Read When Bad Things Happen to Other People Online
Authors: John Portmann
Tags: #Philosophy, #History, #Social Sciences, #Psychology, #Nonfiction
Well, though many an arraigned mortal has in hopes of mitigated penalty pleaded guilty to horrible actions, did ever anybody seriously confess to envy? Something there is in it universally felt to be more shameful than even felonious crime. And not only does everybody disown it, but the better sort are inclined to incredulity when it is in earnest imputed to an intelligent man.18
Much could be said about this conception of masculinity and its supposed ideological function, not least about the psychology on which it is based and the ontology that it presupposes. Because
Schadenfreude
, a weakness, is conceptually linked to envy (as its opposite but corollary), it is not surprising to find it identified as a
feminine
problem by men whose writing touched on it (Melville’s juxtaposition of “mortal” with “man” raises some question as to how this remark is to be interpreted). Scheler defines masculinity by specifying its negative limits and in so doing reinforces the impotence of a class of persons to resist characteristics imputed to them.
Scheler regards women as generally passive; the passivity which defines
Schadenfreude
explains its association with women. Much feminist theory includes resistance to the identification of the feminine with the passive. The defining feature of feminist thought lies in a recognition and rejection of the ideological biases of patriarchy. Feminists oppose the traditional script of female passivity, dependence, and subordination. Feminist philosophers such as Cheshire Calhoun have linked gender bias to the social location of the male theorist and his audience as well as to the contours of the larger social world in which moral theories evolve. Without attending to the differences among human interests, temperaments, lifestyles, and commitments, as well as to how those interests may be malformed as a result of gender or power inequities, the egoism and group bias that the male theorist’s focus on common humanity was designed to eliminate may slip in. So long as we avoid incorporating gender categories among the tools for theorizing or analyzing, Calhoun has argued in various places, we will continue running the risks of importing gender bias into our various theories and of creating an ideology of masculinity and femininity.
That ideology informs the work of the thinkers on whom I rely principally in this book. Claudia Card has noted that both Kant and Schopenhauer found virtues (and presumably vices as well) gender-related.19 “The very thought of seeing women administer justice raises a laugh,” says Schopenhauer in
On the Basis of Morality
. “They are far less capable than men of understanding and sticking to universal principles,” although “they surpass men in the virtues of
philanthropy
and
loving kindness
[
Menschenliebe
], for the origin of this is...intuitive” (p. 151). Card observes that, at least with respect to women and principles, Schopenhauer followed Kant, who had exclaimed, “I hardly believe the fair sex is capable of principles,” speculating that instead “Providence has put in their breast kind and benevolent sensations, a fine feeling for propriety, and a complaisant soul.”20 Within the terms of Kant’s own moral theory, the implication was that women’s virtues are not moral. This appears to have been his ideal for women, and, Card is correct in concluding, not something he saw as a problem.
Schopenhauer’s vitriolic essay “On Women” mocks sexist ideals of female beauty: “Only the male intellect, clouded by the sexual impulse, could call the undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex the fair sex.”21 Despite the explicitly physical reference in this passage, we can generally read Schopenhauer’s attacks on women as an indictment of femininity rather than of women, if we distinguish between gender concepts (femininity and masculinity) as social constructions and sex concepts (femaleness and maleness) as biological categories. Wanting to be masculine is understandable in a world such as Schopenhauer’s: one wonders how he viewed masculine women. Men who exhibit feminine qualities might well be doubly despised by Schopenhauer, in part for having those qualities and in part for having betrayed their masculine gender privilege to do so. This supposition sits well with Bryan Magee’s assessment of Schopenhauer’s own erotic life, specifically the struggle to come to terms with his homosexual impulses.22 Further, Schopenhauer’s revulsion to men who have sex with one another may have something to do with his contempt for femininity.
