The Joy of Pain

by Richard H. Smith

  MARTHA STEWART’S MISFORTUNES

  Let’s examine the case of Martha Stewart,30 whose indictment and ultimate conviction for insider trading was made to order for the tabloids. Stewart is a remarkable American success story.31 But, as Michael Kinsley noted in an article for Slate, her period of troubles represent “a landmark in the history of schadenfreude.”32 Following an early career as a model and then as a successful stockbroker, she began using her long-time interests in cooking, decorating, and gardening to develop a series of hugely successful business ventures. After releasing her first book, Entertaining, which was a New York Times best seller, she published an almost yearly series of other books on topics ranging from pies, hors d’oeuvres, and weddings to pulling off a good Christmas celebration. Along the way, she wrote many magazine articles and newspaper columns and was a frequent guest on national television programs. By the time of her indictment for insider trading in 2002, she had created a media empire, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. It included her own magazine, Martha Stewart Living, a daily television program, a catalogue business (Martha by Mail), and a floral business (marthastewartflowers.com), among other ventures. When the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange, she became a billionaire by the end of the first day.

  Before her indictment, as the information about her alleged stock dealings emerged, Martha Stewart allowed Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst for The New Yorker, to interview her at her Connecticut home. He sensed that the ridicule that she was receiving (such as the mock magazine cover, Martha Stewart Living Behind Bars, ubiquitous on the internet) was probably taking its toll on her, and perhaps this seemed an opportunity to right the balance. His observations about this interview were telling.

  Stewart positioned herself as just about perfect, free of flaws. When Toobin was served Hunan chicken for lunch, Stewart emphasized that it was done in the best way possible. She gave Toobin the recipe so that he could replicate it later. The kitchen was a marvel, with every kind of copper pot and cooking utensil. From Toobin’s description, everything about her home, about what she served him, about the way she talked and acted, seemed aimed at perfection. Martha Stewart was bound to inspire envy in many people.33

  One senses a point of diminishing returns for Stewart as she revealed more about her marvelous lifestyle to Toobin, and comments Stewart made suggest that she was aware of the social price that could come with advantage. Toobin noticed that the utensils for lunch were thin silver chopsticks. Stewart explained that the Chinese associate thinner chopsticks with higher status, which was why she “got the thinnest I could find. That’s why people hate me.”34 She also seemed well aware of the schadenfreude that her troubles were creating for her and even used the word to capture the tabloid tenor of most reactions in the media. However, she expressed puzzlement over this because she saw her main business as helping women become better homemakers, and “to be maligned for that is kind of weird.”35

  Stewart must have suffered emotionally from the negative treatment she received from much of the media. Toobin noted that the unattractive photos of her in many publications irritated her. She was peeved that Newsweek suggested that people would have treated her better if she had been nicer to them during her rise to fame and fortune. Her response in each case added to the sense that she thought pretty highly of herself. About the photos, she said, “I’m a pretty photogenic person, I mean, and they manage to find the doozies.” About Newsweek’s claim, she said, “I’ve never not been nice to anybody.”36

  Stewart’s unrelenting pursuit of flawless living, however close it may be to realization, created a big target for envy. I am reminded of an often-cited experiment done in the mid-sixties by Elliot Aronson and colleagues, not long after the Kennedy administration’s bungling of the U.S. invasion of Cuba.37 These social psychologists had been struck by the rise in Kennedy’s popularity following this botched attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. Why would a blunder enhance the president’s appeal? They reasoned that before this incident, the handsome, talented, and charismatic Kennedy had cut so impressive a figure that people might have found it hard to identify with him and thus harder to like him. Perhaps this mistake “humanized” him and made him more likeable. In the experiment, participants listened to an audio tape that showed another student either performing very well or poorly on a College Bowl quiz team. Following the performance, in some cases, participants then heard the student clumsily spill a cup of coffee. Ordinarily, one might think that clumsy behavior would reduce the appeal of both the superior and the average performing student. But, consistent with the researchers’ intuitions, the superior performing student actually became more attractive and likeable after he made the spill. If there were any negative effects from the pratfall, the average performer was perceived as less appealing.

  There is an obvious lesson in this for Stewart. As much as people might admire competence in other people, when it comes to actually liking them, too much competence becomes a handicap. We might select the highly able person to be our neurosurgeon or lawyer, but we avoid their company for lunch. A touch of weakness and vulnerability goes a long way toward taking the edge off the negative effects of superiority. A little less of “I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not” tempers the evil eye of envy.38

  I remember watching a Tonight Show episode around the time of the first season of Survivor, the TV show that helped ignite the ascent of reality TV. The basic premise of the show is that members of a group are placed in a remote location and are voted off until a single “survivor” remains. Jay Leno, the host of the Tonight Show, chose about five people from his audience and placed them on a traffic “island” somewhere in Burbank. In a parody of the Survivor show, every 10 minutes or so, the audience voted off one from the group. Before they headed off for the island, however, Leno introduced the group to the studio audience by letting each say a few things about him- or herself. I recall being a little put off by the first person. He introduced himself as student at Stanford University and then went on to list a number of impressive things he was doing with his life. My initial, uncharitable thought was that I hoped he was the first to go. And I was not surprised when he was indeed the first one booted off. The other contestants were just average folks and certainly were more humble. I detected an emphatic quality in the audience’s first decision—and a burst of laughter-spiked schadenfreude accompanied the verdict.

