My leftie objections to the Olympics manifested this week in the mildest, least lifestyle-disrupting manner I could conjure: reading about a fictitious attack on them.
From the productive – if not necessarily prestigious – James Patterson Factory comes his collaboration with Mark Sullivan: Private Games. The London Games are under threat by “Cronus”, a shady character with a God-complex, who is killing off officials and athletes in a variety of elaborate, if vaguely preposterous, methods.
While the full-throttle assault on the games promised by the blurb didn’t quite pan out, the idea of a fictitious attack on the London Games – written for release just prior to the real Games – fascinated me.
Surely there’s something a little macabre about me – about the thousands of others drawn to the book – reading about something horrible happening to a major event while that event is actually happening?
I’m very interested in the concept of schadenfreude, a German word describing the pleasure reaped from the pain of others. Initially it occurred to me that being drawn to this book, this genre, encapsulates this.
In a world where all major international cities are fearful of terrorist attacks, in an environment where millions are spent attempting to safeguard major event participants, the pleasure in reading about an attack on something like the London Games seems indicative of our darker preoccupations. Not about us actively wanting something bad to happen necessarily, but sourcing at least a modicum of pleasure when it does.
While the simplest understanding of schadenfreude is laughing at someone slipping on a banana peel, there are other features that make it much more interesting. Humans, for example, often feel pleasure at hearing about the misfortune of others. This isn’t normally about sadism, rather, about seizing an opportunity to perceive our own lives – however dismal – as a little better than those around us. Another aspect, particularly as related to disease or misfortune, is the concept of the dodged bullet.
Hearing about the cancer of a friend or a terrorist attack on a city that isn’t our own, and there is pleasure reaped from the simple fact that it’s not us; that, in a world of gruesome statistics, we’re not one of them. That we feel somehow inoculated.
One last speculation of the appeal is our insatiable appetite for drama. If we think of the biggest news stories of our lifetime and they’re the bad news ones. Wars and bombings and plane crashes and mass shootings sell papers. They sell papers as well as sell novels and film tickets and computer games because we love bad stuff. We love fiery, high-stakes footage. We love infinite angles and drip-feed revelations and stirring personal testimonies. We love this stuff because the media permits us participation at a safe, arms length distance. Our hands remain bloodless, our shoes spotlessly clean.
No, of course I didn’t want anything to happen to the real games. But what makes the premise, if sadly not the writing, of the Patterson/Sullivan collaboration intriguing is the reality that the bigger the major event, the bigger the attack and, inevitably, the bigger the media spectacle will be.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Lauren,
All the way through this article you use the terms 'we, us and ours' in an attempt to generalise your own callous responses to the misfortunes of others:
"...the pleasure in reading about an attack on something like the London Games seems indicative of our darker preoccupations..."
and
"...(H)earing about the cancer of a friend or a terrorist attack on a city that isn’t our own, and there is pleasure reaped from the simple fact that it’s not us...".
Most reprehensibly you say:
"Our hands remain bloodless, our shoes spotlessly clean."
No they don't. You could inform yourself about the role of the bystander in the course of genocide by taking a look at the work of Colin Tatz (
Lauren Rosewarne
Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
While I certainly appreciate your views, my position would be that experiencing - and even enjoying - fabricated crime through popular culture is a vastly different thing to experiencing real crime as a bystander.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
...in 'Genocide Perspectives IV' which is available online.
I don't know whether it is the callowness of youth or the moral relativism that was put in the drinking water at universities during the reign of the postmodern but the view you present here is stomach turning apologism for nothing more than a failure of that most human sentiment - compassion - and it plays right into the hands of the warmongers and violence seekers whose ideological interests lie in the mass brutalisation of the human psyche.
Russell Hamilton
Librarian
A quote from Wikipedia:
Philosopher and sociologist Theodor Adorno defined schadenfreude as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate”
I think it's the trivial things that we enjoy - I don't think anyone feels schadenfreude about the people shot up in the U.S. cinema recently: not trivial, not appropriate. But say a colleague makes an unpleasant remark about your presentation at a meeting, only to have Powerpoint not even open for them when it was their turn .....
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Except that it was you who slipped between literary fiction, the cinema and your 'friend's' cancer.
There is a serious point here which is that the boundaries between fiction, entertainment and reality are daily blurred by media practices like 'embedding' camerapersons and reporters with troops and presenting the sanitised footage as a type of nationalistic home entertainment for voyeurs. They are also blurred by the way that footage of disaster, suffering and conflict are edited in between Joyce Mayne adds and promos for weight loss products thereby trivialising that suffering.
Sorry to be so stern, Lauren, but this is serious.
If I sound stern it is
Lauren Rosewarne
Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
I like Adorno's notion of unanticipated feelings - I'd suggest that "anticipated" is how a lot of our emotions strike us!
I agree that there's no schadenfreude in how most people would have initially reacted to hearing about actual US cinema shooting. I would however, suggest there's some schadenfreude in our participation in the extensive coverage; if we were not "enjoying" the coverage I think we'd stop watching/listening/reading.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Yes, I know about Adorno. Given his views on jazz I'd suggest that he'd line up with me on this subject rather than take an ironic posture of schadenfreude. Besides, my point is that, after the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes, for example, the sorts of events that Lauren apparently takes delight in are hardly trivial.
