INTRODUCTION -

omer Simpson’s neighbor, Ned Flanders, announces during a backyard H barbecue that he will quit his sales job to start a business called the “Leftorium,” catering to left-handed people. Ned and Homer break the wish- bone from a turkey carcass, and Homer gets the bigger piece and the right to make a wish. “Read it and weep!!” he exclaims, imagining a scene of the busi- ness failing. It turns out that it does start poorly, as Homer discovers when he passes by the store some weeks later. It is “deeeserted,” he happily reports to the family at dinner. Lisa Simpson, ever the erudite daughter, labels and defi nes the emotion he is feeling.

LISA SIMPSON : Dad, do you know what schadenfreude is? HOMER SIMPSON : No, I do not know what schadenfreude is. Please tell me because I’m dying to know. LISA: It’s a German word for shameful joy, taking pleasure in the suffering of others.1

There is no English word for what Homer’s feeling, but as Lisa tells him, there is one in German: schadenfreude. It comes from the joining of two words, “schaden” meaning “harm” and “freude ” meaning “joy,” and it indeed refers to the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune.2 This book is about schaden- freude , an emotion that most of us can feel despite its shameful associations.

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GAIN FROM OTHERS’ MISFORTUNE Although most of us feel uncomfortable admitting it, we often feel schadenfreude because we can gain from another person’s misfortune. What does Homer gain from the failure of Ned Flanders’s business? Actually, quite a lot. Homer envies Ned. Although Ned is a good neighbor, he still has it better than Homer in just about every way, from his well-equipped recreation room with foreign beers on tap to his superior family bliss. The envy Homer feels runs deep and takes its typical inferiority-tinged and hostile form. When Ned fails, Homer feels less inferior. Ned’s failure also satisfi es Homer’s hostile feelings. These are heady psychological dividends and should make Homer feel pretty good as a result. What better tranquilizer for Homer’s inadequacy and ill will than Ned’s failure?

Perhaps you have heard this joke: two campers come across a grizzly bear while hiking in the forest. One immediately drops to the ground, takes off his hiking boots, and starts putting on his running shoes. The other says, “What are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear!” His friend replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you!” While this example is cartoonish, similar but lower-stakes scenarios like this one play out in relationships every day. In Chapters 1 and 2, I examine the link between schadenfreude and personal gain and show that a large part of our emotional life results from how we compare with others. We gain from another person’s misfortune when this “downward comparison” boosts our rank and self-worth. We shall see that this is no small benefi t. INTRODUCTION S xiii

The benefi ts to Homer from Ned’s failing are largely intangible, but schadenfreude also results from tangible things. As I will stress in Chapter 3, much of life involves competition. One side must lose for the other to win. This is captured well in Apollo 13, the fi lm based on the near-fatal NASA lunar mission. In this fi lm version of events, Jim Lovell is unhappy because fellow astronaut Alan Shepard and the others on Shepard’s crew have the lat- est coveted opportunity to travel to the moon. But Shepard develops an ear problem, and his crew is replaced by Lovell’s. This is painful for Shepard, but Lovell’s reaction is exuberant when he rushes home to give the news to his family. Lovell shows no hint of sympathy for Shepard as he tells his wife what has happened. 3 As viewers of Apollo 13, we are watching from Lovell’s perspective and, with him, we experience the good news. We see that when an outcome is so desired, its value for ourselves eclipses other factors. The extra detail that our gain comes at another person’s expense recedes in relevance and does little to reduce the pleasure involved. Notice, however, that Lovell would have had no reason to delight in Shepard’s ear infection had it not furthered his own goals. He was not happy “in” Shepard’s misfortune, but rather “because of ” it. Does this mean his joy was not schadenfreude at all? In this book, I take a broad defi ni- tion of schadenfreude . The distinction between types of gain is easily blurred in our experience. For example, Lovell may well have envied Shepard. As I will explore later in the book, Homer Simpson is an exaggerated version of all of us. Envy can produce deep satisfaction in another’s misfortune, especially in competitive situations, and there may be few pure cases of gain uncontami- nated by such features. Plus, would we see Lovell showing his joy outside the family? Taking any pleasure from another’s misfortune simply because we are gaining from it seems illicit and shameful. This gives it the clear stamp of schadenfreude. If schadenfreude arises to the extent that we gain from another person’s misfortune, then any natural tendencies we have to favor our own self-in- terests should further this pleasure. In Chapter 4, I address how human nature pulls us in at least two directions, one toward narrow self-interest and the other toward concern for others. Our capacity to feel schadenfreude highlights the self-interested, darker side of human nature. Without ignoring xiv S INTRODUCTION our compassionate instincts, I consider some of the evidence for our self- interested side and suggest that this evidence indeed reveals our capacity for schadenfreude.