  Jay Leno would appreciate as much as anyone why his audience laughed. In a 2012 interview for Parade Magazine, he was asked whether the digital age influenced his approach to comedy. His view was that humor really does not change much across generations. If one looks at the trappings, there may appear to be shifts in content, but the underlying process remains the same. Leno summed it up well: “[T]he fat rich man stepping out of the Cadillac and into the mud puddle” will always be funny.39

  Leno’s use of an expensive car in his example is a good one because cars are often the source of envy. According to consumer psychologist Jill Sundie, the flaunting of luxury items has been a common theme in most cultures from Egyptian pharaohs and their golden thrones to present-day Lamborghini owners.40 In one study, she and her colleagues asked student participants to respond to one of two articles about another student. The student in the article noted that he owned either a $65,000 Mercedes or a $16,080 Ford Focus. Next, participants were shown a photo ostensibly taken of the car, along with a verbal description of how it had broken down at a shopping center, stranding the owner and some friends. The car had its hood up in the photo. Students reading about the Mercedes were much more likely to admit feeling happy when learning of the car’s mechanical failure than were those who read about the Ford, especially if they also reported envy. As one would expect when envy is involved, it was the hostility linked with their envy that was most closely related to their pleasure.

  An analogue to this study occurred in May 2012, and a video of it produced many approving hits.41 A bright yellow, $250,000 Lamborghini spun out of control wh
en the driver oversteered while making a turn in a Chicago neighborhood. No one was hurt, but the car ended up sandwiched between two other cars. Passengers in another car recorded it all. The video shows these passengers making invidious comments about the Lamborghini before the accident and their keen delight after it happened. They even turned around to take a closer look. The video collected 3.8 million views in about 24 hours based on YouTube statistics. The unfortunate driver took quite a ribbing. Echoing SpiderMan, one viewer wrote, “With great horsepower comes great responsibility.”42 Many were dripping with envious ill will, with comments such as “stupid rich person trying to show off.”43

  ENVY IMPOSES ITS WILL

  Would hostile envy directed at highly competent people be dulled if they are likeable? One would think so. Naturally, the suffering of a liked person produces less schadenfreude than the suffering of a disliked person, as studies led by Israeli psychologist Shlomo Hareli confirm.44 And yet envy may not be so easily defeated. In our study that I described earlier, where we showed envy leading to schadenfreude, we were careful to make the interviewed students likeable, and equally so, in both the high- (superior student) and low-envy (average student) conditions. Nonetheless, in the high-envy condition compared with the low-envy condition, greater schadenfreude followed the misfortune.

  I have collected many accounts of people’s experiences of envy. It is not unusual for the target of the envy to be described as friendly and nice, in addition to having desirable talents or possessions. But the effect of these likeable qualities on the envying person can sometimes worsen the frustration of not having what is desired. Typically, people feeling envy find reasons to dislike the target of their envy so as to rationalize their invidious ill will. The envied person might be unfairly seen as “arrogant” or “obnoxious,” for example. Likeable qualities in the envied person short circuit the easy route to rationalizing one’s ill will—these qualities make it difficult to find plausible reasons to justify it. But because the frustrating disadvantage cannot be willed away, the envy does not necessarily cease. One participant wrote: “I envied and hated Sarah because she was smarter and more beautiful than me, and what made it worse, she was also a nice person. I had no good reason to hate her.” Likability, therefore, may be no sure antidote for defusing another person’s envy. Even though the nice envied person suffers less hostility from others than the obnoxious envied person, niceness does not solve the fundamental problem that envied people represent—they are advantaged and superior. No wonder Jonathan Swift, who had imagined both small Lilliputians and large Brobdingnagians in Gulliver’s Travels, could write about the possible hostile consequences of an envy-causing contrast with a fellow writer in this way:

  In Pope I cannot read a line,

  But with a sigh I wish it mine;

  When he can in one couplet fix

  More sense than I can do in six;

  It gives me such a jealous fit,

  I cry, “Pox take him and his wit!”45

  Toobin had many good things to say about Martha Stewart. Although she lives a life of privilege, she was not born into wealth. She lives her well-earned life of luxury with gusto and a good measure of authenticity. As he put it, “[the] Martha Stewart persona is no act.”46 And she has plenty of friends who can testify to her good character and good deeds. Toobin noted that she generally declined to criticize her tormentors; she had no complaint with the late-night comedians.47

  But envy has a logic all its own. Homer Simpson’s envy of his neighbor Ned Flanders is a case in point. In the episode of The Simpsons, “Dead Putting Society,” Ned invites Homer to tour his recreation room. It has all the bells and whistles, including a bar with exotic, foreign beers on tap. Ned’s son skips into the room, kisses him on the cheek, and thanks him for the help his father gave him on his science project. “Kids can be a trial, sometimes,” Ned says, as if this was the worst of his son’s behavior. Then, Ned’s attractive wife appears with a tray of tasty-looking sandwiches for them to enjoy. Homer soon brims over with envious ill will toward Ned, despite the fact that Ned gives him no just cause for it. Homer accuses the bewildered Ned of deliberately flaunting his advantages, and he leaves after hurling a flurry of insults.

