The Meaning of Schadenfreude and Its Role in Society

What Does Schadenfreude Mean? 

The German word schadenfreude means to enjoy the sadness and misfortune of another. This emotion can play a crucial role in society, function positively, and be evaluated sociologically. Additionally, in which situations the schadenfreude is felt can affect whether it has positive or negative meanings.

Is Schadenfreude bad?

We would want to deny that we feel schadenfreude because it can make us look ruthless. It shows us that we try to compensate for the disappointment of our failures by taking shelter in the unhappiness of others, which can be nothing but vulgarity. However, while sometimes it can be embarrassing, schadenfreude is a universal emotion that everyone feels and is neither good nor bad.

When do we feel Schadenfreude? 

Tiffany Watt Smith, in her book Schadenfreude, illustrates the cases in which we feel this emotion with examples. First, we feel it if we are not responsible for something awful happening to someone. So much so that this is why fail videos on the internet have high ratings. After all, schadenfreude is the reason we laugh at people who fall. Secondly, we feel this emotion towards our enemies, as even if we do not win, seeing our enemy defeated evokes the feeling of victory inside us.

Nietzsche’s Opinion on Schadenfreude

We also feel schadenfreude when something terrible happens to people we envy, and this can cover up our sense of inadequacy, albeit for a short time. Therefore, for Nietzsche, this feeling has a negative connotation. Ultimately, he argues that schadenfreude can turn into a feeling of ressentiment and that ressentiment is an emotion brought by slave morality. For Nietzsche, slave morality is nothing but an effort of the weak to console themselves. 

What Can We Do About It?

According to the author, the way to deal with schadenfreude is to learn and recognise it. That way, we can develop our sense of empathy and focus on our development rather than competing with others.

Justice and Schadenfreude 

When something awful happens to someone we believe deserves punishment, feeling schadenfreude is almost inevitable. This case is covered in an article in The Conversation: When COVID-19 spread, US President Donald Trump made statements implying that he underestimated the pandemic, ignoring that many people lost their relatives and loved ones due to the pandemic. The news that he had tested positive for COVID-19 soon followed, causing people to feel schadenfreude towards him. Moreover, according to the statement made in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary after the diagnosis of Trump’s COVID-19, the search for the word schadenfreude on the internet increased by 30,000. 

Political Schadenfreude

Often thought of as having a negative connotation, schadenfreude can play a positive role in the political arena and society. According to the minimal group paradigm, people tend to favour their group and be prejudiced against counter-groups as soon as group consciousness begins to form. Sometimes this can become radicalized and cause irrational actions, which sociologist Emile Durkheim calls “collective effervescence.”  Nevertheless, schadenfreude is functional in that it motivates political action. We feel this emotion when something terrible happens to the opposition party. Sometimes we laugh at tragicomic political jokes because of schadenfreude. However, in the end, it provides criticism and development and keeps an opposition alive. Ultimately, schadenfreude can mobilize political groups and societies for beneficial change.

Golden Age of Schadenfreude 

When the internet and social media became more accessible, The Guardian and the New York Times wrote articles about the golden age of schadenfreude. They argued that the widespread internet and social media caused users to learn more about each other’s lives and to create a showing-off culture, resulting in the feeling of schadenfreude becoming more palpable. 

From a Sociological Point of View 

As a sociological school, structuralism elucidates the idea of the golden age of schadenfreude, discussed by The Guardian and The New York Times. According to sociologist Norbert Elias, alterations in the social structure create dominant emotional ideologies. In this example, we see a structuralist approach: the development of social media has led to schadenfreude becoming more prominent. However, other sociological theories explain the emotional changes in society differently. According to the hydraulic theory that Rosenwein explained in his article, repressed emotions lead to the emergence of different societies. According to this theory, emotions do not occur as a result of the change, but they are the main factors of the change.

Tiffany Watt Smith, in her book Schadenfreude, argues that this emotion is universal and does not change according to different societies. She says that emotions such as jealousy or schadenfreude have become a little more pronounced due to factors such as the spread of social media. In this respect, it can be argued that she advocates a weak form of structuralism sociologically. 

Conclusion

Schadenfreude is not a feeling that can be treated as good or evil. This emotion may show our inadequacies and jealousy, but it can be dealt with through empathy. Additionally, schadenfreude plays a prominent role in motivating positive changes in the political and social sphere. Moreover, it is a universal feeling everyone feels and may have become more evident with the spread of social media and surveillance culture today.

Making this subject more enjoyable to read, Tiffany Watt Smith’s “Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another’s Misfortune” can be a recommended book in terms of handling this emotion more objectively and critically.

References 

• Alex, L. (2011). Collective effervescence. In Key Concepts in Classical Social Theory (pp. 50-54). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446251485
• Brown, R. (2020). The origins of the minimal group paradigm. History of Psychology, 23(4), 371–382. https://doi.org/10.1037/hop0000164
• Kivisto P. (2020) The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory. Cambridge University Press. https://shorturl.at/agoyZ
• Kurtulus P. (2023, May 24) Nietzsche: the übermensch. Mozart Cultures. https://mozartcultures.com/en/nietzsche-the-ubermensch/
• Pierce L M. (2020) Schadenfreude over Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis was more about cosmic justice than joy in another’s pain. Last Access: 12 July 2023. https://l24.im/lRt8s9G   
• Rosenwein B. (2002) Worrying About Emotions in History. The American historical review [107]:821-845. https://www.academia.edu/908885/Rosenwein_Worrying_about_Emotions_in_History_ Last Access: 16 November 2021.   
• Smith W T. (2018) Schadenfreude: the joy of another’s misfortune New York: Hachette Book Group   
• Stets J and Turner J. (2014) Handbook of The Sociology of Emotions: Volume ıı [e-book]. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-017-9130-4.  Last Access: 16 November 2021.   

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