Kant’s misogyny, it should be pointed out in fairness to Schopenhauer, was no less pointed. At the age of forty, Kant took up the topic of women in a work seldom read by moral philosophers and in a chapter announcing itself as on “the interrelations of the sexes.” “Women will avoid the wicked not because it is unright, but because it is ugly,” he observes, after remarking that “the virtue of a woman is a
beautiful virtue
” and “that of the male sex should be a
noble virtue
” (
OFBS
, p. 81). Traits identified here as women’s virtues were identified in the previous chapter of the same work as merely “adoptive virtues” and contrasted there with genuine virtues. “Adoptive virtues” are not based on principle, although they can lead to (outwardly) right actions. Kant’s view was that someone with “adoptive virtues,” such as sympathy and complaisance, is goodhearted, but that only someone who is virtuous on principle “is a righteous person” (
OFBS
, p. 61). Card asserts that Kant’s ideals for women are those we might expect for domestic pets.
The misogyny of Nietzsche and Freud has received a great deal more attention than Kant’s. The sad irony that emerges here is that the thinkers I credit for having been marvelously sensitive to the moral significance of human suffering were committed in some real sense to perpetuating the suffering of roughly half the human race. In the course of examining how women have learned to respond to powerlessness, recent scholarship has highlighted the conceptual similarity of women, Jews, and gay men—for example, Susan Sontag’s classic essay on camp (linking the social status of gay men and Jews)23 and Marjorie Garber’s account of this conceptual identification in
Vested Interests
.24 If there is, in fact, something dangerous or diabolical about outlaw emotions, it follows that we should watch women and Jews carefully, and gay men as well.
How bad are outlaw emotions? Not very, perhaps. Claudia Card asks, “Feminist thinkers are understandably reluctant to address publicly women’s reputation for lying, cunning, deceit, and manipulation. But
are
these vices, one may ask, if they are needed for self-defense?” (
The Unnatural Lottery,
p. 53) Card, Calhoun, Jaggar, and others working in the field of feminist ethics challenge how and by whom the good gets defined. Their work can be seen as an illumination of the
ressentiment
at work in setting orthodox emotions off from outlaw ones. Women might reasonably find themselves bitter at a moral theory or system that describes deceitfulness and gossip in distaff terms. Lynne McFall has emphasized the rationality of bitterness, another outlaw emotion. McFall has argued that bitterness may be a justified response to harms and losses caused by human failings (wickedness, moral stupidity, weakness, or indifference)—what we think of as avoidable harms and losses, ones which are more bitter and therefore harder to bear. McFall’s provocative essay makes the most sense in the context of a patriarchal system of domination of women (though she does not specify this context). McFall contends that one cannot “come to terms” with unrepentant brutality when there is no remorse. Acceptance of one’s fate as a subjugated person is more than we can ask, and forgiveness is inappropriate and self-destructive. As responses to undeserved suffering, forgiveness and active bitterness occupy opposite ends of the continuum. Claiming that bitterness is a morally appropriate attitude is just as reasonable as claiming that it can be morally acceptable to take pleasure in the injuries of other people.
What thinkers such as Jaggar, Card, and McFall help us to understand is that the philosophical canon underlying our moral lives amounts to a system of domination. This is not the sort of domination I referred to in my discussion of suffering under rules; this is a kind of domination that denies women their identities as full moral agents. Within a hierarchical society, those norms and values which are taken to define what is characteristically human tend to serve the interest of the dominant group. These dominant values are implicit in responses taken to be pre-cultural or so-called gut responses. But people do not always experience conventionally acceptable emotions: they may feel satisfaction rather than embarrassment when their leaders make foolish mistakes; they may feel revulsion toward socially sanctioned ways of privileging men. They may feel outlaw emotions.
Claiming or simply noting that an emotion is immoral can mislead us into unreflective agreement. Male moralists have condemned
Schadenfreude
without commenting on the extent to which such condemnation is supported or generally approved. Feminist ethicists have usefully reminded us that moral strictures do not fall from the sky, but are conceptualized and articulated by living, breathing men. Many of these men have acknowledged views of women which can hardly fail to strike contemporary readers as inaccurate or unfair.
