The Joy of Pain

by Richard H. Smith

  I highlighted in Chapters 9 and 10 that people will rarely admit to envy, particularly the hostile kind. Because of his apparently sterling moral qualities, it was especially unacceptable to express hostile envy of Woods; it would have come across as mean and spiteful. Ironically, exactly because other pro golfers would be most primed for schadenfreude—because of their gain, because of a relief from a painful, envy-producing social comparison—I suspect that they were unwilling to express it openly. This was left to the tabloids, the late-night talk shows, the blogosphere, and other venues.

  Another important factor in understanding public reaction to Woods’s fall had to do with whether it seemed deserved. Deserved misfortunes produce more schadenfreude than undeserved misfortunes, another frequent theme in this book. We are pleased when a person gets his just desserts, even if it means that he’ll suffer intensely as a result. The fact that Woods was solely responsible for his own downfall was a constant feature in many voiced reactions. Interestingly, a year before his extramarital affairs were revealed, Woods had taken a leave from the game because of a knee injury and the surgery it required. This may have pleased some, at least privately, for reasons we know well, but the general tenor of public reactions among golfers and fans was outwardly sympathetic. This dramatically changed following the revelations of infidelity, especially as the number and nature of his affairs quickly came to light.21 His duplicity seemed extreme. After the birth of his son, he had placed a photo on his Web site with his baby and wife, suggesting perfect marital bliss. Woods had been extremely careful at crafting an image of a perfect life while apparently having affair after affair. The crafted image was clearly false. Did he begin to believe his father’s prediction that he would “do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity”?22 When the information about the affairs surfaced, most people thought that he deserved the negative consequences—and were pleased.

  It could have been worse for Woods. He was not someone to criticize others for their misbehaviors. His fault was in raising himself high rather than pointing out the failings of others. He was nonetheless faulted for maintaining an illusion of spotless living and for letting down those who believed in him. Other golfers spoke of Woods’s deserving the negative publicity. The South African Ernie Els, who had been so completely humbled by Woods when they had been paired with each other in the 2000 U.S. Open, criticized the timing of the press conference at which Woods gave his apology. It overlapped with the start of a tournament in which Woods was no longer participating, thus hurting the sponsors. “It’s selfish,” said Ernie Els to Golfweek Magazine. “You can write that.”23 In Chapter 6, I argued that the perception of the deservingness of a misfortune is more acute when we have felt personally mistreated. Els, although highly accomplished in his own right and admired on and off the links,24 may have felt a measure of personal humiliation over his U.S. Open drubbing, but there may have another reason. Although Woods rarely criticized other golfers, there was at least one exception. In September 2009, Woods was asked about how Els was responding to surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Woods, who had just gone through the same surgery, praised Els, but then noted: “Ernie is not a big worker physically and that’s one of the things you have to do with an ACL injury. I feel pretty good with what I’ve done and I think Ernie could have worked a little bit harder.”25 Not only did he suggest Els was a bit lazy, he also contrasted Els’s behavior with his own. For Els, the comparison must have hurt. In my opinion, it would be asking too much of Els not to feel a touch of schadenfreude when Woods’s troubles emerged. I should emphasize Els’s sterling qualities. When he was accepting the trophy for winning the 2012 British Open, he took time to thank former South African President Nelson Mandela (who had just turned 94) for what he had done for South Africa.26 This was a stirring moment.

  The comments of Jesper Parnevik, another pro golfer, also stand out. When Woods crashed his SUV, it was reported that Elin Nordegren, Woods’s then-wife, used a golf club to break open a window so that she could extricate him from the car. Parnevik suggested that Nordegren “use a driver next time instead of a 3-iron.” Why? In 2000, Parnevik and his wife had employed Nordegren as a nanny and had introduced her to Woods in 2001. Three years later, they were married. Parnevik, in some small way responsible for their marriage, felt sorry for her. He took Woods’s betrayal of Elin personally. He said, “We probably thought he was a better guy than he is.”27

  STEPPING BACK FOR A MOMENT

  Exploring the reasons why we feel schadenfreude over misfortunes such as what happened to Tiger Woods was the purpose of this book. However, as I have noted in earlier chapters, my focus on schadenfreude is not meant to overplay this reaction to another person’s suffering—as natural and common a human emotion as I think it is.

