Schadenfreude: The World’s worst sin?
November 4th 2006 20:36
Job Mocked by his Friends
The word is German and has begun to appear with increasing frequency in popular literature and television, West Wing, Simpsons and Two and a Half Men. There is no exact equivalent in English. It means taking pleasure in the suffering of others. Schaden means damage and freude means joy. Nothing distinguishes the attitude and morality of the 19th Century from that of present times than this word which was thought to convey something so horrible that German Clerics thought it should be banned. The ability to experience Schadenfreude characterizes the psychopath more than any other attribute. It enables to torturer to do his work.
In Abu Ghraid prison the American soldiers showed a capacity not only to inflict suffering and to enjoy it but also to want to record their responses and those of their victims. The perpetrators were damaged types, the excrement of modern American society with its religiose and perverse “home town” values.
Schadenfreude is now expected from the victims of crime. When a criminal is convicted the media sees it as its duty to record the victim’s joy at the suffering that is about to be inflicted on the criminal and in some states of the US, family members are invited to watch the execution. The response, “I hope he burns in hell,” is an invitation to experience Schadenfreude because it is assumed that the speaker will derive satisfaction during the process of endless suffering.
Schadenfreude excludes forgiveness. There will be no forgiveness because that will afford the forgiven party the chance to move on and enjoy his life. He has brought it upon himself, let him suffer and in knowing that he suffers, we can derive satisfaction that our decisions and our judgments are correct. His suffering gives us power and rather than experience a moment of regret that we have caused another to suffer we can say again and again to those who reproach us for the harshness of our decisions, “He brought it upon himself.” It is this attribution to the perpetrator of the crime that frees us from guilt. The power and decision of judges and tribunals is tainted with Schadenfreude.
We are all tainted with Schadenfreude. We all experience it and now in modern society we are encouraged in it. Once or twice in our lives we have the good fortune to encounter someone who is free of it. Such people appear to us illuminated in the light of compassion and understanding. We should treasure them.
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