Schadenfreude

Return to the Convent, by Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala, 1868. Note the group of monks laughing while the lone monk struggles with the donkey.

Schadenfreude (/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/; German: [ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʁɔʏ̯də]; lit. 'harm-joy') is pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. It is a feeling of joy, or an expression of pleasure or self-satisfaction, that comes from learning of another's troubles or failures.[1]

Etymology


Schadenfreude is borrowed from German; it is a compound of Schaden 'damage, harm' and Freude 'joy'. The German word is mentioned in English texts in 1852 and 1867, but it only appears in running English text in 1895.[2] In German, it is first attested in the 1740's.[3]

Though normally not capitalized in English, the term Schadenfreude is sometimes capitalized following the German convention for nouns.

Synonyms

There are other ways to express the concept in English.

"Epicharikaky" is a direct equivalent, borrowed from Greek epichairekakia (ἐπιχαιρεκακία, first attested in Aristotle[4]), from ἐπί epi 'upon', χαρά chara 'joy', and κακόν kakon 'evil'.[5][6][7][8] It may also be spelled "epicaricacy".[9]

A Roman holiday is a metaphor from Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, where a gladiator in ancient Rome expects to be "butchered to make a Roman holiday" while the audience would take pleasure from watching his suffering. The term suggests debauchery and disorder in addition to sadistic enjoyment.[10]

"Morose delectation" (delectatio morosa in Latin), meaning, "The habit of dwelling with enjoyment on evil thoughts".[11] was considered by the medieval church to be a sin.[12][13] French writer Pierre Klossowski maintained that the appeal of sadism is morose delectation.[14][15]

An English word of similar meaning is "gloating", where "gloat" means "to observe or think about something with triumphant and often malicious satisfaction, gratification, or delight" (e.g. to gloat over an enemy's misfortune).[16] Gloating is differentiated from Schadenfreude in that it does not necessarily require malice (one may gloat to a friend about having defeated him in a game without ill intent), and that it describes an action rather than a state of mind (one typically gloats to the subject of the misfortune or to a third party). On the other hand, unlike Schadenfreude, where the focus is on someone's misfortune, gloating often brings to mind inappropriately celebrating or bragging about one's own good fortune without any particular focus on the misfortune of others.

"Sadism" is specifically enjoying the physical pain or humiliation of others,[17] rather than specifically the misfortune of others, as in the case of schadenfreude.

Permutations of the concept of pleasure at another's unhappiness are: pleasure at another's happiness, displeasure at another's happiness, and displeasure at another's unhappiness. Words for these concepts are sometimes cited as antonyms to schadenfreude, as each is the opposite in some way.

Pleasure at another's happiness is described by the Buddhist concept of mudita[18][19][20] or the concept of "compersion" in the polyamory community.

Displeasure at another's happiness is envy or perhaps jealousy. The recent coinage "freudenschade" similarly means sorrow at another's success.[21][22]

Displeasure at another's unhappiness is sympathy, pity, or compassion.

In other languages

In Chinese, the set phrase "幸災樂禍" (pinyin: xìng zāi lè huò) literally translates to take "joy in calamity and delight in disaster", and serves the same meaning as schadenfreude.

Finnish vahingonilo literally means "joy of misfortune". Swedish has skadeglädje, literally "injury joy" (the joy of watching someone's injury, be it figurative or literal). Similar terms exist in Danish (skadefro), Norwegian (skadefryd), and Estonian (kahjurõõm).

The Dutch word leedvermaak (literally translatable as "suffer entertainment") is said to be a calque of the German "Schadenfreude.[23]

Afrikaans inherited leedvermaak without any changes in spelling or meaning from Dutch, though the pronunciation is slightly different.

Arabic shamaatah means "to enjoy the calamity upon the enemy".

Biblical Hebrew simkha laid literally means "joy of calamity", and is used in the Book of Proverbs of the Hebrew Bible.

French uses joie mauvaise (bad or evil joy) and a few similar terms in a sense close to Schadenfreude.

Bulgarian and Russian have the noun злорадство Bulgarian pronunciation: [zɫorˈadstvo], from зло (evil) and радост (joy). Also Bulgarian has a corresponding adjective злорад. Slovak language knows the term as well—škodoradosť Slovak pronunciation: [škodoradosť] from škoda (harm) and radosť (joy, pleasure).