  Homer hates Ned but without being able to articulate a credible reason for doing so. That evening, Homer unloads his envy-caused hostility on Ned as he lies in bed with his wife Marge. She is puzzled because, despite her probing questions, Homer is unable to come up with a legitimate reason for his hostility. The exchange ends in this way:48

  MARGE: Was he angry?

  HOMER: No.

  MARGE: Was he rude?

  HOMER: Okay, okay, it wasn’t how he said it either. But the message was loud and clear: Our family stinks!49

  Ned Flanders is a painful irritant to Homer simply because he is a frequent presence and because he is superior. Homer lacks the self-awareness to label his pain as envy, but he is able to appreciate why having Ned as a neighbor can be more of a curse than a blessing. This is why Homer finds it so delightful when Ned’s business does so poorly. Likewise, Martha Stewart, who is so attractive, so very cultured, so astonishingly accomplished—and rich—is just about perfect. Too much so. The average person probably needed relief from the impossible standard that she represents and the envy her success creates, as the schadenfreude over her legal troubles showed.

  CHAPTER 9

  ENVY TRANSMUTED

  I do know envy! Yes, Salieri envies.

  Deeply, in anguish envies—O ye Heavens!

  Where, where is justice, when the sacred gift,

  When deathless genius come not to reward

  Perfervid love and utter denial,

  And toils and strivings and beseeching prayers,

  But puts a halo round a lack-wit’s skull,

  A frivolous idler’s brow? … O Mozart, Mozart!

  —PUSHKIN1

  And this man

  Is now become a god, and Cassius is

  A wretched creature and must bend his body

  If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

  —SHAKESPEARE2

  Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns so soon to hatred.

  —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE3

  There is much more to be said about envy and its link with schadenfreude. I have given little attention to one feature of the emotion that has huge implications for how it works within the psyche of the average person suffering it. This concerns what most scholars assume is the largely suppressed or subterranean way that envy operates in everyday life. Generally, we deny feeling it. We keep our distance from the emotion, especially in how we present ourselves to others and often even in our private, internal owning up to it.4 My aim in this chapter is to show that this feature of envy actually makes schadenfreude much more likely if the envied person suffers, and it facilitates actions that bring about a misfortune.5

  WHY DO WE DENY FEELING ENVY?

  Admitting envy, even in our private thoughts, is to concede inferiority, as I stressed in the previous chapter. Most of us work hard to maintain the opposite view. Even if the evidence of our inferiority is obvious, we are quick to repair the narcissistic wound. We are well equipped and well practiced with defenses against such assaults to our self-image. When one defense fails, another seems to erect itself, and then another. As I emphasized in Chapter 2, this is why most of us can believe that we are better than average despite this being a mathematical impossibility—everyone cannot be better than average. When we weigh our strengths and weaknesses, we are usually guided by the preferred image of a superior self. This is the self who, despite demonstrable failings in the actual world, can still view itself as an important if not heroic figure, battling slights and injustices. This self, a kind of god unto itself, plays out fantasy roles of victory and revenge over those who seem to thwart its interests. This self is rarely inclined to envy, or so we convince ourselves. Admitting to envy would be demeaning and unbecoming. Other p
eople may be plagued by this petty emotion, but we are not.6

  Most of us also resist acknowledging our envy because of its hostile and thus repellent nature. It is unlikely that we feel at ease knowing we dislike, perhaps hate, people and might even enjoy seeing them hurt simply because they have advantages over us. What have they actually done to deserve such hostility? This is hostility directed toward a blameless target; this is an unjustified, even pathetic thing to feel. It smacks of meanness and spite, a conspicuous defect in moral fiber and another threat to the high opinion we like to have of ourselves.7

  Adding to this private resistance to admitting our envy is the concern for our public image. Recognizing the inferiority revealed by our envy is painful enough in our private thoughts, but confessing it to others piles on the pain of humiliation. Few people have the patience to listen to the petty whining of the envious. They have contempt for the nasty ill will underlying the envy as well. Understandably, most cultures develop strong norms against feeling envy or expressing it, or, more surely, acting on the feeling. Therefore, expressing envy almost certainly receives censure from others. The hostile nature of envy, together with the embarrassment of inferiority, means that when people reveal their envy, they will probably feel further diminished and ashamed.8