Lauren Rosewarne
Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
That I disagree with you doesn't mean I take the topic any less seriously - I wouldn't have written about it if I didn't think it was serious.
While I think that the experience of schadenfreude that’s felt when hearing about the disease of a friend is definitely different from the kind experienced when, say, watching media coverage of a terrorist attack or watching a crime-themed film, I still dub them both schadenfreude. They’re motivated for different reasons, sure, and are each experienced differently, but I think there is a “pleasure” – whichever way we decide to define pleasure –on both occasions.
While I'm calling it schadenfreude, I don't, not for a moment, think it’s some kind divine or desirable state of being but equally I think not liking aspects of human nature is no justification to ignore them and think they will go away.
Joseph Bernard
Director
I agree with anthony, the use of "we" is a mind read and projection onto others which i also reject.
"...the pleasure in reading about an attack on something like the London Games seems indicative of our darker preoccupations..."
this claim maybe your personal perspective but is certainly not everyones experience.. especially not mine.
While we are all affected and maybe drawn to the "fire" of such an event, lets maybe entertain that it may not be for the same reasons that are claimed..
Believe it or some people just care
Dale Bloom
Analyst
“the use of "we" is a mind read and projection onto others which i also reject.”
I would agree. The author must believe they can make any statement they want, unsupported by any facts or research.
I now understand why they call themselves a feminist, but there comes a point in education where made up statements need to be challenged.
It is ironic that elsewhere there are academics complaining that so many in the public won’t believe them when they write about climate change.
Is “climate change” pop culture also?
Joseph Bernard
Director
@Lauren,
from this males perspective, an attack raises protective emotions.. something like a fight or flight reaction.
there are of course a whole range of emotions and envy may come about when there is a sense of competition, but that is tempered by our values and attitude to life.
Recently read a quote..
‘Young American Indian child ask His father about good and bad people,
The father tells the child that there are two wolves within us all
The child asks the father which wolf wins
The father says “depends on which one you feed”
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
I have four comments.
First, I think Baudrillard is applicable - as in the Gulf war trilogy - it won't happen, it isn't happening and it didn't happen. Consequently, I am not convinced that we do actually care about suffering at a distance, otherwise we would not be at a distance - there are rules of thumb about news headlines, colour, location and distance which you can look up if you're interested, not to mention the psychological studies on administration of pain.
Second, the author is…
Read moreAnthony Nolan
Ruminant
I've no further constructive comment to offer on the substance of Lauren's article but am happy to respond to your playing of the gender card in relation to the comments.
First, no-one's 'ganging up' on Lauren; no-one caucused behind closed doors to line this up and if Dale Bloom wants to attribute some quality of Lauren's comments to feminism then that goes to his mind state, not mine or anyone else's.
Second, Dr Rosewarne is perfectly able to stand her ground; if she wasn't I wouldn't have made the comments I made. What makes you think she needs a bloke to ride in as rescuer?
Third, women now occupy public space, including intellectual space, as equals. Where you find 'significance' in three men commenting negatively I could equally find 'significance' in the absence of women commenting positively. The latter conclusion, of course, would be as meaningless as the former.
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
Hi Anthony,
"ganging up" doesn't need to occur behind closed doors, it can be a spontaneous occurrence - like in a school yard 30 years ago.
I did say, Lauren could stand a little argy-bargy, as demonstrated. And I'm not rescuing her, I'm commenting on the comments and also thanking you all (including Dale) for your contributions - seriously, not ironically or pejoratively.
It would diminish the significance of multiple men commenting adversely if there were also women commenting adversely - I don't think schadenfreude is a gender specific emotion requiring women to comment positively.
Russell Hamilton
Librarian
"Third, one could suggest that we have three men ganging up on a woman"
See Dennis, you need to learn to read before you comment. In the spirit of The Conversation, I was having a conversation with Lauren ... defining terms etc, no criticism. And if we have a difference of opinion it isn't a negative or aggressive thing - it's a difference of opinion (something I imagine Lauren enjoys).
Dan Smith
Network Engineer
I think your sample size of 3 to 1 is a little small to be drawing generalisations about "ganging up".
Oh no ... does my comment push it up to 4 to 1? Damn this self-referential argument ...!
Dale Bloom
Analyst
"ganging up"?
I would think the topic is rather irrelevant, as so many of this author’s articles are the same. A series of statements are written out, without any reference to any reliable research.
The statements are simply made up by the author.
If that is acceptable in universities, then it is time to shut universities down, as they have absolutely no constructive use to the public. Why not also make up something such as 1 + 1 = 0.
What fascinates me is why so many academics have not heavily criticised these articles.
I think because the author has previously called themselves a feminist, and if someone criticises a feminist they fear being called a misogynist or something similar.
Claire Jensen
Research Assistant
The psychology of schadenfreude has been linked to emotions of envy and resentment in empirical research of individual differences.
None of these emotions function in a prosocial manner and it could be hypothesised that those high in envy and resentment experience more of this malicious pleasure in others' misfortune.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Yes. Here's a reference to one piece of research: 'When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude'. Abstract:
We often evaluate the self and others from social comparisons. We feel envy when the target person has superior and self-relevant characteristics. Schadenfreude occurs when envied persons fall from grace. To elucidate the neurocognitive mechanisms of envy and schadenfreude, we conducted two functional magnetic resonance imaging studies…
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