Thursday 25 October 2007

Quandary

At what point does the brain draw the line between Shadenfreude and empathy?

I'll pause here for a quick lesson:
Schadenfreude is a German word meaning 'pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune'. It has been borrowed by the English Language and it derives from Schaden (damage, harm) and Freude (joy). There is an English equivalent which is epicaricacy which is derived from the Greek epi (upon), chara (joy), and kakon (evil), but it doesn't feature much in the language anymore and you will be hard pressed to find it in a modern English dictionary.
Another phrase with a meaning similar to Schadenfreude is "morose delectation" ("delectatio morosa" in Latin), meaning "the habit of dwelling with enjoyment on evil thoughts". The medieval church taught that morose delectation is a sin.
In modern days we have been able to map images of Shadenfreude at work in the brain, and it is easy to feel the effects of the serotonin realeased, just think back to the news article of Captain Dan the Dwarf who accidently super glued his vacume cleaner to his groin.
I should mention at this time that we are balanced by the buddhist concept of mudita, "sympathetic joy" or "happiness in another's good fortune," which is an example of the opposite of schadenfreude.

Back to my orriginal questions:
With the fact that we can derive joy from others misfortune what makes our brains draw the line. I've posted several news articles now that have related to people either being in pain and embarisment like Captain Dan the Dwarf or just straight out dying. Deputy mayor of Delhi, death by monkey attack. 60 yr old woman killed by rambunctions pet cammel. Drunk guy nudes up and hops in with a bear, [surprisingly] gets eaten. Incredibly fat guy, forklifted to hospital.

All of these things highlighted schadenfreude for me, I found them hilarious. I admit I felt no simpathy for the dead or the embarised. I didn't know them and the situations were just too easy to mock.

I little while after I posted these items Salem posted a news article about a zoo keeper who went to feed a bear, the bear much like the above mentioned cammel got a little rambunctions and killed the zoo keeper. For some reason my schadenfreude didn't show, my sence of epicaricacy escaped me. I was horrified by this article, every sentence I read hammered home a feeling of revulsion and even sorrow for the poor man killed.

Why though did I feel this way. I don't know any zoo keepers, it certainly wasn't the action as I laughed at a simmilar action with the cammel. Could I not laugh at a bear related attack since i'd already posted one with a bear? Does everyone only get one? Was my schadenfreude just out of balance with my mudita? Did I need to see someone have good fortune before I could laugh at the zoo keeper?

Interestingly I mentioned this to Salem and he told me that he felt the same way about the fat guy post, he just found it repugnant.

This isn't something that I find disturbing just curious. Have you ever been in that situation, you see, read or hear something and you know others are amused by it but it just seems vulger to you?

3 comments:

Salem said...

I'm at constant odds with most of society, most of the time. I find humour and glee in the kind of devastation and destruction that causes other to go to war and I find my anger and loathing triggered by events that seem to bring the rest of the world satisfaction and comfort.

With this in mind, my answer to your question has to be "yes". When a suicide bomber crashes a plane into a notable tower, I laugh and yet when Christmas rolls around, I want nothing more than for every carol singer and chirpy member of the public at the local shopping centre to die in a most hideous manner. I have no real answer as to why this is true about me, but I am the way I am. I can no more change what amuses me than I could rearrange the stars.

While I've been writing all this, I've also discovered a new fear. With medical science now being able to map things like schadenfreude, how long will it be before they can map out what it is that triggers it? Once they find that, will they find a way to modify said trigger?

My honest hope is that they wont. If they ever manage to manipulate the basic triggers for human emotions, then that will be the end of our species. Gatica was a frightening look into a future where purely physical modifications before birth rendered society a slave to the most rigid elitism. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone was programmed to laugh at the same things, be outraged by the same types of events or worse yet, to be unmoved by specific plights.

Perhaps this should be a post of it's own, but I think these two posts are far to intertwined. Besides, the next post is number 100. Nobody may post that but me and I have something else I want to do with our centenary post.

Salem said...

P.S. I will mercilessly demote anything posted in the 100 slot to a draft and approve it once I have created my masterpiece! Mwahahaha!

Kahn said...

I find it more strange when I step out of sorts with myself, when I see things that should be funny to me but for some reason they aren't.

I would hope that your vision of Schadenfreude re programming will not happen, you would end up with Equillibrium with out the revolt mixed with Gatica.

Having said that I think Schadenfreude is something they are becoming more and more aware of (who are they, the wizards?). Look at shows like Jackass, surely it is designed purely to appeal the that section of the brain.

P.S. looking forward to seeing the centenary post