Who hasn’t gone into peals of laughter when someone slips on a banana peel? Fortunately, we outgrow this stage.  But, maybe not. Particularly when a person whom we don’t like slips on the peel!

Haven’t we been happy when someone overtakes us in a tearing hurry, and we find the person stuck at the stop signal? The smirk turns into a full-throated chuckle if the vehicle develops a snag!

Well, the Germans had a word for it.

Schadenfreude (pronounced SHAH-den-froy-duh). The pleasure we take in the misfortune of others is inevitable, normal too, and surprisingly, at times, useful. It all depends on what we do with it.  Everyone experiences malicious joy now and then, just like how we feel envy at the good fortune of others.

The term “Etymology” is the study of the origin of words.  The practice of etymology is uncovering the truth by tracing the root of a word and its evolution thereafter.

The dictionary meaning of Schadenfreude(n.) is: “malicious joy in the misfortunes of others.” It literally means, “damage-joy or harm-joy” from schaden “damage, harm, injury” + freude “joy,” from Old High German frewida “joy.

But then Richard C Trench in his 1852, ‘On the study of words,’ quoted, “What a fearful thing is it that any language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony to the existence of the thing.

Whether we like it or not, schadenfreude is widespread, perhaps a cross-cultural human universal feeling. When it started being used in mainstream English, it was even anglicized with a lowercase, as opposed to the German way of writing nouns with a capital letter.

If you experience schadenfreude, does it mean you’re a bad person? As The New York Times put it in its report on Professor Smith’s research: “So long as it remains passive, schadenfreude can enhance our self-worth and serve as a reminder that even the most enviable people are fallible — just like us.” It’s part of being human.

In both envy and schadenfreude, we are the targets of another’s vicarious emotion without having anything to do with it. In one, it is provoked by our good fortune, in the other by our misfortune.  Both are here to stay, the result of living and working in a community. Researchers have found there are three driving forces behind schadenfreude: aggression, rivalry, and justice. It pays to keep a watch on this emotion so that it does not translate to action.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hidden-motives/201401/schadenfreude-and-envy

https://www.snexplores.org/article/malicious-joy-schadenfreude-emotion

https://www.etymonline.com/word/schadenfreude

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/schadenfreude
image credit: AI

This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ 

hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Sameeksha Reads.