The Joy of Pain

by Richard H. Smith

  I admit, however, that watching Hansen orchestrate the humiliations on Predator is disturbing—even as I will also admit that he and his production team have created a show that captivates irresistibly. I find myself at once entertained, spellbound, and more than a little sullied. I am reminded of the ratings-hungry reporter, Richard “Dick” Thornburg, in the Die Hard films. He’s the one who gets punched in the nose by Detective John McClane’s wife, Holly, in the first movie and tasered toward the end of the second. The reporter, played perfectly by the actor William Atherton, is a caricature of the type, and yet he seems hardly exaggerated. In the first movie, when part of an office building explodes, Thornburg witnesses the explosion but doesn’t know yet whether his camera man had his camera running:

  THORNBURG: My God, tell me you got that.

  CAMERAMAN: I got it, I got it!!

  THORNBURG: Eat your heart out, Channel Five!38

  For Thornburg, it is all about getting the sensational story. He claims that he is a crusader for the public’s “right to know,” but he will do just about anything to get the salacious scoop. If this means humiliating people on TV, so be it. Ironically, after Holly hits him on the nose, he gets a restraining order against her—because “that woman assaulted me and she humiliated me in public.”39 This was a brilliant touch.

  The cut-throat demand for high TV ratings in the increasingly complex, competitive world of TV programming probably creates strong pressure to go for the entertainment jugular rather than for sensation-free edification. The gratifications of witnessing seemingly deserved humiliation—and the resulting schadenfreude—must be hard to resist exploiting under these intensely competitive conditions. At the same time, should we encourage programs such as Predator? The exposing of a societal problem and its prevention are the ostensible goals of the show, although Hansen also admits his desire to produce absorbing television. It is not at all clear that the show uncovers a behavior that is as much a problem as the episodes suggest.40 Many experts claim that most sexual abuse of children occurs in the family or among people who know each other.41 How likely is it that the majority of men who show up at the sites would have done so without the ambitious tactics of the decoys? How much do we learn about the nature of online sexual deviancy from this show? Does Predator create a false impression of the problem, stirring unwarranted fears, creating events rather than reporting on them, and inappropriately demonizing some individuals rather than helping the public understand the general problem of deviant sexual behavior?

  Most of all, should a civilized society sanction the humiliation of people—regardless of what they appear to have done? Should we encourage shows that rely so much on the gratifications of this form of guilt-free schadenfreude? Make no mistake about it: Hansen inflicts extreme humiliation on these men. Although it is easy to conclude that they deserve it, there is huge collateral damage done to the families of these men, innocent people who must deal with the shame and embarrassment of the aftermath long after Predator moves on. Whether Hansen and the show’s producers (and viewers) should feel sympathy for these men is a complex moral question. Is Predator a bold, groundbreaking work of investigative television or, to use Jesse Wegman’s words again, a “theater of cheap morality, wrapped in an orgy of self-righteousness”?42 You be the judge.

  CHAPTER 8

  THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT ENVY

  The man who is delighted by others’ misfortunes is identical with the man who envies others’ prosperity. For anyone who is pained by the occurrence or existence of a given thing must be pleased by that thing’s non-existence or destruction.

  —ARISTOTLE1

  Envy … is hatred in so far as it affects a man so that he is sad at the good fortune of another person and is glad when any evil happens to him.

  —BARUCH SPINOZA2

  Homer: Oh, come on, Lisa. I’m just glad to see him fall flat on his butt! He’s usually all happy and comfortable, and surrounded by loved ones, and it makes me feel … what’s the opposite of that shameful joy thing of yours?

  Lisa: Sour grapes.

  Homer: Boy, those Germans have a word for everything!

  —THE SIMPSONS3

  Koreans have a phrase, “When my cousin buys a rice paddy, my stomach twists.” This captures well the pain of envy and helps explain why a misfortune that brings an envied person down can yield emotional pay dirt in the form of schadenfreude. Envy is the familiar blend of painful discontent, ill will, and resentment that can result from noticing another person enjoying something that you desire but seem unable to obtain. But when a misfortune befalls the envied person, the negative comparison drops away, bringing relief and joy. Contemplating it “untwists” the stomach. The misfortune may even provide hope for the future by hobbling the competition.

  Envy is a universal human emotion. It is natural to feel envy when we lose out to someone else and must continue to gaze on the envied person now enjoying the desired thing.4 As I underscored in Chapters 1 and 2, social comparisons matter, and envy is a special testimony to this fact. It matters when a person you love chooses someone else who is better looking and more talented than you. It matters when you aspire to compose great music but fail—in contrast to a friend who receives high praise for his recent composition. Most people can identify with the character of Salieri in the film Amadeus. Salieri, although accomplished in his own right, is rendered mediocre by Mozart’s effortless genius. Perhaps there is no better capturing of envy than the scene in the film where F. Murray Abraham (as Salieri) looks up in pain while sight-reading the miraculous notes on the originals of Mozart’s sheet music.5

