How taking pleasure in others’ suffering became normal

There is a feeling that is very prevalent in today’s world, so prevalent that we accept it without much difficulty: “joy or satisfaction at the misfortune, failure or suffering of other people,” or, in everyday language, “pleasure at the misfortune of others.”

In the past, during the process of socialization and more formal education — whether in schools or churches — people learned that feeling joy or pleasure at the suffering of another person or group was morally wrong and that they should learn and/or develop the virtue of empathy or compassion.

Today, however, especially amid the current political and religious polarization, this feeling has come to be accepted as normal, or almost normal, and is even encouraged and used as a tool in political struggles.

When discussing this feeling in the process of socialization and education in moral values, it is important to distinguish between the notions of feeling and emotion.

Emotions are intense, short-lived, involuntary bodily responses to events that matter to an individual’s goals, motives or concerns, whereas feelings are mental and cognitive evaluative interpretations that last longer.

This means that joy at the misfortune of others is part of the evolution of the human species and, therefore, we cannot erase this biological characteristic from ourselves as human beings; ancient cultures developed social and religious mechanisms to control this emotion, which threatens the social sustainability of the community; and we are witnessing changes in the ethical interpretation and evaluation of this pleasure or displeasure, as well as changes in the entire ethical system.

In other words, in addition to the political struggles dividing Western countries over support for or opposition to democracy, what we are participating in and witnessing is also a struggle over civilizational change.

What is at stake is not only technological changes — such as AI — or the organization of the economy and global geopolitics, but also the preservation or development of fundamental categories for interpreting the relationship between the organic and cultural aspects of human beings.

The culture war waged by the far right or fascists seeks, among other things, to change interpretations of feelings such as joy at the suffering of others, or to reduce the notion of the struggle for social justice — a central concern for the “left,” those who fight to reduce social inequality — to an expression of envy on the part of people who are incompetent in the marketplace (a thesis advanced by the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek).

The neoliberal reversal of values

To understand the fundamental pillars of the neoliberal project for a new civilization, it is worth revisiting a thesis by Ludwig von Mises (the Austrian economist who mentored Hayek and became one of the 20th century’s leading voices for free-market libertarianism) in his best-known book for a general audience, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (1956).

He writes, “Greed is precisely the impulse that drives man toward economic improvement. Keeping someone content with what they have already achieved or can easily achieve, without any interest in improving their own material conditions, is not a virtue.”

Greed, which is considered a vice in the non-capitalist world — and which is one of the seven deadly sins in the Catholic Church — has taken on the status of an economic and moral virtue. This reversal of the system of moral values presupposes and can be explained by a change in the value or ultimate meaning of life.

With capitalism having become a form of religion, the accumulation of wealth has become the ultimate meaning of personal life and civilization.

In this regard, von Mises says something central to our discussion: “Equality before the law gives you the power to challenge any millionaire. In a market that is not sabotaged by government-imposed restrictions, it will be exclusively your own fault if you fail to surpass the king of chocolate, the movie star and the boxing champion.”

By embracing the “free market” — free from state intervention and the intervention of other social institutions — as his transcendent utopian ideal and, consequently, the ultimate criterion for society, he presents his theology of sin and guilt.

Since there can be only one champion, one most famous star or one richest man, everyone else is condemned as guilty and a failure. And, as we know, a champion or the most famous artist will always be defeated sooner or later, everyone is or will be blamed for their failure.

Thus, the world’s second-richest man is guilty of not being the richest, while the current richest man lives in constant anxiety and fear of losing his position and becoming guilty.

In his short text Capitalism as Religion (1921), an unfinished fragment published only after his death, Walter Benjamin had already declared that capitalism is a religion based on universal guilt, without redemption.

One question that arises is this: How did an economic, political and cultural system based solely on the cold competition of the market and the blaming of everyone manage to achieve hegemony in the capitalist Western world beginning in the 1980s?

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The central religious question in the history of Christianity is not whether God exists, but whether the God in whom a believer places their faith cares only about that believer’s suffering and the suffering of their own people, or whether the believer suffers when others suffer.

Partly, it was because of its promises and the enchantment of consumer culture. But consumer culture and consumer spirituality are not enough, because the bills for purchases made beyond one’s actual means eventually come due.

Not to mention the frustrations people feel even when they consume, since consumerism does not deliver what it promises: the feeling that one’s life is worthwhile.

Schadenfreude and the market’s justice

To understand the existential attachment to capitalism among a large part of society, I believe the concept of schadenfreude (joy at the suffering of others) is very useful.

First, behind this joy, we can see the feeling of envy, which is always an unpleasant emotion. Envy is not jealousy. Jealousy is the fear of losing someone or something we already have, whereas a person feels envy when they lack a quality, an achievement or a possession that someone else has.

In this sense, envy is a fundamental feeling in the consumer market. To counter this unpleasant emotion, an envious person can use the feeling of joy at another’s suffering as a means of making a favorable comparison and continuing in the race.

Second, schadenfreude has an important dimension involving the notion of deservingness and justice — a justice judged by the market or by market laws.

When people lose, they feel they have been treated unjustly and may lose their trust or faith in the market. But when they see another person suffering and feel superior to someone they regard as inferior, they recover their faith in the justice of the market, which supposedly quantifies each person’s merits.

Third, behind this joy at another person’s failure or suffering, we see the important process of positive self-valuation.

Put simply, a person who looks at those above them may evaluate themselves negatively, belittle themselves and, at the same time, accept the contempt or negative evaluation expressed by others. But by looking at another person’s suffering, they can recover a positive self-evaluation, or at least one that is more positive.

In this sense, neoliberal capitalist culture needed to reverse the perspective that prevailed in the pre-capitalist world, which made efforts to control and reduce the impact of schadenfreude on society, and turn joy at seeing the suffering of others, especially the poorest and most marginalized members of society, into a dominant spirituality.

In other words, neoliberalism made a major effort to reverse moral values and, in particular, the way we interpret the emotion we experience when confronted with another person’s suffering or failure.

What is at stake for Christianity:

After forty years of neoliberal hegemony, the project of making the “free market” the sole, or almost sole, organizing principle of the global economy is in crisis, and we are witnessing an alliance between neoliberals and fascists/the far right. Among the various factors enabling this alliance is schadenfreude.

In a sense, we can say that 20th-century fascism was a political project that embraced this feeling and made it its driving spirit to mobilize the masses.

Today, the new face of fascism is joining forces with neoliberalism to mobilize part of society against those who still believe in democracy, universal human rights and the idea that taking pleasure in another person’s suffering is an ethical error.

Finally, in the Western world, one cannot defend or criticize joy at another person’s suffering without engaging with Christianity.

The central religious question in the history of Christianity is not whether God exists, but whether the God in whom a believer places their faith cares only about that believer’s suffering and the suffering of their own people, or whether the believer suffers when others suffer and, moved by compassion and solidarity, acts to ensure that everyone can have a better life.

The future of Christianity and civilization is at stake in the answer to this question.

This is a translated and edited version of the column that first appeared on Instituto Humanitas Unisinos and has been republished with permission by Global Catholic. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of Global Catholic.