The well-known Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater (1991) affirms that envy “is the democratic virtue par excellence” and that therefore it should not be seen as a sin following traditional canons. Thanks to it, others are prevented from having more rights than oneself, pushing us all to seek social equality. Therefore, according to Savater, it should be considered more of a true virtue than a vice. Even this philosopher relates how envy helped him emulate and desire to be like certain intellectuals that he has admired throughout his life, and how this has helped his own personal development.
Savater’s statements, recognizing his contributions, as we will see when talking about “mimetic envy”, are questionable. For one thing, he seems to confuse envy with admiration, and on the other hand, he contradicts the real and direct experience of many people who have suffered or received envious acts.
People do not usually recognize that they are envious and, at most, they claim that they only have “healthy envy”, if that really exists. Nobody goes to the psychologist’s office complaining that they are envious. The usual psychological demands are usually due to “depression”, and only in the biographical display of the person as they relate different aspects of their life, in a climate of trust and security, does the presence of envy towards others often appear, almost always close ones (siblings, family members, co-workers, etc.).
Most psychologists and psychiatrists, and even more so those with a psychoanalytic orientation, have highlighted the destructive and pathological aspects of envy. Rattner (1974) describes four general forms of envy: envy between siblings (which has its origin in childhood experiences), envy between the sexes (since the culture has valued the masculine more in general), envy between co-workers (which gives rise to many cases of “mobbing” or workplace harassment) and socially encouraged envy (the competitive spirit of the consumer society).
And what are the origins and causes of envy?
For now, its origin must be located in the experiences of the child in his/her early childhood. Some psychoanalysts such as M. Klein (1957) consider that envy has its roots in the first object of importance for the child: his mother. The child distinguishes between the “good breast” when his mother breastfeeds him and satisfies her hunger desire, and the “bad breast,” when her mother frustrates her desire to be satisfied with it; This being universal and relatively dependent on the care provided by the mother. In fact, other authors have insisted even more on the role of the child’s first experiences of frustration (Ferenczi, 1913; Rank, 1924). The Spanish psychoanalyst Guerra Cid (2004, 2006) states that in the personal history of those who suffer from envy, an intense frustration appears that increases when the other has what they long for. That desire, except in people with a simpler mentality, is not usually for the material things that the other possesses, but rather for their qualities that allow them to have admiration and material goods.
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The great envious usually desires, fantasizes and even carries out actions of harm or destruction directed at the envied person. He is a bitter being incapable of accepting his limitations, to whom the traditional saying of “Tell me what you envy and I will tell you what you lack” should be applied. The envious person often uses a curious “rationalization” to maintain his envious state: he argues that in his life he has had bad luck and that the envied person, on the contrary, has been blessed by good luck.
If you look slowly at the life of the envious person, experiences of multiple failures in their love, work and social life are usually frequent; and not precisely because of bad luck but because he does not have numerous variables of reality to make his decisions, precisely because of his low tolerance for frustration and his desire to have maximum satisfaction in the most immediate term. From this perspective, “healthy envy” does not exist, there is only one and it is “pathological.”
The unhealthy character of envy has been considered even in the Thomasian scholastic tradition. According to the Thomistic psychologist Martin Echevarria (2005), envy is a sick or vicious form of disordered sadness that derives from the vainglory of always wanting to have more and possessing everything; and that it would have two causes (following Aquinas): one intellectual or cognitive (ignorance of one’s own limits and qualities) and another affective (the fear of failing in what is considered to exceed one’s own capabilities).
Also in many cases true family traditions of envious people are added that educate the child in resentment towards the one they envy. If in that family and even school environment, there is a lot of emphasis on comparing the child with the qualities of another, envy will be served and the damage done to the child will be done.
