Comedy, Schacenfreude, and Morality

[caroljane]

Long title, short post, eh?

When I was 18, believing Ayn Rand to be a moral goddess, if I had seen her emerge from the Ford Hall in mink and ethical splendour, and then slip on a banana peel and splat into a gutter, I would have laughed.

Now that I am 113 on my best days,when I think her no goddess and fear her philosophy is destructive, if I saw her slip again, I would not laugh.

Knowing that it was she, knowing what I know now,I could not, and I would not want to be able to laugh.

[George H. Smith]

Your views have drifted from one extreme to the other over the past 95 years. You probably had things right around age 90.

Ghs

[Jonathan]

Long title, short post, eh?

When I was 18, believing Ayn Rand to be a moral goddess, if I had seen her emerge from the Ford Hall in mink and ethical splendour, and then slip on a banana peel and splat into a gutter, I would have laughed.

Now that I am 113 on my best days,when I think her no goddess and fear her philosophy is destructive, if I saw her slip again, I would not laugh.

Knowing that it was she, knowing what I know now,I could not, and I would not want to be able to laugh.

So you'll probably be really into dung and pee-pee art when you hit about 175.

J

[caroljane]

Long title, short post, eh?

When I was 18, believing Ayn Rand to be a moral goddess, if I had seen her emerge from the Ford Hall in mink and ethical splendour, and then slip on a banana peel and splat into a gutter, I would have laughed.

Now that I am 113 on my best days,when I think her no goddess and fear her philosophy is destructive,  if I saw her slip again, I would not laugh.

Knowing that it was she, knowing what I know now,I could not, and I would not want to be able to laugh.

So you'll probably be really into dung and pee-pee art when you hit about 175.

J

If I can learn to truly appreciate art, my life will have not been lived in vain!

Thanks for being euphemistic, J.

[Xray]

I'm always a bit embarrassed that a term like "schadenfreude" is a German loan word.

It literally means [feeling] joy ("Freude") over someone else's damage ("Schaden").

I just looked up some English translations in the dictionary, like "mischievousness", "malicious glee", "gloating"; but not even "gloating" (which is quite 'heavyweight' already) has that connotation of absolute spiteful nastiness to my ears which "Schadenfreude" has.

I try not to feel Schadenfreude toward others. I believe in the power of thought, and think that how we feel toward others will affect our own mind as well.

[caroljane]

Yes, we've borrowed the word like other useful ones to express embarrassing, or self-pitying feelings, or mawkishly sentimental emotions and so on. English grabs every word, plagiarizes without shame from other languages, to continue to own every word in the world, a million and counting.

WSS and I use sf(sorry, I just know I can't spell it right twice) in the Canadian sense, mild pleasure in the discomfiture of those who deserve to be discomfited.

The Americans use it with a heftier moral edge, delightful gloating and pleasure due to the suffering of one's enemies.

There is such a thing as sf, and there is such a thing as the joy of battle. I, the head of the Canadian League of Cowards (but don't tell anyone that, they might get mad) feel that I understand both these emotions, hard to believe although that is.

Andrew Breitbart died young, and I believe he died of both those things, and the major contributory cause, conspiracy theories aside, does not matter. He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he's just as dead as if he was wrong.

Balance in all things said Aristotle. Extremism is no vice, but it is no virtue either. I do not have to know the intentions of all the Founding Fathers or to read Aristotle in the original Greek to know the difference between the battle, and the rape and pillage or the imagined, hoped-for rape and pillage. I have a read a lot about Jefferson for instance, and I know a lot of Greeks.

[william.scherk]

Angela, Carol covers my usage of schadenfreude. For example, when Bill Vanderzalm was forced to resign as Premier, I felt it. When any government falls on a confidence motion, I feel it.

Perhaps a not-unreasonably vile emotion when those who suffer a misfortune suffer that misfortune as a direct result of their own poor behaviour ... in an English idiom this is "just desserts," if you follow.