Portuguese possesses no single word that can exactly translate the term, but it has a common adage, pimenta nos olhos dos outros é refresco, "to have someone else's eyes peppered is a refreshment" or, more literally, "pepper in someone else's eyes is [to the unaffected] a refreshing drink". According to popular folklore, this might often be the consequence of one putting an olho gordo over another person and the consequential failure that might ensue to their fate. To consciously place a bad omen on someone and then relish with their affliction is called agourar. The meaning of the verb agourar is ambiguous, though, as it might imply just common ill omen (for example, the literal, folkloric bird of ill omen[24]).

Neologisms and variants

Neologisms and portmanteau words were coined from the word as early as 1993, when Lincoln Caplan, in his book Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire,[25] used the word Skaddenfreude to describe the delight that competitors of Skadden Arps took in its troubles of the early 1990s. Others include spitzenfreude, coined by The Economist to refer to the fall of Eliot Spitzer[26] and Schadenford, coined by Toronto Life in regard to Canadian politician Rob Ford.[27]

Literary usage and philosophical analysis

The Book of Proverbs mentions an emotion similar to schadenfreude: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him." (Proverbs 24:17–18, King James Version).

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle used epikhairekakia (ἐπιχαιρεκακία in Greek) as part of a triad of terms, in which epikhairekakia stands as the opposite of phthonos (φθόνος), and nemesis (νέμεσις) occupies the mean. Nemesis is "a painful response to another's undeserved good fortune", while phthonos is a painful response to any good fortune, deserved or not. The epikhairekakos (ἐπιχαιρέκακος) person takes pleasure in another's ill fortune.[28][29]

Lucretius characterises the emotion in an extended simile in De rerum natura: Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem, "It is pleasant to watch from the land the great struggle of someone else in a sea rendered great by turbulent winds." The abbreviated Latin tag suave mare magno recalled the passage to generations familiar with the Latin classics.[30]

Caesarius of Heisterbach regards "delight in the adversity of a neighbour" as one of the "daughters of envy ... which follows anger" in his Dialogue on Miracles.[31]

During the 17th century, Robert Burton wrote in his work The Anatomy of Melancholy, "Out of these two [the concupiscible and irascible powers] arise those mixed affections and passions of anger, which is a desire of revenge; hatred, which is inveterate anger; zeal, which is offended with him who hurts that he loves; and ἐπιχαιρεκακία, a compound affection of joy and hate, when we rejoice at other men's mischief, and are grieved at their prosperity; pride, self-love, emulation, envy, shame, &c., of which elsewhere."[32]

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer mentioned schadenfreude as the most evil sin of human feeling, famously saying "To feel envy is human, to savor schadenfreude is diabolic."[33]

Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People describes schadenfreude as a universal, even wholesome reaction that cannot be helped. "There is a German psychological term, Schadenfreude, which refers to the embarrassing reaction of relief we feel when something bad happens to someone else instead of to us." He gives examples and writes, "[People] don't wish their friends ill, but they can’t help feeling an embarrassing spasm of gratitude that [the bad thing] happened to someone else and not to them."[34]

Susan Sontag's book Regarding the Pain of Others, published in 2003, is a study of the issue of how the pain and misfortune of some affects others, namely whether war photography and war paintings may be helpful as anti-war tools or, whether they only serve some sense of schadenfreude in some viewers.

Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno defined schadenfreude as "... largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another, which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate."[35]

Scientific studies

A New York Times article in 2002 cited a number of scientific studies of schadenfreude, which it defined as, "delighting in others' misfortune". Many such studies are based on social comparison theory, the idea that when people around us have bad luck, we look better to ourselves. Other researchers have found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to feel schadenfreude than are people who have high self-esteem.[36]

A 2003 study examined intergroup schadenfreude within the context of sports, specifically an international football (soccer) competition. The study focused on the German and Dutch football teams and their fans. The results of this study indicated that the emotion of schadenfreude is very sensitive to circumstances that make it more or less legitimate to feel such malicious pleasure towards a sports rival.[37]

A 2011 study by Cikara and colleagues using fMRI examined Schadenfreude among Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees fans found that fans' showed increased activation in brain areas correlated with self-reported pleasure (ventral striatum) when observing the rival team experience a negative outcome (e.g., a strike out).[38] By contrast, fans exhibited increased activation in the anterior cingulate and insula when viewing their own team experience a negative outcome.

