Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour

by Helmut Schoeck

Overview

This classic study is one of the few books to explore extensively the many facets of envy—“a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being.” Ranging widely over literature, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, Professor Schoeck— a distinguished sociologist and anthropologist—elucidates both the constructive and destructive consequences of envy in social life. Perhaps most important, he demonstrates that not only the impetus toward a totalitarian regime but also the egalitarian impulse in democratic societies are alike in being rooted in envy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865970649
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/01/1987
Series:	Helen & Kurt Wolff Bk.
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

1 MAN THE ENVIER 3
The world from the viewpoint of the envier The loneliness of the envious man Good luck and bad luck Repression of the concept of envy? Acting as though there were no envy 2 ENVY IN LANGUAGE 17
Envy and jealousy in English Envy and emulation Causal delusion in envy A definition in German Envy in proverbs Imputation of envious motives Confessing one’s envy 3 THE ENVIOUS MAN AND HIS CULTURE 33
Are any societies devoid of envy? 4 ENVY AND BLACK MAGIC 40
Envy and suspected witchcraft The enemy in our midst The Lovedu Competition is impossible Black magic versus persons unknown: envy of the other’s easier future Envy between generations 5 THE ENVY-BARRIER OF THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES 57
Institutionalized envy Fear of the evil eye ‘Whoever helps me is my enemy’ The buyer is a thief ‘Loss of face’ in China and avoidance of envy Habitual avoidance of envy and the inhibition of development The envy-barrier to vertical mobility in ethnically stratified societies The crime of being a leader in the community Fear of success 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENVY 77
Sigmund Freud’s view of envy The social function of sexual jealousy Further psychoanalytical aspects Guilt and shame Do animals seek to avoid envy? Further ethological studies in aggression The pecking order Experiments in social psychology and the reality of envy Conformism and the fear of envy The braggart experiment 7 ENVY AS SEEN BY THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 106
Individual and group Power and conformity Envy in the sociology of conflict Conflict without envy Sociological ambivalence Georg Simmel on envy Jealousy or envy? Begrudging others their assets Sociology of sexual jealousy The blind spot in regard to envy in the present-day behavioural sciences Theories of hostility The guilt of the attacked Why a society of unenvious equals? 8 CRIMES OF ENVY 129
Murder from envy Vandalism Envious building Vengeful violence 9 THE ENVY OF THE GODS AND THE CONCEPT OF FATE 141
Agamemnon’s homecoming The Greek concept of fate Nemesis Acting in the face of divine envy ‘Pleasure is forbidden!’ The hour of fate in Scandinavian mythology Shame and guilt Religion without envy New Testament ethics and the modern world 10 THE ENVIOUS MAN IN FICTION 162
Herman Melville The reluctance to attribute envy The blind spot in Melville scholars towards the envy-motive in Billy Budd Eugène Sue’s Frederick Bastien: Envy A psychotherapy of envy Yuri Olesha’s Envy: The problem of envy in Soviet society Envy and the commissar ‘Things don’t like me’ L. P. Hartley’s utopian novel Facial Justice The Equalization (Faces) Centre Envy and equality in Utopia Chaucer and Milton Envious intrigue among literati 11 ENVY AS THE SUBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY 194
Aristotle Francis Bacon Tactics to counter envy A mortgage with the world bank of fortune? Adam Smith Immanuel Kant The psychology of ingratitude Schopenhauer on envy Sören Kierkegaard The age of levelling Friedrich Nietzsche Envy among the Greeks Schadenfreude Resentment Max Scheler Resentment and revenge Resentment types Nicolai Hartmann Social eudaemonism Eugène Raiga Envy-indignation Envy in France Envious political parties 12 POLITICS AND THE APPEASEMENT OF ENVY 233
The appeal of envy in politics Envy as a trap for dictators The basic error of socialism A golden crown of thorns: The 1896 United States presidential election, from the viewpoint of envy Gold—the bogeyman Ostracism—democracy and envy in ancient Greece 13 IN PRAISE OF POVERTY: FROM SUMPTUARY LAWS TO CONTEMPT FOR THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY 253
Truth and welfare Goethe’s ‘crime’ Social agnosticism High incomes ‘socially just’ in the socialist society of scarcity, ‘unjust’ in the affluent society of ‘capitalism’ Luxury Prohibitions on luxury To indulge in luxury is to provoke envy ‘Conspicuous consumption’ How luxury remains politically acceptable The cult of poverty Chiliastic movements 14 THE SENSE OF JUSTICE AND THE IDEA OF EQUALITY 277
The sense of injustice Resentment and the demand for equality Freedom and equality Good and bad luck, chance and opportunity Contentment Equality of opportunity Inequality of opportunity as an alibi ‘Social justice’—private patients but no private schools Housing envy Bogus equality and conspicuous consumption Legitimate and illegitimate envy Socialism and envy How to diagnose justifiable envy? The envious man as informer The ‘de-envified’ society Empathy in the rebe 15 THE GUILT OF BEING UNEQUAL 308
Paul Tournier The ‘socially permissible’ holiday The modern ‘solution’: the envied man is wholly to blame Irredeemable guilt Social justice The masochism of the Westerner Ethics—sensibility or sense? ‘Love for the distant’ as an alibi for lack of relation Emotional need for reassurance The vulnerability of the class system 16 THE EMINENT IN THE SOCIETY OF EQUALS 327
Social conscience in the egalitarian personality Ministers’ salaries Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre Arthur Koestler Be what you are The envious guest One of David Riesman’s cases 17 THE SOCIETY REDEEMED FROM ENVY—A UTOPIA 341
Sense of justice and freedom from envy The kibbutz as a laboratory for equality A form of future society? Problem of authority in the kibbutz Motives of the founders Children of the kibbutz The sin of privacy Martin Buber and the kibbutz Jealousy in the group Freedom from envy, a task for the individual, not for society Utopias 18 IS OWNERSHIP THEFT? 361
The economic policy of the least envy in the greatest number Welfare economics Does social justice mean less all round? Private property Hired goods instead of property 19 SOCIAL INDIGNATION 377
‘Give us this day our daily bread’ Individual precautions are unsocial Envy in fellowship in misfortune 20 ENVY AS TAX COLLECTOR 385
Progressive taxation Ethnological data towards an understanding of the motive of extreme progression 21 SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS 394
Types of revolutionary situation Anti-colonial movements Envy’s targets prior to revolution Oswald Spengler on revolution The role of the envious man in innovation Cultural contacts Envy in the French Revolution Primitive rebels and social bandits Envy as a decimating factor in the developing countries 22 A THEORY OF ENVY IN HUMAN EXISTENCE 413
Power domesticated by envy The limits of envy Pressure of envy as a civilizing factor The meaning of envy in the phylogenesis of man Capitulation to the envious A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 429
NAME INDEX 439
SUBJECT INDEX 443

Editorial Reviews

An excellent and extremely valuable book. It is beautifully written and contains startling and enlightening information.

—Sir Karl R. Popper

From the Publisher