What is the German word (or words) that cover the English hubris? To my usage, schadenfreude is less deplorable when the suffering is due to hubris. But that is just me.

I recall a wonderful phrase from a book on language (and purity) some years ago. The passage came at the end of a discussion of the fastidiousness of the 'academy' in both French and German, where mere usage does not allow a word to enter the mother tongue officially. Thus in France the official word for Jumbo Jet was gros porteur (and no one except officialdom and the press used it).

The quote went something like this ... "whereas English has all the delicacy of a powerful industrial vacuum cleaner." As my family taught me to say when someone sneezed, Gesundheit!

[Xray]

Yes, we've borrowed the word like other useful ones to express embarrassing, or self-pitying feelings, or mawkishly sentimental emotions and so on. English grabs every word, plagiarizes without shame from other languages, to continue to own every word in the world, a million and counting.

The richness in vocabulary of the English language is awesome indeed.

I veritably "fell in love" with English from the moment I heard my first English word as a kid. To this day, that love has remained as 'passionate' as ever.

I don't really know why that is so, but quite a few non-native speakers of English seem to feel the same way.

Despite the irregularities in spelling, where pronunciation and orthography often don't match; despite certain grammatical intricacies (like for example the many forms in which the future tense can be expressed), and despite its many other 'subtleties', English often has a clarity which I find most appealing. One single English term often suffices to express something 'right to the point' for which in German one would need many more words.

'Sugar Daddy' for example would have to be expressed in German by a long cumbersome sentence like "Ein älterer, wohlhabender, großzügiger Mann, an dem eine junge Frau in erster Line wegen seines Geldes interessiert ist."

('An older, wealthy and genereous man in whom a younger woman is mainly interested because of his money").

Even a philosopher like Kant (whose writing style in German is quite arduous to read) sounds somewhat 'clearer' in the English translation.

[BaalChatzaf]

What is the German word (or words) that cover the English hubris? To my usage, schadenfreude is less deplorable when the suffering is due to hubris. But that is just me.

Hubris is the latinized spelling of greek word. English is composed of words "borrowed" wholesale from other languages including greek, latin, german, yiddish, spanish, japanese, chinese and many others. Shakespeare once wrote "the Greeks have a word for it...;" and English speakers replied "they sure do, and we are going to make it OUR word too..;."

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

Perhaps a not-unreasonably vile emotion when those who suffer a misfortune suffer that misfortune as a direct result of their own poor behaviour ... in an English idiom this is "just desserts," if you follow.

Is this something similar to "serves him/her right"?

What is the German word (or words) that cover the English hubris? To my usage, schadenfreude is less deplorable when the suffering is due to hubris. But that is just me.

We all know them, those stuck-up types who think they always have it right, the "my way or the highway" types.

If those then land on the floor of reality with a bang because what they have done to others backfires on themselves, having a 'serves you right' feeling toward them is only human.

As for "hubris", there exist several German terms. In elaborate speech, one can use "Hybris", the Greek loan word.

Hochmut ('haughtiness') is also still in use, but sounds a bit old-fashioned nowadays.

Arroganz ('arrogance') is used frequently.

In familiar speech, one often uses adjectives like

hochnäsig ('stuck-up')

aufgeblasen ('full of oneself, 'pompous'),

I recall a wonderful phrase from a book on language (and purity) some years ago. The passage came at the end of a discussion of the fastidiousness of the 'academy' in both French and German, where mere usage does not allow a word to enter the mother tongue officially. Thus in France the official word for Jumbo Jet was gros porteur (and no one except officialdom and the press used it).

Another French term is ordinateur (instead of "computer") which sounds like it was also created as an official word by the academy.

As my family taught me to say when someone sneezed, Gesundheit!

Is Gesundheit! ('health!') still used in English when someone sneezes, or is (God) Bless you! more frequent?

A while ago, y, it was declared in the German 'good behavior bible' (the "Knigge"), that it is no longer a requirement of politeness to say Gesundheit! when someone sneezes, but people don't seem to care because they still say it, at least in informal situations.