  Let’s start with Homer Simpson, who is clearly prone to feeling schadenfreude when Ned Flanders fails. It is Homer’s pleasure at seeing Ned’s “Leftorium” do poorly that prompts Lisa to define the emotion for Homer. Toward the end of the episode, however, Homer has had his fill of feeling good when his friend is suffering, and he suddenly feels terrible for Ned who is about to lose all this property and savings “for a pig and poke.”28 Homer begins to cry over Ned’s troubles and is weighed down with guilt over his earlier wishing for Ned’s failure and over his pleasure when this did indeed happen. He leaps into action to save the business. He calls everyone he knows who is left-handed and urges them to go to the store to buy something. Soon it seems that all of Springfield are making their way to the store. In an ending echoing the final scene of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, when the townspeople of Bedford Falls come to the aid of George Bailey, the citizens of Springfield buy everything from can openers to accountant ledgers, all designed for the left-handed. Homer and Ned are now bosom buddies:

  NED: Homer, affordable tract housing made us neighbors … you made us friends.

  HOMER: To Ned Flanders, the richest left-handed man in town.29

  The ended closes with Ned’s son leading everyone in the song “Put on a Happy Face.” It is a heartening ending without a trace of envy or schadenfreude. The inspired writers of this popular and long-lasting show surely knew that schadenfreude should neither be the whole story nor be the way to bring it to a close.

  I ended Chapter 2 with the example of Bertie Wooster taking delicate pleasure in the knowledge that Constable Oates had to stand guard in the cold rain outside Bertie’s window. No one had thought to tell Oates that Bertie was no longer a suspect in the theft of the cow creamer and no longer needed to be guarded. The thought of this caused Bertie to sigh contentedly and provided “a curiously mellow sense of happiness.” Even so, few readers would accuse Bertie of being a sadist. Oates had treated Bertie abominably and, in the comic spirit of the novel, he richly deserved a few hours of discomfort. Until this point, Bertie had been imposed upon and mistreated by friends and foes alike and had suffered humiliations and physical injuries, all as he strove to satisfy the wishes of family and friends. Furthermore, he only experienced full contentment when he also knew that he had succeeded in actually helping them. He managed things so that his Aunt Dahlia could keep her cherished cook, his uncle could get a prized cow creamer, and a friend could acquire the permission to marry the girl of his dreams. The title of the novel, The Code of the Woosters, refers to the Woosters’ credo to “never let a pal down”—largely the reason why Bertie gets enmeshed in these unpleasant situations. The end of a perfect day contains but a dusting of schadenfreude, adding a little spice to the knowledge that his friends and family have what they want.

  And yet schadenfreude may almost always have a perverse feel to it, precisely because it is a feeling prompted by another’s suffering. Our capacity to feel schadenfreude speaks to a side of human nature about which most of us are uneasy. For good reason, if we dwell for a moment on the appeal of humilitainment and on the insidious path from envy, to anti-Semitism, and then to pleasure in genocide.
This is why the title of this book includes the word “dark.”

  While writing this book, I requested daily Google alerts signaling any story on the electronic media where the word schadenfreude was used. I averaged around two to three or so examples per day, and it was rare to find people admitting the feeling without an excuse. People would say, “I know I shouldn’t have felt it but …” or “I have to admit that I couldn’t help feeling …” Maybe this is one reason why there is no word for schadenfreude in English. It is a feeling that recoils from giving itself a label.30

  But I agree with philosophers John Portmann and Aaron Ben-Ze’ev that the emotion need not be demonized.31 I was struck by readers’ reactions to a lighthearted column posted on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site by a professor of English writing under the pseudonym “Alice Fenton.” The column entitled “The Pleasures of Seeing the Deserving Fail” began by stating the delights of successful teaching, but then noted that, equally pleasurable although “much less discussed, are a series of what might be called negative victories.”32 Fenton described several variants, ranging from the irksome student who drops out to the student who fails but thoroughly deserves it. In other words, some students are simply hard to like.