A 2006 experiment about justice served suggests that men, but not women, enjoy seeing "bad people" suffer. The study was designed to measure empathy, by watching which brain centers are stimulated when subjects inside an fMRI observe someone experiencing physical pain. Researchers expected that the brain's empathy center of subjects would show more stimulation when those seen as "good" got an electric shock, than would occur if the shock was given to someone the subject had reason to consider "bad". This was indeed the case, but for male subjects, the brain's pleasure centers also lit up when someone got a shock that the male thought was "well-deserved".[39]

Brain-scanning studies show that schadenfreude is correlated with envy in subjects. Strong feelings of envy activated physical pain nodes in the brain's dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; the brain's reward centers, such as the ventral striatum, were activated by news that other people envied had suffered misfortune. The magnitude of the brain's schadenfreude response could even be predicted from the strength of the previous envy response.[40][41]

A study conducted in 2009 provides evidence for people's capacity to feel schadenfreude in response to negative events in politics.[42] The study was designed to determine whether or not there was a possibility that events containing objective misfortunes might produce schadenfreude. It was reported in the study that the likelihood of experiencing feelings of schadenfreude depends upon whether an individual's own party or the opposing party is suffering harm. This study suggests that the domain of politics is prime territory for feelings of schadenfreude, especially for those who identify strongly with their political party.

In "When Flanders Failed", a 1991 episode of The Simpsons, Lisa Simpson defined "schadenfreude" to Homer as "shameful joy", repopularizing the term, which had faded from English publications since spiking after World War II.[43]

In the 2003 Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q, the song "Schadenfreude" parodies the language instruction songs of Sesame Street.[44]

New Orleans-based blackened thrash metal band Goatwhore has a track titled "Schadenfreude" in their 2014 album Constricting Rage of the Merciless.

In 2013, electronic music group The M Machine released a track titled "Schadenfreude" on their album Metropolis, Pt. II.

In 2008, American electronic-industrial group Aesthetic Perfection released a track titled "Schadenfreude" on their second album A Violent Emotion.

The video game Team Fortress 2 has a taunt in the game called "The Schadenfreude" where classes will point and laugh.

