Schadenfreude

                Just a few weeks ago I wrote my World Literature Paper #2 for my English class. For that particular assignment I chose to write a pastiche based on Albert Camus’s The Stranger. In order to best mimic Camus writing whilst creating an interesting plot I spent a great deal of time researching law books, movies, as well as actual cases. While doing the research I came across a very interesting word, schadenfreude. This German word is used as a loanword in English and it represents the pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. Unfortunately, in my World Literature paper I did not have the means to fully explore this word as I had a constant worry of getting off track and exceeding the word limit. So, I decided to dedicate my wild card blog post to understanding and analyzing schadenfreude.

            Schadenfreude, the word originates from the German words Schaden and Freude which mean ‘damage’ and ‘joy’. It means to take spiteful malicious delight in the misfortune of others. As a society, we used to dismiss this as simply an ugly side of human nature, but it is so much more than that. In fact, a professor at Stanford initiated an experiment in which he actually captured schadenfreude on a brain scan. This has become a physiological and medical phenomenon; when we see others in pain, it sometimes causes a chemical to be released in the dorsal striatum of the brain which actually causes us to feel pleasure. The fact that there is a study that proves we feel happiness from the downfall of others is frightening. However, oddly enough, it makes sense. As a society whenever we hear of a huge case or breaking news we get this incontrovertible need to know what’s going on; we simply get exited. If you watch the news or read the newspaper, one can tell that humans get this undeniable, delicious joy over someone else’s plight. It actually scares me to know that our society functions in this fashion. There are numerous examples to prove that schadenfreude actually exists among us. One example could be Tiger Woods, when the story was released that he may have cheated on his wife with over 12 different women his life was utterly ruined; yet the public seemed to rejoice in happiness. This gave the people something to talk about, they could make jokes, and socialize based on somebody else’s pain. Don’t even begin to think how great this was for talk show hosts like Dave Letterman, Conan O’Brian, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel; they had found hot news based on which they could make thousands of jokes. Furthermore, this doesn’t just apply to public humiliation. One could even argue that schadenfreude occurred during the O.J Simpson trial. Although he had committed a horrible crime by killing two innocent people, on some level, although people will never admit it, they were happy. People were glued to their TV’s and newspapers following the case in grave detail. We were happy because this was huge and everyone was talking about it, we wanted to know what evidence there was, why he did it, and even how he did it. As much as I hate to say this, and as controversial as this could be, 9/11 could be a potential example of schadenfreude as well. There is no doubt that a lot of people were absolutely devastated over what happened, but for people who aren’t American and have no family in the states, it is very likely that unknowingly pleasure was derived in the dorsal striatum of their brain. Once again, the public was curious and exited. They wanted to know how this happened, what was next, who did it, how was the U.S was going to respond, and countless other questions. As horrifying as it is, it’s true; people were glued to the TV’s and desperately wanted to know what was next. It’s just how humans are. At this point, it’s already quite scary to know that schadenfreude has been proven to exist, but the extent of the research is expanding everyday. As more and more scientist become interested with this phenomenon it is only a matter of time before we acknowledge just how selfish we are. One may actually be fearful of knowing the answers to the questions; I know I am.