  Social psychologist and neuroscientist Susan Fiske, whose book, Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Status Divides Us, I referred to in Chapter 1, summarizes the neuroscientific evidence on envy and suggests a consistent pattern of brain activation when people feel envy.6 People responding to envied targets show brain activation in the amygdala, an area of the brain associated with reactions to something emotionally important to us, whether good or bad.7 The amygdala appears necessary for the instant evaluation of another person who is superior to us in an important way. Another part of the brain linked with envy is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Fiske suggests that the ACC is important for envy as a “discrepancy detector.”8 In a sense, we cannot feel envy unless we detect a difference between ourselves and another (superior) person. A third part of the brain associated with envy is the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), an area that activates when we try to understand what another person is thinking and feeling.9 This seems especially important to do when confronted with an envied person who may control things we desire and whose presence matters to us more than does the presence of people with lower status.10 In sum, as one would expect with a blended emotion such as envy, brain activation is complex. But there seems to be a signature pattern of brain activation in envy that reflects our recognition that someone has something important that we do not have and that requires our keen attention if we are to do something about it.

  Throughout this book, I have highlighted the personal benefits that result from downward comparisons. I have argued that just about any misfortune befalling another person, from a social comparison perspective, is a potential boost to self-esteem. Where such misfortunes reside, opportunity knocks. If any misfortune suffered by another person has the potential to yield benefit, a misfortune befalling an envied person is a windfall.11 Since envy thrives best in competitive circumstances, the gain from the misfortune will often be direct and palpable. Also, if we envy someone, by definition, the dimension of comparison is important to us, thus adding greater value to what the misfortune brings. An extra bonus is that the misfortune eliminates the painful feeling of envy—no small thing. It is transformational: inferiority and its unpleasantness become superiority and its joys. A painful upward comparison, in an instant, becomes a pleasing downward comparison. What a turnaround! The late American novelist and curmudgeon Gore Vidal famously confessed, “Every time a friend succeeds, I
die a little.”12 If this can be true, then the reverse can also be true: “Every time a friend fails, I am more alive.”

  Mark Twain, in his autobiography Life on the Mississippi, describes a boyhood event in Hannibal, Missouri, that illustrates the joys of seeing an envied person fall. In his retelling, Twain notes that every boy in Hannibal, Twain heading the list, wanted to be a riverboat pilot and wanted it badly. One boy had the job that they craved. He also knew more than they did about everything that mattered, and he pulled it off with the kind of style that had the girls riveted. Twain’s and his friends’ hostile envy was about as intense as one sees it—and great was the schadenfreude when the boy suffered a misfortune on his riverboat. Twain described the feeling: “When his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months.”13

  Novelist Walker Percy also captures the easy path from envy to schadenfreude in his eccentric self-help book, Lost in the Cosmos:14

  Your neighbor comes out to get his paper. You look at him sympathetically. You know he has been having severe chest pains and is facing coronary bypass surgery. But he is not acting like a cardiac patient this morning. Over he jogs in his sweat pants, all smiles. He has triple good news. His chest ailment turns out to be hiatal hernia, not serious. He’s got a promotion and is moving to Greenwich [CT], where he can keep his boat in the water rather than on a trailer.

  “Great, Charlie! I’m really happy for you.”

  Are you happy for him?15

  No, Percy argues. For the “envious self,” this kind of news is hardly cheering. He asks the question, “how much good news about Charlie can you tolerate without compensatory catastrophes …?”16 It is as if something unfortunate happening to Charlie is the only possible cure for the envy and unease that his good news is actually causing in you. What are the chances that your own fortunes will change? Also, is there a morally acceptable or doable way to bring Charlie down? Percy bets that if you find out later that the promotion failed to come through, this would not be bad news at all—although you may try to deny, suppress, or hide the joy the news brings.

  WHAT IS THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE LINKING ENVY WITH SCHADENFREUDE?

  Cognitive psychologist Terry Turner and I were part of a group of researchers who collaborated on an experiment testing a connection between envy and schadenfreude.17 We first evoked envy in our undergraduate participants by showing them a videotaped interview with a student who had plans to attend medical school. We hired an actor to play the role of either a superior (enviable) student or an average (unenviable) student (eventually, we let the participants in on our deception). As he discussed his academic and extracurricular activities, we added scenes in which he was engaging in these activities. In the envy version, we showed him working away on his organic chemistry homework, peering through a microscope in a cutting-edge biology lab, and walking across Harvard Yard on his way to a summer class that should help him get into Harvard Medical School. We also included a scene showing him entering an expensive condo that his father had bought for him while he was in school, driving a BMW, and cooking a meal with an attractive girlfriend. In the average version, we showed him struggling with his homework and washing test tubes in a biology lab. We also showed him entering an unappealing high-rise dorm, riding crowded public transportation, and eating pizza with an average-looking female acquaintance. Toward the end of each version, we paused the tape for a minute and asked participants to complete a mood questionnaire. Some of the items measured envy. Then, an epilogue appeared on the screen to update the participants about what had happened to the student since the interview. This was where we inserted a misfortune. The epilogue noted that the student had been arrested for stealing amphetamines from the lab where he worked and thus had been forced to delay plans for medical school. A second questionnaire contained items tapping pleased reactions (such as “happy over what happened to the student since the interview”), camouflaged by other items designed to distract the participants from our actual focus.

