Politics of Envy

Product Information

Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership ‘reboot’ got off to a disastrous start today, with his proposal for an economically illiterate cap on maximum earnings. While no one now-a-days would say these men are perfect, we cannot deny that they made each other reach for something beyond mediocrity. They each set another on a path towards greatness. They inspired each other to see worth all alone, without relation to those around them. Nietzsche’s account of envy is consistent with Aquinas’s (even if, again, his application of this analysis to a critique of Christianity is certainly not). But there are differences of emphasis. Like Aquinas, Nietzsche takes envy to involve sorrow at another person’s possessing more of some good. But he consistently focuses on the greater power of others as that which the envious person cannot bear. Like Aquinas, Nietzsche takes hatred to be envy’s natural sequel. But he puts much greater emphasis on how envy and the hatred it spawns can harden into a seething and poisonous ressentiment intent on destroying its object. Why do governments underspend on policies that would make their constituents better off? Why do people participate in contentious politics when they could reap benefits if they were to abstain? In Envy in Politics, Gwyneth McClendon contends that if we want to understand these and other forms of puzzling political behavior, we should pay attention to envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration—all manifestations of our desire to maintain or enhance our status within groups. Drawing together insights from political philosophy, behavioral economics, psychology, and anthropology, McClendon explores how and under what conditions status motivations influence politics. In 1908, University of Berlin historian Dietrich Schafer wrote a scathing evaluation aimed at preventing Georg Simmel, one of the founders of modern sociology, from being given an academic chair at the University of Heidelberg. The son of Jewish converts, Georg Simmel, whose work is still widely read and respected by sociologists and political philosophers today, was described by Schaefer as “an Israelite through and through, in his external appearance, his demeanor, and the character of his intellect.” Envious and resentful descriptions of Simmel’s talents were woven throughout Schafer’s evaluation of the popular lecturer, who was accused of possessing a “pseudointellectual manner” that is “greatly valued by certain circles of listeners in Berlin.””

Through surveys, case studies, interviews, and an experiment, McClendon argues that when concerns about in-group status are unmanaged by social conventions or are explicitly primed by elites, status motivations can become drivers of public opinion and political participation. McClendon focuses on the United States and South Africa—two countries that provide tough tests for her arguments while also demonstrating that the arguments apply in different contexts.

Versions

Hundreds of thousands of energy bill payers have been told they could be hit with yet another price rise this year, as if two already weren’t bad enough. René Girard has argued that the major driver of all conflict and violence is mimetic desire — desire that is aroused by the craving of another. For Girard, all envy is mimetic. In his work on Girard’s theory of mimetic desire and scapegoating, Gil Bailie, the founder and president of the Cornerstone Forum and a former student and longtime friend of Girard, appears to understand the relationship between mimetic desire and violence better than anyone.”

I’ve criticized Critical Race Theory and popularizers such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo at length in my book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory . As I show in the book, the thesis that inequity as such is unjust is a central theme of this movement. Hendershott offers the classic distinction between envy and jealousy. Envy is “hostility or a negative feeling toward someone who has an advantage or something that one does not have and cannot seem to acquire. Jealousy, on the other hand, typically involves an attempt to protect a valued relationship (especially marriage) from a perceived threat (especially adultery). In some ways, jealousy can be a useful emotion — it is the desire to hold on to a loved one — especially when one feels the relationship may be threatened by outside forces.” “Envy is the pleasure, the malicious joy that is felt when the object of one’s envy falls, fails, or suffers.��� “In On Rhetoric, Aristotle described envy as “the pain caused by the good fortune of others.”As Winston Churchill famously said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Bertrand Russell said, “Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.” Envy throws us into distraction, never allowing us to see ourselves for what we are. It ruins not only our ability to govern ourselves, but also our sense for what is true happiness. Heroes combat envy So many in this nation are homeless – with that figure rising – living below the poverty line, even though they may have two jobs, languishing on Newstart, not paying for heating on a pension or one pay cheque away from not being able to pay their rent or mortgage. It is about time these people were counted and demanding they “get a go” is not politics of envy, it is common sense. It is what a decent society does and even if you don’t care about being a decent person it is actually better for the economy as well. The Never Trump movement and Trump Derangement Syndrome was clearly related to envy in the sense that the formerly “in-group” found itself out of power:

Less familiar, but no less incisive, is what Friedman said next: "Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s less well off to become tomorrow’s rich, and in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a richer and fuller life." Capitalism, in the form of the U.S. economy, is not a zero-sum game. If the rich have more, the poor do not have less. Income inequality certainly exists at any time, but differences in long-run income status are "a sign of dynamic change, social mobility, equality of opportunity." What motivates Donald Trump’s political base . . . [McClendon’s] big insight is that the seething and yearning focuses not on class conflict, but the Joneses. That is, while emotional cues may come from national voices, it’s the people next door who churn minds to the point where their bodies will clamber into the arenas of politics."—Michael Cornfield, The Guardian It is a similar story in the UK. Another survey from last week shows the pay of FTSE 100 chief executives rose six times as fast as those of the wider workforce in 2017. In a year when prices rising faster than earnings meant living standards fell for the bulk of the population, those running the biggest quoted companies saw their remuneration going up by 11%. In the second chapter, Hendershott surveys classic literature for the “narratives of envy.” This is worth reading by anyone who seeks wisdom.We can see this by considering the views of two giants of Western thought who wrote at length on the subject – Thomas Aquinas and Friedrich Nietzsche. These thinkers couldn’t otherwise be more different. Indeed, Nietzsche deployed hisown account of envy in a critique of the Christianity represented by Aquinas. In fact, Nietzsche’s target was a crude caricature of Christianity, though explaining how is a topic for another time. What matters for our purposes is that the accounts these thinkers gave of envy itself (as opposed to their applications of these accounts) are compatible and complementary. And they both clearly expose the contemporary obsession with equity as rooted in vice rather than virtue.