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esteem problems may plague a particular group or even an entire nation.
Writing in 1843, the young Karl Marx worried about the self-esteem of
his countrymen:
Man s self-esteem, his sense of freedom, must be awakened in the
breast of [the German] people. This sense vanished from the world
with the Greeks, and with Christianity it took up residence in the
blue mists of heaven, but only with its aid can society ever again
become a community of men that can fulfill their highest needs, a
democratic state.5
Explaining Schadenfreude 33
Marx is by no means the first philosopher to make the point that self-
esteem appears necessary to human flourishing. Marx deems self-esteem a
political precondition for achievement. Over a century later the state of
California followed suit. Republican governor George Deukmejian rati-
fied in September 1986 the creation of the California Task Force to Pro-
mote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. The stated
purpose of the task force was to promote the well-being of the individual
and of society in order to diminish an ever-growing epidemic of casualties
resulting from serious social ills.6
Although a broad array of groups experience distinctly social problems
with self-esteem, I have individuals in mind here. According to Francis
Bacon, individuals who have endured temporary setbacks, catastrophes,
or deprivations are likely to think that other men s harms redeem their
own sufferings (hence the familiar misery loves company ).7 Perhaps in-
tentionally, Bacon leaves unspecified the role of familiarity in the genera-
tion of this pleasure. Familiarity with a sufferer is neither a necessary nor
a sufficient condition for Schadenfreude.
Philosophers and psychologists dispute what distinguishes self-respect
from self-esteem and even whether there is a difference. Such scholarly de-
bates notwithstanding, self-esteem can be understood as the capacity to
value oneself despite one s imperfections and limitations. Self-esteem en-
hances our sense that we are leading good lives; indeed, it is difficult to
separate the two. There are two ways to understand the social aspect of
self-esteem. Healthy self-esteem dovetails with egalitarianism insofar
as self-esteem presupposes that all persons can come to like themselves.
The inherent worth of one person does not increase because of superior
attributes or talents or decrease because of inferior attributes or talents.
Self-esteem does not blind us to interpersonal differences; rather, it pre-
vents us from concluding that the superiority of one person signifies
worthlessness or inherent defect in another.
That said, we can understand self-esteem in precisely the opposite way
as well. In fact, many people believe that our individual worth, while not
static, rises and falls on our attributes and talents. A consumer-driven
society conditions us to think of people as goods. It is easy to see how
an unreflective person who enjoyed healthy self-esteem might agree
with someone who had little self-esteem here: without certain talents or
34 When Bad Things Happen to Other People
attributes, a winner might think, it would be impossible to like oneself.
According to political philosopher John Rawls, people enjoy self-es-
teem if they consider their aims and ideals as worthy and, second, believe
that they are well suited to pursue them.8 Low self-esteem, like anxiety
over perceived bad luck, brings squarely into the foreground of conscious-
ness the occasionally agonizing interplay of what belongs to us and what
belongs to the world, of conquering our world and being conquered by it.
Further, low self-esteem causes suffering insofar as it alerts us to the possi-
bilities that our values are shoddy or that we are not capable of attaining
what we hope for. Although ethically excusable, the Schadenfreude born
of low self-esteem manifests weakness of character, even as it illustrates
the social merits of proposals for eliminating envy or reducing its effects
on human interaction.
Various egalitarian writers have claimed that since envy arises from in-
equity, the way to reduce the prevalence of envy is simply to reduce the
extent to which some people possess more of something good than others.
Rawls s theory of justice can be taken to suggest that Schadenfreude is an
appropriate emotional experience because of social injustice, the condi-
tion in which the less fortunate are forcibly reminded of what they lack.
He writes in A Theory of Justice: When envy is a reaction to the loss of
self-respect in circumstances where it would be unreasonable to expect
someone to feel differently, I shall say that it is excusable (p. 534). Rawls
maintains that the principles of justice are reasonable despite the propen-
sities of human beings to envy and jealousy. He is perhaps unique among
moral philosophers in acknowledging good excuses for envy. He defines
the primary good of self-respect as a person s sense that his or her plan of
life is a worthy one and its fulfillment is of value. Rawls s thinking here
resonates with some of Marx s central tenets.
Conversely, some anti-egalitarian writers have claimed that egalitari-
anism is itself a product of envy and therefore deeply suspect: it injures
those who have more of something good and thereby appeases the envy of
those who have less. When the fortunate suffer sudden reversals of good
fortune, their social inferiors may rejoice at seeing them brought back into
line with others. Nietzsche equated the doctrine of egalitarianism with
ressentiment9 and decay in his analysis of the order of the rank in The
Will to Power. He regarded it as a form of cultural pessimism that
Explaining Schadenfreude 35
opposed the instincts of life and sentenced existence itself to death. The
search for plausible arguments for egalitarianism requires analysis of envy
itself. I argue that one s self-esteem may be so weak as to make any sort of
eminence another person enjoys painful. Such weakness underscores the
import of moral education and the value of sympathy. An important link
connects self-esteem and resentment. Resentment consists of anger caused
by an affront to one s dignity. Those who believe themselves morally enti-
tled to certain treatment are disposed to resent what they regard as indig-
nities. Just as resentment reflects a healthy self-esteem, Schadenfreude
indicates a reasonable and defensible pleasure that another has received
his comeuppance ( those who live by the sword die by the sword ).
To the extent that a feeling of inferiority seems to invite celebration of
others woes, condemning a schadenfroh person is a bit like castigating
people for not liking themselves more. And to the extent that a feeling of
disempowerment seems to invite resentment, condemning a schadenfroh
person is a bit like blaming him or her for dissatisfaction with an unjust
social framework.
2. Justice and loyalty
A commitment to justice or a sense of loyalty may also generate
Schadenfreude. This brand of Schadenfreude reflects a belief that if people
violate moral obligations, others may appropriately enjoy the setbacks of
the transgressors.
It might seem odd to group together here concerns about justice and
loyalty, as Rawls does. Against Rawls, Michael Sandel and others have ar-
gued that insisting on justice in intimate relationships corrupts the senti-
ments that sustain friendship, love, and family bonds. Sandel claims in
Liberalism and the Limits of Justice that the qualities of loving relation-
ships deserve priority over justice in the pecking order of virtues of social
life. For my purposes justice and loyalty serve similar roles in the genera-
tion of and justification for Schadenfreude because each involves strong
commitments to conceptions of morally good states of affairs. Without
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