  As we expected, participants felt more schadenfreude when the enviable student suffered than when the average student suffered. Even more telling, any envy reported after the initial pause in the video “explained” much of this effect. Participants who actually reported feeling envy while watching the first part of the interview were most likely to find the later misfortune pleasing. Also, participants who reported higher scores on a personality measure of envy completed before viewing the interview (i.e., “envious types”) were more likely to find the misfortune pleasing.

  Research using brain-scan technology also supports the links between envy and pleasure—if the envied person suffers.18 A Japanese team of researchers monitored the brain activity of people as they imagined themselves in scenarios in which another person was of either higher or lower status. Imagining envy activated the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), an area of the brain also associated with experiencing physical pain. The participants were then asked to picture this other person suffering various forms of misfortune, from financial trouble to physical illness. This produced greater brain activity in a different brain region, the striatum, a pleasure or reward center. This pattern of activation was particularly true for those participants who had reported the most envy at first. The lead researcher, Hidehiko Takahashi, summed up the results using the Japanese phrase translated as: “The misfortunes of others are the taste of honey.”19 A Korean might add: Especially if the stomach has been twisting because of envy.

  ENVY AND HOSTILITY

  Envy is a blend of ingredients, each of which helps explain why it should be so closely connected to schadenfreude. Twain’s account highlighted the envied boy’s superiority, and envy indeed contains feelings of inferiority. But without accompanying hostility, the schadenfreude produced by the boat exploding would hardly have been so gratifying. People do not feel warmly toward those whom they envy. In fact, hostility may just be the feature of envy that distinguishes it from other unpleasant reactions to another person’s superiority, such as discontent alone.20 One can readily see this in Twain’s account. The envy that he and his friends felt is far from benign. The hostility in their envy clearly contributed to why the explosion caused such contentment.21

  There is something distinctive about envious hostility. People feeling envy are willing to take a loss themselves, as long as it also means that the envied person will suffer to the same or greater relative degree.22 This can seem self-defeating, unless one realizes that, to the envious, the pleasure of gaining in an absolute sense is often insufficient compensation for the pain produced by witnessing the envied person’s relative advantage.

  It is no surprise that envy is usually a hostile emotion. Envy is triggered by noticing a desired attribute enjoyed by another person, but it is largely a frustrated desire.23 Imagine the experience of noticing and wanting another person’s advantage, all the while knowing that one could easily obtain the advantage eventually. Perhaps there would be a brief feeling of discontent, but this would go away quickly when the path to acquiring the advantage was clear. This is a type of envy, but it is benign in nature.24 The experience would also be quite different if the prospect of obtaining the advantage were naught. The comparison itself may seem irrelevant. We envy people who are similar to ourselves, except that they have something that we dearly want but lack. The similarity allows us to imagine the possibility of our having the longed for thing, even if we know that our desires are likely to be frustrated. When we envy in a hostile way, we have the tantalizing sense of what it might be like to obtain what we want—we can almost taste it—but we feel unable to realize this desire. The frustration of any keen desire, the blocking of an important goal, is a dependable recipe for anger and hostility—and will often trigger schadenfreude if the person causing the frustration suffers.

  THE TABLOIDS AND THEIR APPEAL

  The editors of popular tabloid magazines such as The National Enquirer would appreciate the observations of Edmund Burke,
the 18th-century philosopher and statesman. He suggested that theatergoers anticipating a tragic performance on the stage would quickly lose interest and empty themselves from the theater if they heard that a criminal was just about to be executed outside in a nearby square.25 Burke believed that people have “a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.”26 Moreover, in his view, real misfortune probably trumps the “imitative arts” every time.

  Some have taken this way of thinking even further. In their recent biography of Mao Tse-tung, Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday make a persuasive case that Mao was someone who took a special joy “in upheaval and destruction.”27 But Mao also believed that he was not alone in this preference. For instance, he claimed that most people would choose war over perpetual harmony:

  Long-lasting peace is unendurable to human beings, and tidal waves of disturbance have to be created in this state of peace. … When we look at history, we adore the times of [war] when dramas happened one after another … which make reading about them great fun. When we get to the periods of peace and prosperity, we are bored.28

  Still others, such as Walker Percy, referred to earlier, have also claimed that people have a pleasure-linked fascination with disasters and calamity, at least when these things are happening to other people. The appeal of the tabloid press and the heavy coverage of crime, accidents, and natural disasters in the media testify to the validity of such claims.

  In addition to its reliance on real misfortunes, another consistent feature of the tabloid press is its focus on troubles happening to celebrities. A study of The National Enquirer that I conducted with psychologist Katie Boucher confirmed this feature.29 We examined approximately 10 weeks of the magazine. For each story, we rated the status of the person who was the main focus of the story and how much the story detailed a misfortune happening to that person (e.g., divorce, scandal, weight gain, health problem, etc.). As the status of the person in the story increased, so did the likelihood that the story would also focus on misfortune. Although the rich and famous fascinate us, most of us feel infinitely less successful than they and probably a little envious. The chance to read about celebrities’ setbacks can be irresistible—which explains much of the success of these tabloid magazines.