[Jonathan]

WSS and I use sf(sorry, I just know I can't spell it right twice) in the Canadian sense, mild pleasure in the discomfiture of those who deserve to be discomfited.

The Americans use it with a heftier moral edge, delightful gloating and pleasure due to the suffering of one's enemies.

If we're going with Canadian and American usage of "schadenfreude," then it's the equivalent of the Objectivist concept of "humor."

In post #1, you said that if you saw Rand slip, you would not laugh. I don't think that's true since we've shared many laughs at her slippages. We often laugh at reality's undercutting of her pretensions, as well as those of her snooty dowager spawn.

J

[caroljane]

Long title, short post, eh?

When I was 18, believing Ayn Rand to be a moral goddess, if I had seen her emerge from the Ford Hall in mink and ethical splendour, and then slip on a banana peel and splat into a gutter, I would have laughed.

Now that I am 113 on my best days,when I think her no goddess and fear her philosophy is destructive, if I saw her slip again, I would not laugh.

Knowing that it was she, knowing what I know now,I could not, and I would not want to be able to laugh.

So you'll probably be really into dung and pee-pee art when you hit about 175.

J

Hope so! If you want to stay young and with-it you gotta keep up with the times!

peppily,

Carol

[9thdoctor]

I don't know why watching Ayn Rand take a spill would involve schadenfreude, since she wasn't known for being graceful physically. In the Avenue Q song they mention figure skaters doing that, but they're not supposed to be falling down, see the difference?

So how about Comrade Sonia being denounced by James Valliant and Robert Mayhew? I remember getting a nice tickle out of that.

[caroljane]

Now we are getting into poetic justice, slightly different (??? - this is another topic I think). The instinctive reaction of laughter, the evolutuonary necessity of laughter, the various causes of pleasure, the personal ethics of what is funny....

Oh, my poor head.

[Xray]

Here is the full article on the Objectivist concept of humor Jonathan linked to in post # 11

http://aynrandlexico...on/humor.html [bolding mine]

Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at. The classic example: you see a very snooty, very well dressed dowager walking down the street, and then she slips on a banana peel . . . . What’s funny about it? It’s the contrast of the woman’s pretensions to reality. She acted very grand, but reality undercut it with a plain banana peel. That’s the denial of the metaphysical validity or importance of the pretensions of that woman. Therefore, humor is a destructive element—which is quite all right, but its value and its morality depend on what it is that you are laughing at. If what you are laughing at is the evil in the world (provided that you take it seriously, but occasionally you permit yourself to laugh at it), that’s fine. [To] laugh at that which is good, at heroes, at values, and above all at yourself [is] monstrous . . . . The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.

Oh my.

Humor is regarded as a "destructive element", and laughing at oneself as "the worst evil that you can do, psychologically". Quotes like the above give me the feeling that such a rigid take on humor does not grasp reality.

[caroljane]

Here is the full article on the Objectivist concept of humor Jonathan linked to in post # 11

http://aynrandlexico...on/humor.html [bolding mine]

Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at. The classic example: you see a very snooty, very well dressed dowager walking down the street, and then she slips on a banana peel . . . . What’s funny about it? It’s the contrast of the woman’s pretensions to reality. She acted very grand, but reality undercut it with a plain banana peel. That’s the denial of the metaphysical validity or importance of the pretensions of that woman. Therefore, humor is a destructive element—which is quite all right, but its value and its morality depend on what it is that you are laughing at. If what you are laughing at is the evil in the world (provided that you take it seriously, but occasionally you permit yourself to laugh at it), that’s fine. [To] laugh at that which is good, at heroes, at values, and above all at yourself [is] monstrous . . . . The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.

Oh my.

Humor is regarded as a "destructive element", and laughing at oneself as "the worst evil that you can do, psychologically". Quotes like the above give me the feeling that such a rigid take on humor does not grasp reality.

