The Origin of Schadenfreude

Person A indulges a pleasure while his friend, Person B, is suffering.

Person A feels his friend’s reflected uneasiness more sensibly by comparing it with his own original pleasure.

◦ This contrast should also enliven the present pleasure.

Grief is here supposed to be the predominant passion.

Every addition:

• falls to that passion
• is swallowed up in that passion, without operating on the contrary affection.

It is the same case with those penances which men inflict on themselves for their past sins and failings.

When a criminal reflects on the punishment he deserves, its idea is magnified by a comparison with his present ease.

This forces him to seek uneasiness to avoid so disagreeable a contrast.

This reasoning will account for the origin of envy and malice.

The only difference between them is that: ▪ envy is excited by some present enjoyment of another person. • By comparison, this reduces our idea of our own enjoyment. ▪ malice is the unprovoked desire of producing evil to another to reap a pleasure from the comparison.

The enjoyment is the object of envy. ▪ It is commonly superior to our own.

A superiority naturally:

• seems to overshadow us
• presents a disagreeable comparison.

But even in the case of an inferiority, we still desire a greater distance to further augment the idea of our self. ◦ When this distance reduces, the comparison: ▪ is less to our advantage ▪ consequently gives us less pleasure ▪ is even disagreeable. • Hence arises that species of envy which men feel when they perceive their inferiors approaching or overtaking them in glory or happiness. ◦ We may see the effects of comparison twice repeated in this envy. • A man who compares himself to his inferior, receives a pleasure from the comparison. ◦ When the inferiority decreases by the inferior’s elevation, what was supposed to have been a decrease of pleasure, becomes a real pain through a new comparison with its preceding condition. • The great disproportion between our self and another person does not produce the envy from a superiority in others. ◦ On the contrary, it is our proximity. • A common soldier bears no such envy to his general as to his sergeant or corporal. ◦ An eminent writer does not have so great jealousy in common hackney scribblers, as in authors who more nearly approach him. • It may be thought that the greater the disproportion, the greater the uneasiness from the comparison. ◦ But on the other hand, the great disproportion: ▪ cuts off the relation ▪ keeps us from comparing ourselves with what is remote from us, or diminishes the effects of the comparison. • Resemblance and proximity always produce a relation of ideas. ◦ Accidents may bring two ideas together. ◦ But accidents have no bond or connecting quality to join the ideas in the imagination. ▪ If you destroy these ties, the ideas cannot: • remain united long, or • have any considerable influence on each other. • I have observed in considering the nature of ambition, that the great feel a double pleasure in authority from comparing their own condition with that of their slaves. • This comparison has a double influence because it is: ◦ natural ◦ presented by the subject. • When the fancy, in the comparison of objects, does not pass easily from the one object to the other, the action of the mind is broken. ◦ The fancy, in considering the second object, begins on a new footing. • The impression attending every object is not greater in that case by succeeding a less of the same kind. ◦ But these two impressions: ▪ are distinct ▪ produce their distinct effects, without any communication together. • The lack of relation in the ideas breaks the relation of the impressions. ◦ By such a separation prevents their mutual operation and influence.

• To confirm this we may observe, that the proximity in the degree of merit is not alone sufficient to give rise to envy, but must be assisted by other relations.
    ◦ A poet is not apt to envy a philosopher, or a poet of a different kind, of a different nation, or of a different age.
• All these differences prevent or weaken the comparison, and consequently the passion.

• This is also why all objects appear great or little, merely by a comparison with those objects of the same species.
• A mountain does not magnify nor reduce a horse in our eyes.
    ◦ But when a Flemish and a Welsh horse are seen together, one appears greater and the other less, than when viewed apart.

• From this principle is why historians remark that any party in a civil war always chooses to call in a foreign enemy at any hazard rather than submit to their fellow-citizens.
    ◦ Guicciardin applies this remark to the wars in Italy.
    ◦ The relations between the different Italian states then were just of name, language, and contiguity.
    ◦ When joined with superiority, these relations:
        ▪ make the comparison more natural and grievous
        ▪ cause men to search for some other unrelated superiority which will have a less sensible influence on the imagination.
• The mind quickly perceives its advantages and disadvantages.
    ◦ It finds its situation most uneasy when superiority is conjoined with other relations.
    ◦ It seeks its repose as much as possible, by:
        ▪ separating them
        ▪ breaking that association of ideas, which renders the comparison more natural and effective.
    ◦ When it cannot break the association, it feels a stronger desire to remove the superiority.
• This is why travelers are commonly so lavish of their praises to the Chinese and Persians, while they depreciate their neighbouring, but rival nations.
• These examples from history and common experience are rich and curious.
• We may find parallel ones in the arts, which are no less remarkable.
    ◦ If an author compose a treatise with one part serious and profound, and another light and humorous, everyone would:
        ▪ condemn such a strange mixture
        ▪ accuse him of neglecting all rules of art and criticism.
• These rules of art are founded on the qualities of human nature.
    ◦ The quality which prevents the mind from immediately passing from one disposition to a different one, is the quality which requires a consistency in every performance.
• Yet this does not make us blame Mr. Prior, an admirable poet, for joining his Alma and his Solomon in the same volume.
    ◦ He has succeeded perfectly well in Alma’s gaiety and Solomon’s melancholy.
    ◦ Even if you read these two compositions without any interval, you would feel little difficulty in the change of passions.
    ◦ Because these performances as considered as entirely different.
        ▪ This break in the ideas:
            • breaks the progress of the affections
            • hinders the one from influencing or contradicting the other.

• A heroic and burlesque design, united in one picture, would be monstrous.
• Though we place two pictures of so opposite a character next to each other in the same room without any difficulty.

• No ideas can affect each other by comparison or by the passions they separately produce, unless they are united together by some relation which may:
    ◦ cause an easy transition of:
        ▪ the ideas
        ▪ the emotions or impressions attending the ideas
    ◦ may preserve the one impression in the imagination’s passage to the other.

This principle is very remarkable because it is analogous to what we have observed concerning the understanding and the passions. • Suppose two objects are presented to me, unconnected by any relation. ◦ Suppose that: ▪ each of these objects separately produces a passion ▪ these two passions are contrary in themselves. ◦ We find from experience, that the: ▪ lack of relation in the objects or ideas hinders the natural contrariety of the passions ▪ break in the thought’s transition: • removes the affections from each other • prevents their opposition.

It is the same case with comparison.

From both these phenomena we conclude, that the relation of ideas must forward the transition of impressions. ◦ Since its absence alone is able to: ▪ prevent it ▪ separate what naturally should have operated on each other.

When the absence of an object or quality removes any usual or natural effect, we may certainly conclude that its presence contributes to the production of the effect.