Envy & Pride - Two of the Seven Cardinal Sins?

[August1991]

As my wife will attest, I often suffer from futterneid. This is the term Germans use to describe the envy we feel when, for example, someone orders a better meal than ours. I'm also prone to schadenfreude, the tendency to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.

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The consequences of envy run even deeper. It will never be known how many millennia man endured in misery and darkness under the moldering blanket of envy. Helmut Schoeck writes in his timeless masterpiece, "Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior," that whole societies, hobbled by envy, rejected innovation and prosperity, preferring the arrested development of all to the advancement of the few.

In primitive societies, "No one dares to show anything that might lead people to think he was better off," Schoeck observed. "Innovations are unlikely. Agricultural methods remain traditional and primitive, to the detriment of the whole village, because every deviation from previous practice comes up against the limitations set by envy."

Bigotry has many wellsprings, but it always draws on the groundwater of envy. "How can that (choose your slur) have two horses when I only have one?" the envious man asks. Hence August Bebel's famous description of anti-Semitism as the "socialism of fools."

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More damning, however, is that these studies turn a vice into a virtue. With the exception of the self-esteem movement, which glorifies pride, it’s difficult to imagine another area where we so shamelessly tout a sin as the basis of public policy.

Jonah Goldberg, National Review

Envy is the sin, not pride (and self-esteem is certainly no sin at all). Moreover, greed is not a sin either.

I think these so-called seven cardinal sins have a mosaic origin.

Edited August 19, 2007 by August1991

[margrace]

Jonah Goldberg, National Review

Envy is the sin, not pride (and self-esteem is certainly no sin at all). Moreover, greed is not a sin either.

I think these so-called seven cardinal sins have a mosaic origin.

This fits in with the two biggest problems, in my opinion, in our country today. The automobile industry has used this vice for a long time and the housing market as well.

I see families who raise their children in such different ways. Getting out and getting a job, saving your own money for a car and insurance and being encouraged by parents to buy a servicable vehicle not a new one. Then there are the ones who buy their kids a new car. This is just one example I see.

[Drea]

I think we all suffer from envy at some point.

Some may envy another's ability to talk to anyone, while they are too shy.

Some may envy another's lot in life, perhaps they had to quit school and work at age 15. That person may envy the college educated.

We envy what we don't have (but think we need or want). It's a natural part of who we are. I even think it drives people to do more. Of course it can also drive some people to do nothing (defeatists).