PLEASURE FROM DESERVED MISFORTUNES How about deservingness? Sometimes misfortunes suffered by others satisfy our sense of justice. In Chapters 5 and 6, I shift to this important rea- son why we can feel schadenfreude. Examples are everywhere. Take the case of Baptist minister and clinical psychologist, George Rekers. He made headlines in May of 2010 for using a Web site, Rentboy.com, to hire a 20-year-old male to accompany him on a short trip to Europe.4 On the surface, this doesn’t sound like news, but Rekers quickly became the focus of jokes on the internet and on late-night TV.5 Rekers, as The New York Times columnist Frank Rich argued, is “the Zelig of homophobia, having played a signifi cant role in many of the ugliest assaults on gay people and their civil rights over the last three decades.” 6 His hiring of the Rentboy.com employee was viewed as a case of pure hypocrisy when the hired man claimed that he had given Rekers intimate massages during the trip. As Joe Coscarelli noted in his blog for The Village Voice soon after the event made news: “Please excuse most of the forward-thinking, tolerant world for being a bit excited and snide about the news. . . .”7 As shameful as schadenfreude can be, the more a misfortune seems deserved, the more likely schadenfreude is out in the open, free of shame. This is true especially if the standards for judging deservingness are clear cut—for instance, if someone has committed crimes—or has behaved so hypocritically, as with George Rekers. The pleasure is collective and free- flowing. I will emphasize that the desire for justice is a strong human motive, so strong that we are biased in our perceptions of deservingness. We are particu- larly biased in our reactions to being personally wronged. Our pleasure in a wrongdoer’s misfortune is sweet indeed if we are lucky enough to have this hoped-for event occur. Here, the desire for justice merges with a desire for revenge against someone we dislike, even hate. INTRODUCTION S xv

THE AGE OF SCHADENFREUDE ? Are we living in the age of schadenfreude? Just glance at the checkout lanes in the grocery store: some of the best-selling magazines will have break-ups, scandals, and other personal tragedies emblazoned on their colorful covers. The reality TV industry fl ourishes by developing programs that pit people against each other in diffi cult situations; ratings and advertising spending speak for them- selves. Of course, the internet multiplies these trends many times over, which is why we speak of information going “viral.” I was not surprised to fi nd out what happens if you insert the word “ schadenfreude” in the search tool Google NGram Viewer. Figure I.1 shows the percentage of times that schadenfreude is used among all words in books published in English from 1800 to 2008. Starting in the late 1980s, its use begins to increase and then rockets upward by the mid-1990s. An analysis of the use of the word in The New York Times nicely mirrors this pattern: in 1980, there were no instances; in 1985, only one; three in 1990; seven in 1995; twenty-eight in 2000; and sixty-two in 2008.8 Perhaps this upsurge in usage comes as trends in media also shift toward a focus on people suffering all variety of misfortunes. In Chapter 7, I examine two distinctive examples of reality TV, American Idol and To Catch a Predator. Both shows, in memorable ways, pioneered the plea- sures of humiliation as entertainment—or “humilitainment,” a term coined by media researchers Brad Waite and Sarah Booker.9 Why are these shows so popular? We shall see that humilitainment, when heightened by the way a show is edited and structured, often arises within narratives of deservingness. These shows provide a steady diet of pleasing downward comparisons for viewers.

schadenfreude 0.00000500% 0.00000450% 0.00000400% 0.00000350% 0.00000300% 0.00000250% 0.00000200% 0.00000150% 0.00000100% 0.00000050% 0.00000000% 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 Figure I.1. Google NGram for usage of “schadenfreude ” in thousands of books published from 800 to 2008. xvi S INTRODUCTION