A frequent guest on the BS Report and other Bill Simmons related podcasts named John O'Connell (aka JackO, aka The Gregarious Raconteur) refers to his own sense of schadenfreude frequently as it relates to watching athletic teams he dislikes either losing games or making poor decisions with personnel.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Schadenfreude", Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, retrieved 4 August 2016
  2. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 1982, s.v.
  3. ↑ Google Books (the 1659 and 1700 dates are incorrect)
  4. ↑ Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon s.v. Archived October 6, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Bailey, Nathan (1737). Universal Etymological English Dictionary. London. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
  6. ↑ Bailey, Nathan (1751). Dictionarium Britannicum. London.
  7. ↑ Shipley, Joseph T. (1955). Dictionary of Early English. Philosophical Library. ISBN 978-0-8065-2926-4.
  8. ↑ Novobatzky, Peter; Shea , Ammon (1955). Depraved and Insulting English. Harvest Books. ISBN 978-0-15-601149-5.
  9. ↑ Byrne, Josefa H. (1984). Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words. Pocket. ISBN 0-671-49782-0.
  10. ↑ "Roman holiday – Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. 2007-04-25. Retrieved 2010-03-23.
  11. ↑ definition of morose delectation Archived April 14, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., Oxford English Dictionary
  12. ↑ Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 74 Archived July 2, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Second and Revised Edition, 1920; Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Online Edition Copyright © 2006 by Kevin Knight.
  13. ↑ Chapter 6 Proposing the Story of the World Archived August 27, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth, Basic Books, 2006.
  14. ↑ Heterodox Religion and Post-Atheism: Bataille / Klossowski/ Foucault Archived April 26, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., Jones Irwin, ISSN 1393-614X Minerva – An Internet Journal of Philosophy Vol. 10 2006.
  15. ↑ Klossowski, Pierre. 1991. Sade, My Neighbour, translated by Alphonso Lingis. Illinois. Northwestern University Press.
  16. ↑ "Dictionary definition of gloat" Archived August 27, 2016, at the Wayback Machine..
  17. ↑ "Sadism". Merriam-Webster.
  18. ↑ The Upside of Shadenfreude Archived April 13, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., Joshua Zader, Mudita Journal, December 6, 2005.
  19. ↑ Are you Schadenfreude or Mudita? Archived March 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., Sirtumble, One of Six Billion..., February 6, 2005.
  20. ↑ Nell, Regen (September 16, 2011). "Regen" (PDF). Iowa City Public Library and the International Writing Program Panel Series. The International Writing Program. University of Iowa. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
  21. ↑ "Yahoo Groups "worthless word for the day is ... freudenschade"". Groups.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2010-03-23.
  22. ↑ Daily Stanford (2006) "Freudenschade"
  23. ↑ etymologiebank.nl Archived April 19, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
  24. ↑ As aves no folclore fluminense (birds in Rio de Janeiro's folklore) Archived May 28, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Instituto Estadual do Patrimônio Cultural, Divisão de Folclore, 1978.
  25. ↑ Latest activity 19 hours ago. Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire (9780374524241): Lincoln Caplan: Books. Amazon.com. ISBN 0374524246.
  26. ↑ "Premium content". Economist.com. 2008-03-13. Retrieved 2010-03-23.
  27. ↑ Bartley Kives (26 May 2013). "When the Ford jokes stop". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
  28. ↑ Pedrick, Victoria; Oberhelman, Steven M. (2006). The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian Drama. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-65306-8.
  29. ↑ Nicomachean Ethics, 2.7.1108b1-10
  30. ↑ Patrick O'Brian's usage of the tag in his Aubrey-Maturin historical novels is reflected in Dean King's companion lexicon A Sea of Words (3rd ed.2000).
  31. ↑ Dialogus miraculorum, IV, 23.
  32. ↑ Robert Burton (1621). The Anatomy of Melancholy. pp. t. 1, sect. 1, memb. 2, subsect. 8.
  33. ↑ Schopenhauer, Arthur. "The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer On Human Nature". On Human Nature. But it is Schadenfreude, a mischievous delight in the misfortunes of others, which remains the worst trait in human nature. It is a feeling which is closely akin to cruelty, and differs from it, to say the truth, only as theory from practice.
  34. ↑ Harold S. Kushner (1981). When Bad Things Happen to Good People. first published by Schocken Books. p. 39.
  35. ↑ Cited in Portmann, John (2000). When bad things happen to other people. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92335-2.
  36. ↑ St. John, Warren (24 August 2002). "Sorrow So Sweet: A Guilty Pleasure in Another's Woe". The New York Times.
  37. ↑ Leach, C.,; Spears, R.; Branscombe, N. R.; Doosje, B. (2003). "Malicious pleasure: Schadenfreude at the suffering of another group". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 84 (5): 932–943. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.5.932.
  38. ↑ Cikara, Mina; Botvinick, Matthew M.; Fiske, Susan T. (2011-03-01). "Us Versus Them Social Identity Shapes Neural Responses to Intergroup Competition and Harm". Psychological Science. 22 (3): 306–313. ISSN 0956-7976. PMC 3833634 Freely accessible. PMID 21270447. doi:10.1177/0956797610397667.
  39. ↑ Singer T; Seymour B; O'Doherty JP; Stephan KE; Dolan RJ; Frith CD (January 2006). "Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others". Nature. 439 (7075): 466–9. Bibcode:2006Natur.439..466S. PMC 2636868 Freely accessible. PMID 16421576. doi:10.1038/nature04271. Lay-summary Archived April 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  40. ↑ Takahashi, H.; Kato, M.; Matsuura, M.; Mobbs, D.; Suhara, T.; Okubo, Y. (2009-02-13). "When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude". Science. 323 (5916): 937–9. Bibcode:2009Sci...323..937T. PMID 19213918. doi:10.1126/science.1165604.
  41. ↑ Angier, Natalie (17 February 2009). "In Pain and Joy of Envy, the Brain May Play a Role". The New York Times.
  42. ↑ Combs, D. J. Y.; Powell, C. A. J.; Schurtz, D. R.; Smith, R. H. (2009). "Politics, schadenfreude, and ingroup identification: The sometimes happy things about a poor economy and death" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 45 (4): 635–646. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.02.009.
  43. ↑ "Schadenfreude Is in the Zeitgeist, but Is There an Opposite Term?", by Ben Cohen, The Wall Street Journal Archived September 17, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.
  44. ↑ Akerman, Anna. "APS Observer – Sesame Street for Adults: A Review of Avenue Q". Psychologicalscience.org. Archived from the original on August 26, 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-23.
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