But without a doubt, one of the psychologists and psychiatrists who have studied envy the most has been Alfred Adler. For him, envy is configured in a childhood family atmosphere where competitiveness prevails and where rivalry between siblings is frequent. Older and younger children tend to be the most vulnerable to envy in that context. The older brother because he has been the “only” object of privilege and attention, and now he sees himself “dethroned from his reign” by the arrival of another little brother with whom he competes; and he can resort to “tricks” such as “being very bad now”, “urinating on himself” and other conscious and unconscious stratagems to regain the throne of lost attention and affection. Also the youngest because he is usually the object of excessive pampering and protection that when he leaves the usual family environment he has to face a ruthless, difficult and frustrating world.
And, finally, we could speak of envy not only as an affect, but as a form of behavior, and even as a way of conducting oneself through life that not only has its “causes”, but also its effects, consequences or final functions. (Marino Perez, 2004). Envy, from this perspective, fulfills a social role related to the “power regulation function.”
It would be necessary to distinguish here between a “mimetic envy” where not only the object of desire is important for the envious person himself; but the object of desire is even more desirable the more it is desired by others. The function here is to guide the objects that are desirable and valuable according to the society of the moment in question. In consumer society, these objects of desire are “continuously created” without referring to real needs, and they have a clear exponent in the media and advertising.
And, on the other hand, there would be “evil envy” where you want the other to lose what they have without it being necessary to have it yourself. In this case, envy is closely related to social comparisons with others where the “abatement of the other” fulfills the function or purpose of one’s own statement; operating in a kind of balance both real and imagined. The fact is that both forms of envy can coexist in the same person and society. There are even those who “provoke” envy in others by “showing off” material goods or qualities as a way of feeling superior to the envious person.
In short, states Marino Pérez (2004), for envy to occur there must be a series of antecedent causes: they include the presence of desired objects that belong to others, inequalities that make evident the inferiority of others, almost always close and/or the insatiable desire for equality in democratic societies; and a series of consequences or functions: guiding desirable objects of social consumption, real or imaginary balance of one’s own inferiority and/or feeling of superiority before the other.
And does envy have a remedy or solution?
In the opinion of the Cordoban psychiatrist Castilla del Pino (2000), envy is untreatable and incurable. For other specialists the matter is not so pessimistic, but it must meet several conditions. For the person who is already in treatment (and not precisely by admitting his envy as we pointed out at the beginning), he must admit his own identity, with his limitations and qualities; which will entail “frequent resistance and defenses” and will be hard and difficult psychological work, but not impossible. For parents and educators, it will be very important in a preventive plan to work on solidarity and cooperation behaviors from the first phases of children’s lives; what Alfred Adler called “sense of community or social interest” (Ruiz, Oberst and Quesada, 2006). But it is true that society in general is not for this work and the “Cain complex” will continue to do a lot of damage to this and future generations, so the work is endless.
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Bibliography:
- Alfred Adler: The meaning of life. Miracle, 1935
- Francisco Savater: Ethics for Amador. Ariel. Barcelona 1991.
- F. Oliver Brachfeld: Feelings of inferiority. Apollo Publishing. Barcelona, 1936.
- Juan J. Ruiz, Úrsula E. Oberst and Antonio M. Quesada: Lifestyles. Meaning and balance according to the psychology of Alfred Adler. Paidós. Barcelona, 2006.
- Josef Rattner: The personality of man. Psychotherapeutic guidelines for knowledge of oneself and others. Ed. Messenger. Bilbao, 1973.
- Luis Raimundo Guerra Cid: This is not a self-help book. Treaty of luck, love and happiness. Descleé de Brouwers. Bilbao, 2006.
- Luis Raimundo Guerra Cid: Treatise on unbearability. Envy and other “human virtues.” Descleé de Brouwers. Bilbao, 2004.
- Marino Pérez Álvarez: Contingency and drama. Psychology according to behaviorism. Minerva Editions. Madrid, 2004.
- Martin F. Echevarria: The praxis of psychology and its epistemological levels according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. University Document. Girona, 2005