A BALM AND CURE FOR ENVY I give envy its due in the next three chapters. Although envy is a painful emo- tion and schadenfreude is a pleasing one, the two emotions often travel in tandem. As Homer experiences it and as Lisa helps him understand, I detail in Chapter 8 how misfortunes befalling those whom we envy transform pain into a special joy. This is why defi nitions of envy often include the readiness to feel pleasure if the envied person suffers. Much can be said about envy and its link with schadenfreude. Because envy is such a repugnant emotion, most of us are in fact more like Homer than Lisa. We are so threatened by the feeling that we suppress awareness of it. Even if we are aware of it, we rarely want to admit to it. In Chapter 9, I show that this often causes envy to transmute into other emotions, ones more palatable to our- selves and to others. In this altered form, schadenfreude resulting from an envied person’s misfortune can seem justifi ed, sometimes even decent. Moreover, envy is usually hostile at its roots. Hostility may breed dissatisfaction with passive forms of schadenfreude . When we feel envy, strong envy especially, we not only hope for misfortunes to befall those whom we envy; we may sometimes fi nd ways to bring the misfortune about. INTRODUCTION S xvii

ENVY, SCHADENFREUDE , AND HUMAN DEPRAVITY In Chapter 10, I take envy’s transmutational nature into especially dark terri- tory. I examine the special case of anti-Semitism and the Nazis’ pleasure in the brutal treatment of the Jews. I claim that this extreme example of schadenfreude is partly explained by unconscious envy transmuted into resentment. When this happens, the envious person can rationalize and justify extreme forms of schadenfreude , as well as aggression. This is the outer range of schadenfreude , where crimes occur that go “beyond denunciation.”1 0

ARE THERE ANTIDOTES? As natural as schadenfreude is, should we encourage it? Who would argue this way, especially if we see that it can trend toward hurtful actions? I won’t try to claim that we can snuff out this feeling, but I will suggest in Chapter 11 at least one way that we might moderate its likelihood. I will elaborate on our psychologi- cal tendency to prefer personality explanations when explaining other people’s behavior. This “fundamental attribution error” enhances schadenfreude over empathy when we see people suffer misfortunes. People will seem to deserve their misfortunes because their internal qualities will appear to cause them. If we can curb this tendency, then empathy might trump schadenfreude —as we will see was true for Abraham Lincoln. Let me be doubly clear from the start. By focusing on schadenfreude in this book I do not mean to suggest that human beings lack a strong capacity for empathy when others suffer. Of course we do. Some recent evolutionary think- ing suggests that human nature disposes us more toward compassionate responses than hostile ones. We see this in titles of recent books. The primatologist Frans de Waal labels this shift in how we view human nature as The Age of Empathy. The emotion researcher Dacher Keltner uses the phrase Born to Be Good to cap- ture this shift in zeitgeist. And, just as we have instinct for revenge, we also have an instinct for forgiveness, as psychologist Michael McCullough argues in Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct . 11 We see the embracing of the good in human nature in the speedy ascent of positive psychology and its focus on healthy human functioning rather than mental illness. Important stud- ies on understanding happiness by psychologists Ed Diener, Robert Emmons, and Martin Seligman are examples.1 2 One theme of the positive psychology xviii S INTRODUCTION movement is that compassion leads more to personal happiness than does self- focused gratifi cations. Nonetheless, our capacity to feel schadenfreude resonates with our less compassionate side. In sum, we will see that schadenfreude arises because there are varied ways that we can gain from other people’s misfortunes. The primacy of our own self-interests in competitive situations and our keen preference for superiority over inferiority ensure a place for schadenfreude in our repertoire of feelings. We have a passion for justice, and it happens that many misfortunes seem deserved. Schadenfreude is intimately linked with deservingness, particularly when the suffering person has wronged us , and I will also examine the basis for this important link. An envied person’s fall brings a special pleasure, and I will explore the many reasons for this frequent cause of schadenfreude as well. More than we realize, schadenfreude is a natural human emotion, and it pervades our experience. It is worth taking a very close look at why it is so prevalent because it will tell us a lot about human nature—and should help redirect us toward, in Lincoln’s words, “the better angels of our nature.”1 3