Is Schadenfreude A Radically Moderate Thing?
We Radical Moderates did a somewhat immoderate thing this past weekend. We, like much of the nation, engaged in a little tiny bit of Schadenfreud. Not a lot of Schadenfreud, mind you, just a moderate amount.
As our readers likely know, this helpful German word describes the pleasure we sometimes feel at someone else's misfortune and it's usually *not* a radically moderate virtue, nor one we try to cultivate. But given the situation and the political climate these days, we were led to wonder: can Schadenfreude ever be a Radically Moderate Thing?
The background here of course is that late last week almost the entire White House tested positive for COVID-19. The president was hospitalized until Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with conflicting reports on his current health status and prognosis. Just last night, Stephen Miller was reported as the most recent positive case.
Unsurprisingly, this wave of infections has initiated a surge of responses that range from vigils for President Trump's health outside Walter Reed to barely contained (or not-at-all-contained) glee at the President's illness and debates over whether such glee is justified or not, given Trump's clear disdain for public health measures like masks, social distancing, and testing. Merriam-Webster reported that searches for "Schadenfreude" increased 30,500% on October 2, the day President Trump's diagnosis was reported. More soberly, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok all had to remind users that wishing someone death violates community guidelines.
We Radical Moderates are against feeling positive glee at anyone's misfortune, so let's get that out of the way. But the other piece of this is more complicated. How *should* we feel about a president being infected by a virus that he intentionally downplayed, undermining his own public health experts, all while ridiculing his opponent for wearing a mask (and every other precaution recommended by the CDC)?
To what extent can we feel any kind of positive emotion at someone's illness, particularly when that person's illness seems directly and obviously linked to his or her own actions? Can one feel -- not joy, perhaps -- but a kind of gentle satisfaction that moral cause and effect remain in effect? That the natural laws continue to operate even as so many other human laws and institutions fall by the wayside? We say yes, with hesitation and a healthy dose of caveats thrown in.
The Radical Moderation of Natural Law
We Radical Moderates are lazy natural law theorists, by which we mean that we believe that there are certain pretty stable moral laws written into human nature that make humans behave in predictable ways. Natural law means, in its most simple form, that some moral laws are self-enforcing. You don't need a police force or a lawmaker to tell you that lying or murder are wrong and people who lie a lot and murder a lot usually come to bad ends.
Another way we like to think about natural laws are as the most foundational laws without which society would not be possible. Every human society has to have laws against murder and against theft and against deceit because human communities are not possible if most people do those things most of the time. So again, the self-enforcing nature of natural laws comes to the fore. You don't have to believe in God or karma or the toothfairy to believe in natural laws; they exist -- like gravity -- whether you want them to or not.
To bring this down home a bit, infectious diseases operate according to certain natural laws, which in this case is just another way of describing the science of epidemiology. If diseases didn't behave in predictable ways we couldn't study them. In the case of COVID-19 we've learned the hard way that taking basic precautionary measures like wearing masks, avoiding large gatherings, staying home when you're sick, and not publicly ridiculing public health experts all play an important role in keeping us and our neighbors and friends and loved ones safe. When we fail to do those things we don't guarantee we'll get sick, but we make it much more likely. And when people in power fail to do those things, they not only put themselves at risk, they put millions of other people at risk.
So how do natural laws relate to Schadenfreude? Well, there seems to be a clear moral line between experiencing glee at random misfortunes experienced by people we do not like and experiencing some satisfaction at the very *nonrandom* misfortunes caused by their own actions. If some unpopular politician gets hit by a bus, we Radical Moderates believe it's wrong to experience glee. One might offer some old timey shade by saying something subtle about the devil taking care of his own, but that's the extent of it. And even that one only mentions to one's sister in a text exchange. One does not make a billboard out of it.
But when a person suffers a misfortune that is clearly the result of his or her own intentional choices, made with full knowledge of the harm those choices were likely to bring not only to the person in question but to many other innocent people besides, it's not clear that Schadenfreude is a morally unworthy response. We're not advocating dancing in the streets, but we do not see anything particularly morally offensive about recognizing the action of natural law and experiencing a quiet satisfaction in how that law tends to operate. In fact, we'll argue, this satisfaction is itself a moral emotion; it represents both an appreciation of moral outcomes and a conviction that moral decisions have moral consequences. So satisfaction that arises from the natural consequences of bad behavior might be morally justified, while less targeted Schadenfreud that merely revels in every random misfortune someone experiences, particularly when unrelated to that person's moral guilt, is not.
Ultimately, there's nothing Radically Immoderate about recognizing that decisions made -- particularly by those with enormous power to do good or evil -- have moral consequences. But now for the caveats...