To look at it one way,you cannot laugh at yourself at all, it is impossible to be at once the person laughing and the one being laughed at. The idea of "laughing with, not laughing at" I am pretty sure is not in the Lexicon.

[william.scherk]

OL is fun with words sometimes, when we enrich our discourse.

Angela, yes, "just desserts" is equivalent, though not identical to It "serves him/her right"? When you wrote "land on the floor of reality with a bang" -- this captured what I myself stress in the case of hubris. Arrogance in itself is not necessarily bad or hubristic. Pride, in the sense of taking pleasure in ones own achievements is not bad at all.

Like some neologisms of Objectivism, though, we can do a bait and switch with definitions ...

For me, an arrogance that is not based in reality, and that accompanies an overweaning pride (in ones 'not like regular men' self-estimation) is married to a dismissal of cogent criticism and the ability to discern ethical behaviour -- this is what hubris means to me: a kind of moral/human blindness, a sometimes tragic misestimation of the value and purity of ones own acts.

I pretty much reserve my schadenfreude for politicians (or paid opinion-peddlers) who believe in themselves to such a degree that they are no longer in contact with reality. When reality intrudes and embarrasses them (if it does), I feel a small spurt of pleasure.

And there's the rub. Why did I not feel any schadenfreude at all with news that Mitt Romney and family were 'shell-shocked' or (Ann Romney) somehow devastated by the election loss to Obama? Here was an arrogance (our polls are real) and a pride (we are the best) and a moral disengagement (47%? pfui). I don't know. Perhaps it is because he played the game as everyone else plays it, and the prideful bubble of false reality was not damaging to anyone but himself.

I am holding to the notion that pleasure (joy) in someone else's misfortunes is a complicated and personal thing, depending on one's values ... whereas laughing at a pratfall is a cruder thing, and not an example of schadenfreude at all.

Oddly, as Jonathan slyly notes, officially-constituted Objectivism has a difficult time with humour. In looking up the Wikipedia article on hubris, I was reminded of Ayn Rand's injunctions against taking pleasure (even the brief, reactive pleasures of laughter) at the pratfalls of worthy people. I hope I don't have to look it up in the Lexicon, and that Jonathan will give us a refresher (though I now wonder what is/was the difference between lèse-majesté laws and laws of hubris) ...

The Objectivist injunction struck me as myopic and self-deceptive to a degree. It was as if Rand believed that ancient laws of hubris were just. That to laught at damage to someone's carefully cultivated image of competence and superiority was immoral. I could not understand the distinction ...

Angela, re gesundheit, it has been a long time since I have heard it ...

Ninth Doctor, you have seen into my soul. When Diana Hsieh was hoist by her own petard and became a target of furious, demented denunciations by former allies ... yeah, I was delighted.

Poetic justice met hubris met schadenfreude met pratfall, and it was very very good. When Diana met the Wall of Hypocrisy, many lessons were learned.

[caroljane]

Spitting in your own face would be very difficult though I don't say impossible. Very messy too.

[caroljane]

Poetic justice met hubris met schadenfreude met pratfall, and it was very very good. When Diana met the Wall of Hypocrisy, many lessons were learned.

Were they learned by Diana, I wonder.

[PDS]

Does there always have to be a theory for everything?

[caroljane]

Does there always have to be a theory for everything?

Theoretically, no.

[caroljane]

You knew somebody would say it.

[PDS]

Does there always have to be a theory for everything?

Theoretically, no.

It's just that I find the Objectivist theory of humor almost comical.

[caroljane]

lol. "Almost comical" also describes the side-splitting moments of Objectivist literary practice, such as "I don't think of you." Well, the "almost" is a bit of a stretch.

[Xray]

[i don't know if it's some glitch, but I can't get the 'quote' function to work.]

PDS wrote in post # 23:"It's just that I find the Objectivist theory of humor almost comical." (end quote PDS)

Parts of the AR Lexicon article on humor almost read like satire but I'm afraid Rand was serious about it.