  She was wise not to give her real name. A passionate reaction quickly arose from many readers. Of the 101 comments I scanned, over half (52) were unambiguously critical and, of these, 32 were scathing.

  • I want to take a shower after reading this piece. What’s bad is that it’s filled with pettiness and schadenfreude.

  • What a horrid little essay.

  • … to take pleasure in the ignorance, messed-up life, or dwindling life opportunities of a young person? That is a form of evil.

  • She sounds like a bit of a sadist to me, taking pleasure in others’ shortfalls. Shame on you, Alice …!

  • Fenton’s approach is simple-minded and hateful.

  • What a sad, spiteful harpy.

  • This essay is the product of a warped mind.

  Fenton’s honesty swiftly alienated her from over half of those responding—despite other passages in the article that emphasized the many joys she got from teaching, such as when the faltering student blossoms after much effort on both sides. There was no sense that the cases of schadenfreude were the prevalent part of her experience. Nor was she arguing that the emotion should be nourished. Rather, she was being unapologetically candid about the full range of emotions she felt as a college teacher, a profession that seems increasingly undervalued. For her troubles, many commenters, using rhetoric perhaps sharpened by the mostly unsigned nature of the postings, concluded that she was either a disturbed, hateful person or an embittered burn-out—and an incompetent teacher—or a blend of all of the above.

  She had her strong supporters. This was my favorite:

  Oh, for the love of Pete. Why is everyone so snippy? I thought this was a funny essay at a stressful time of term. I glory in the success of my students; I don’t gloat or wish their failures, but I certainly recognize some of the scenarios “Alice” describes, and she’s not asking us to let loose daily with our negative emotions, but simply allowing us a minute or two to sheepishly admit to one another that we do sometimes have petty feelings, and that it’s perfectly natural.33

  Fenton herself was unprepared for the responses she received, especially the hateful ones. After all, her experiences of schadenfreude were rare, and she was careful to start her comments by emphasizing the reasons to celebrate teaching. I saw no reason to disbelieve her. In fact, I thought that her admission of occasional schadenfreude gave her greater overall credibility. In another column in which she responded to the criticism, Fenton summed up her own defense well:

  To be human is to be unpleasant as well as pleasant. … Anger, dislike, weariness, schadenfreude: Those are all, for me, parts of human experience. That does not mean those emotions rule people, but it does mean they are there sometimes.34

  Yes, schadenfreude is there—sometimes—and perhaps more in gray hues rather than in darkest black. In fact, most instances of schadenfreude may occur in quickly passing traces. These traces originate from the stories we choose to read as we surf the internet or from the gossip we overhear. If we are watching a golf match, schadenfreude will be part of the ebb and flow of the event, depending on whether we want a particular golfer to do well or poorly. Tiger Woods sends his ball into the water: schadenfreude—if we don’t like him. A politician from an opposing party commits an embarrassing gaffe as election night approaches: schadenfreude. We see that a player for a rival basketball team that we detest gets injured: a mild rush of schadenfreude because the team will suffer—but sympathy for the player as well. A person whom we envy at work comes back from a vacation with an extra roll of fat around her middle or the hairline of a rival is receding surprisingly quickly: schadenfreude. Most of us, like Bertie Wooster, are basically good-natured and rarely wish severe problems on others, but we are not above taking pleasure in mild misfortunes when they are deserved. It is the rare person who acts on these fantasies, however. We rely on fate or acts of God. When the desired misfortunes fail to happen, we simply feel secret disappointment. A recently coined word for this feeling is glückschmerz—but that is another story.35

  NOTES

  Introduction

  1. From http://www.snpp.com/episodes/7F23.html, retrieved April 5, 2010. I take this example from Powell, C. A. J., Smith, R. H., & Schurtz, D. R. (2008), Pleasure in an envied person’s gain, in R. H. Smith (Ed.), Envy: Theory and research (pp. 148–164), New York: Oxford University Press.