A Moderate Approach to Schadenfreude
We do, however, want to offer some caution. Natural law thinking and Schadenfreud together can be justified, particularly when they are tightly linked to moral choice and moral guilt. But they are risky when applied too broadly or too randomly, for the following reasons:
Immoderate Schadenfreude can support vigilante justice, cruelty -- particularly toward out-groups -- and cycles of violence as we determine that various actors "reap what they sow." Old Testament biblical justice is one kind of justice, but it's not a particularly peaceful one. As Ghandi reminds us on coffee mugs and T-shirts all over the internet, "An eye for an eye leaves the world blind". Especially when we see ourselves as the enforcers of the natural law, the joy we see in the suffering of others is very dangerous indeed. Schadenfreude requires humility; we are probably only justified in experiencing satisfaction at other's misfortunes when we are pretty sure those misfortunes were not only deserved but that they resulted directly from someone's informed choices. We don't usually know this, so Schadenfreude is, in most cases, an inappropriate response.
Another important reminder is that Schadenfreude is always inappropriate when applied to entire groups. We've seen the destructive and inappropriate use of natural law or karmic thinking and the Schadenfreude that comes with it to target gay Americans during the AIDS crisis, to justify the 9/11 terror attacks as a natural consequence of U.S. foreign policies overseas, and to argue that Trump voters deserve the harm they are experiencing (when most Trump voters probably wanted something very different in the first place). Don't do it! Groups are made up of diverse individuals, most of whom have very little control over collective outcomes and who certainly cannot be held to "deserve" whatever misfortunes fall on them as individuals simply by virtue of their membership in some ill-defined group.
Schadenfreude, or false accusations of it, can be used to undermine the moral high ground one might otherwise occupy. Perhaps even more dangerous, accusations that the other side is glorying in some undeserved misfortune (such as the myths of Muslims celebrating after 9/11) can be marshaled to further target those with whom we disagree. Immoderate Schadenfreude is politically dangerous because it widens the moral gulf between political sides.
This is what politics does
At the same time, this is a good reminder that Schadenfreude is a predictable outcome of our polarized politics. As a growing number of books (see, for example, Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, Jason Brennan Against Democracy, Kevin Vallier's Must Politics Be War?, but there are many others) have demonstrated, politics make us enemies in increasingly dangerous ways. As polarization has increased, the moral divide between the parties has increased, and it has become easier to see those on the opposing side not only as morally inferior, but also as actually deserving suffering.
Just compare current liberal Schadenfreude with the glee Donald Trump evinced during the 2016 campaign when Clinton was laid low by pneumonia. (Refreshingly, Biden pulled his negative ads over the weekend, offering Americans the hope of a mental health break, however brief and however ultimately elusive.)
How to move past Schadenfreude and onto something better:
Despite dipping our toes into the Schadenfreud pool this weekend, we ultimately decided that the better course for Radical Moderates is to not engage in behavior that merely creates ripples of negativity, but instead to think about all the ways we can make positive change in the little world around us. Here are a few suggestions (add yours in the comments!):
Keep working within your community to make positive changes. National politics may make us enemies, but there are plenty of ways we can limit the harm politics plays on individual lives. Support the Innocence Project, bail someone out of jail, find a local mutual aid organization or food bank and donate food or funds to a family in need. Goodness knows in the current pandemic, more and more people are going hungry. As individuals we have the ability to provide direct aid to someone in need, becoming a positive agent of the natural law! How about that?!?!
Focus on political means to political ends. If you dislike someone, work to get him out of office, don't wish that he get hit by a truck. You can do this by volunteering for campaigns, of course, but you can also do this by being a Radical Moderate on social media, challenging fake news wherever you find it, and using persuasion and reason among those you know personally to undermine false or immoderate claims.
Find something else to do. When we were tempted to post something not-quite-nice on Facebook, we eventually took a break and came back feeling a little better. The old trick of writing an email to someone you never intend to send can work wonders here. When you're tempted to post a gleeful Schadenfreude-filled post about karmic retribution, write it! Just don't post it. Let it simmer and come back later to ask yourself if this is really the kind of person you want to be.
Don't give politics (more) power over your mental and emotional health. This one is hard, because for a lot of us, politics has direct and harmful effects on our economic, physical, and even mental health. But we can avoid giving it any more than it already gets. Social media breaks, news breaks, and political conversation breaks are legitimate and perfectly justified ways to protect yourself and your wellbeing. Take the weekend off the news cycle to play outside with your kids, to go be in nature, or to just sit and binge watch old sitcoms.
Michelle Obama's argument to "go high" when the other side "goes low" is not just respectability politics or a strategic argument for claiming the moral high ground. It also represents one way in which we can limit the stranglehold politics has on our brains, our mental health, and our moral constitution as human beings. Our negative reactions to politics risk not only our emotional health, but they also risk making us worse human beings: unkind, unjust, and uncivil. We can prevent the group-think and moral desolation of political life only if do not let the political become the personal. Let's be clear: we know this is hard. But we also know it is possible.
What about you? How are you resisting Schadenfreude in a polarized age? What kinds of actions are you taking this week to limit the power of politics over your mental health? Tell us in the comments!