Embedded in our judgments of emotions we can discern some of the deepest dimensions of traditional gender differentiation in our culture.
Schadenfreude
would be more readily tolerated in traditional moral philosophy if the emotions, like gossip, were taken as a masculine phenomenon. Misogyny, however covert, keeps feminist thinkers in business. The many and varied achievements of women in the twentieth century remind us that some powerful people (namely, misogynists) will maintain their beliefs even when those beliefs have unfair and crippling consequences for (even already disadvantaged) others.
On the Moral Impunity of Beliefs about Justice
It would be a gross misunderstanding of my analysis of
Schadenfreude
to conclude that we cannot blame others for their moral beliefs. What I have tried to do is highlight the plurality of moral beliefs about the good. Countless philosophers have pondered a point masterfully summed up by Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (2.2.249). My claim here is simply that we take what we believe to be true. Plenty of people really do believe that abortion and gay sex represent beastly crimes; they are not faking these beliefs, as some liberals have suggested. By the same token, plenty of people believe precisely the opposite about abortion and gay sex; those who morally defend these acts are not faking their beliefs either. Jaggar clarifies how systems of domination deny legitimacy to certain beliefs and emotions.
A plurality of beliefs makes for a good deal of moral trouble. Especially in this age of cultural pluralism and political correctness, we may wince at the thought of criticizing the beliefs of another tradition (for example, female circumcision in Muslim countries). Such criticism may seem deeply insensitive; however, it could easily be countered that we cannot respect or show sensitivity to beliefs that strike us as wholly unintelligible. Moreover, outsiders sometimes demonstrate an uncanny ability to see to the heart of a matter insiders cannot separate themselves from. This is certainly the case with psychoanalysis: it is no doubt the case with intercultural and interpersonal criticism as well.
A defense of
Schadenfreude
may seem to lead to a troubling endorsement of moral relativism. This would follow only if we could not argue with others about their moral beliefs. Some people who learned about the mass slaughter of Jews under the Nazis may have felt
Schadenfreude
(as opposed to malicious glee): that is to say that they may have felt justice had been done to Jews in concentration camps. They may think that, but we don’t have to agree with them. What relativism aims at is an attitude by which one does not see another group’s outlook or beliefs as wrong. This is not an attitude I advocate. Even toleration, which has traditionally been understood as an attitude one extends to views one considers wrong, may seem inappropriate in some circumstances.
What precisely the limits of toleration—both political and moral—should be continues to generate debate among political theorists. John Rawls considers political toleration one of the “settled convictions” of Western culture, which holds up the liberal notion of “justice as fairness.”25 This means that we have to tolerate politically people of whom we may disapprove morally. It is fair to say that the more undecided a person is, the less likely he or she is to experience
Schadenfreude
. But even toleration has its limits. The limits of toleration return us to the question of moral appropriateness. Political discussion of the extent to which we should tolerate the intolerant often involves drawing a line between those things the state can or should tolerate without repugnance and those things for which toleration should be viewed as inappropriate (
A Theory
of Justice,
Section 35).
People sometimes hold beliefs we consider morally repugnant. Sincerity does not preempt rational discourse about those beliefs or moral blame for them, however. That misogynists and homophobes may consider themselves moral people does not mean that they are, only that they think they are (or that they may be in some aspects of their lives but not in others). Denying the conceptual possibility that others actually believe what they profess amounts to denying the very possibility of morally acceptable pleasure in the setbacks of others. For there could be no morally acceptable pleasure in the suffering of others if we did not take our beliefs to be true, just as they do theirs. Denying the sincerity of others involves intolerance on some fundamental level. And so we find ourselves in a world in which people disagree over
Schadenfreude
. Until the world around us agrees on whether I deserve my suffering today, there will be disagreement over whether to call your pleasure “
Schadenfreude
” or “malicious glee.”