  2. From http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/schadenfreude, retrieved May 24, 2012.

  3. Howard, R. (Director) (1995), Apollo 13 [film], Los Angeles: Image Entertainment. The film is an adaptation of real events. I do not claim actual knowledge of Jim Lovell’s or Alan Shepard’s behavior and feelings.

  4. See http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-05-06/news/christian-right-leader-george-rekers-takes-vacation-with-rent-boy/, retrieved May 16, 2010.

  5. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/opinion/16rich.html, retrieved May 16, 2010.

  6. Ibid.

  7. See http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/rekers_on_the_record.php, retrieved May 16, 2010; http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-05-06/news/christian-right-leader-george-rekers-takes-vacation-with-rent-boy/1, retrieved May 28, 2010; http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/george_rekers_is_a_homosexual_says_escort.php, retrieved May 28, 2010; and http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/05/more_on_george.php, retrieved May 28, 2010.

  8. See http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/the-age-of-schadenfreude/, retrieved December 17, 2011.

  9. See http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2005/march-05/reality-check.html, retrieved January 12, 2011.

  10. Steinbeck, J. (2008), The grapes of wrath, New York: Penguin. This novel was first published in 1939, p. 349.

  11. de Waal, F. B. M. (2009), The age of empathy: Nature’s lessons for a kinder society, New York: Harmony Books; Keltner, D. (2009), Born to be good: The science of a meaningful life, New York: W. W. Norton; McCullough, M. E. (2008), Beyond revenge: The evolution of the forgiveness instinct, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

  12. Baer, R. A. (Ed.) (2005), Mindfulness-based treatment approaches: Clinician’s guide to evidence base and applications, New York: Academic; Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2008), Happiness: Unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth, New York: Wiley-Blackwell; Emmons, R. (2007), Thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier, New York: Houghton Miffin Harcourt; Seligman, M. E. P. (2011), Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being, New York: Free Press.

  13. See http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/1inaug.htm, retrieved August 1, 2012.

  Chapter 1

  1. Cited in Heider, F. (1958), The psychology of interpersonal relations, New York: John Wiley & Sons, p. 285.

  2
. Snyder, D. J. (1997), The cliff walk, New York: Little, Brown.

  3. See http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/, retrieved May 14, 2010.

  4. Brickman, P., & Bulman, R. (1977), Pleasure and pain in social comparison, in J. M. Suls & R. L. Miller (Eds.), Social comparison processes: Theoretical and empirical perspectives (pp. 149–186), Washington, DC: Hemisphere; de Botton, A. (2004), Status anxiety, New York: Pantheon; Festinger, L. (1954), A theory of social comparison processes, Human Relations, 7, 117–140; Fiske, S. T. (2011), Envy up, scorn down: How status divides us, New York: Russell Sage Foundation; Frank, R. H. (1999), Luxury fever, New York: Free Press; Marmot, M. (2004), The status syndrome, New York: Times Books; Mussweiler, T. (2003), Comparison processes in social judgment: Mechanisms and consequences, Psychological Review, 110, 472–489; Smith, R. H. (2000), Assimilative and contrastive emotional reactions to upward and downward social comparisons, in L. Wheeler & J. Suls (Eds.), Handbook of social comparison: Theory and research (pp. 173–200), New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers; Stapel, D., & Blanton, H. (Eds.) (2006), Social comparison: Essential readings, Brighton, NY: Psychology Press; Tesser, A. (1991), Emotion in social comparison and reflection processes, in J. M. Suls & T. A. Wills (Eds.), Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research (pp. 115–145), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; Suls, J. M., & Wheeler, L. (Eds.) (2000), Handbook of social comparison: Theory and research, New York: Plenum Press.

  5. See http://www.frasieronline.co.uk/episodeguide/season5/ep17.htm; and http://www.kacl780.net/frasier/transcripts/season_5/episode_17/the_perfect_guy.html, retrieved April 8, 2013.