“To see others suffer does one good. This is a hard saying, but a mighty, human, all-too-human principle.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
There is not a single word in the English language that can describe the concept of Schadenfreude, which is a German word and translates to damage-joy. It basically describes the feeling of joy a person feels at someone else’s misfortune.
Many other languages do have words that describe this particular feeling. For example, the Japanese have this phrase, “他人の不幸は蜂蜜のように味がする” which means that the misfortune of others tastes like honey, a phrase that sits well as far as the meaning of Schadenfreude is concerned.
However, the English language refuses to recognize this emotion which is a commonly occurring emotion in human beings.
Schadenfreude should not be confused with gloating. As when a person gloats, the pleasure being expressed is not necessarily dependent upon someone’s hardship or failure which often makes it completely innocent, whilst Schadenfreude is mostly malicious.
The fact to remember about this idea is that there are three main types of driving motivation behind Schadenfreude.
The question that arises here is who is most predisposed to experience Schadenfreude? According to researches, people who experience Schadenfreude are the ones who have low self-esteem. When an individual’s own self-esteem is down, they tend to feel threatened by every other person around them in regards to the different aspects of their own life. The failures of others tend to spark joy in the individual as it makes them feel better about their own status in the society; if another whose social standing is better is failing, then the individual feels that they are not completely down in the dumps. People whose self-esteem is high tend to not feel Schadenfreude that frequently as they do not tend to look to others for validation of their own self.
Social comparison theory supports this research as it puts forward the idea that people tend to evaluate themselves by comparing others’ actions, achievements, and life events. During the evaluation, if they witness that a person who is better off is experiencing any sort of difficulty, they feel better about their own self-image and life.
For a long time, it was considered that Schadenfreude holds malicious tones but often there are feelings behind this particular emotion that spring from a place that is not malevolent at all. The people who do experience Schadenfreude frequently become aware that it is not a pretty color on them and they try to fight it off but in order to truly overcome it, they need to first evaluate the driving forces behind it. Once they are able to work on them, it will be possible for their Schadenfreude to come out less frequently. Read about colonial famine.
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