritual world. You do something bad, the record records and it and it comes back to you in the next life. Maybe that'll teach you. The Western version of karma is treated sans reincarnation, but I believe its original understanding to be wrapped up in the idea of what you do in this life affects what you are in the next. In that sense, schadenfreude would be an absurd concept.
"Getting their just deserts" or "what comes around goes around" are a bit closer, but, again, with schadenfreude, it doesn't have to be about somebody getting what's coming to them. That certainly is one expression of it. But as I understand it, it's simply joy over another person's misfortunes, and they may not necessarily be deserved. I have known people who do take pleasure in seeing someone else suffer simply because the universe dealt them a bad hand. Maybe that's what Schopenhauer meant by "devilish." If so, he was certainly right!
@blockurator,
In the latter case (let's call it schadenfreude+), unconditional pleasure from pain, there would seem to be a substantial overlap with psychopathic symptoms. I wondered if this has been studied?
Psychopaths brains are actually wired differently. Intellectually, they know what they are doing is wrong, but there is little or no "emotional valence" attached to the knowledge. Normal people are riddled with guilt and shame at even imagining certain kinds of antisocial behavior and this acts as a behavioral brake. We know precisely where in the brain this all takes place (it's actually a three-point network of neurons). It would be interesting to image someone "high in schadenfreude+" to see if there's a match with psychopaths. Perhaps psychopathology is a spectrum and "schadenfreude+" is "psychopath light."
And with that, I conclude my rampant speculation. :-)
Quill
Ha ha! Good comeback. Schadenfreude+. I can see the psychotherapists having fun with that one. Psychopaths and sociopaths are in a different category altogether, in my opinion. Not only would they delight in another's misfortune, but many of them would take delight in creating that misfortune. Is there a word for that concept? There should be.