[PenultimateManStanding]

I read a book on this subject once and it helped me to arm myself. Jealousy is a familiar feeling, somebody has what you want but don't have, that's cool, we've all felt it. But envy is a different beast. Envy wishes destruction upon it's object. Envy isn't humble, envy is wicked and preys upon human weakness and wishes harm on others out of spite. So here is the crux of it, why I posted this: we all tend to go to great lengths to avoid the "evil eye", i.e. envy. It is the weapon of weakness against others who would seek rise out of the conditioning of childhood. There is really only one answer, ignore it.

[Raxozanne]

Some volunteers were recruited by researchers to play the game 'prisoners dilemma' in a financial scenario. It was observed that instead of co-operating together to do down the bank they actually did each other down instead. Why? Because of the emotion envy. Each person wanted to do better than the other person they were playing with. It's depressing in a way.
However, envy must surely have been adaptive in the past for making sure a person was getting his/her fair share (or even more) of whatever was important but hell it can be extremely harmful too.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')However, envy must surely have been adaptive in the past for making sure a person was getting his/her fair share (or even more) of whatever was important but hell it can be extremely harmful too.

[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'T')hat's an interesting way of viewing it, an "adaptive" trait. It makes sense to think that anything human is rooted in evolution. Like a lot of other things, though, one wonders how it's proved to be so advantageous these days.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'w')e all tend to go to great lengths to avoid the "evil eye", i.e. envy.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'w')e all tend to go to great lengths to avoid the "evil eye", i.e. envy.

[Ludi]

Oh nonsense. People buy the hot car or pick up the hot babe so other people will envy them.

I doubt many people hide their light under a basket in order to avoid envy.

"Keeping up with the Joneses" a national pasttime, is based on envy.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Yes, I was thinking about that too. It's true what you say, of course. But maybe all the buying stuff and flashing money around has just become socially acceptable/expected and so doesn't release the more dangerous kinds of envy. How about when these people are at work? Don't they make sure and not let the boss envy them? or their coworkers? It's still around, it's always around. One way or another.

[Andrew_S]

Here in Finland some talk of two types of envy:

1) American envy. This is where you're, say, envious of the other guy's car or house and you think to yourself, how did he get that and how can I get the money to buy one myself? This is an essentially positive attitute.

2) Russian envy. This is where you think how you can destroy the other guy's good stuff. This is obviously negative.


Finns are very envious people. They have the Russian envy.

I view this as a sign of weakness and lack of imagination.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Andrew_S', 'H')ere in Finland some talk of two types of envy:

1) American envy. This is where you're, say, envious of the other guy's car or house and you think to yourself, how did he get that and how can I get the money to buy one myself? This is an essentially positive attitute.

2) Russian envy. This is where you think how you can destroy the other guy's good stuff. This is obviously negative.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Andrew_S', 'H')ere in Finland some talk of two types of envy:

1) American envy. This is where you're, say, envious of the other guy's car or house and you think to yourself, how did he get that and how can I get the money to buy one myself? This is an essentially positive attitute.

2) Russian envy. This is where you think how you can destroy the other guy's good stuff. This is obviously negative.


Finns are very envious people. They have the Russian envy.

I view this as a sign of weakness and lack of imagination.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Envy could be the herd-emotion for people. It's what nature used in ancient times to keep us socialized and clued into each other at the tribal level. We worry about the ideas of others and are afraid to advance our own out of fear of seeming arrogant or presumptuous, i.e. challenging to those who have already gained the right to pontificate ideas and, more so even, to those who abrogated the right long ago. If everyone feels this way then it can produce a kind of herd unity. The one who chooses his own path and ideas is a threat to others implicitly because they are unaware of the pact-with-envy they made to secure confidence and security in the herd in the first place. When the right to promulgate ideas is strictly and officially controlled, as we saw with the various totalitarian movements of the last century, what is seen is the political enactment of "russian envy", or as I'm suggesting here, a natural but troublesome emotion. Thanks, Raxozanne, you got me trying to anthropologize this. Any evolutionary psychologists with insights to add? This is the psychology forum.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')nvy

by Helmut Schoeck

(Liberty Press, Indianapolis, IN, 1987)

Schoeck provides an important and comprehensive sociological study of envy as a force generating social conflict.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '.')..I would say that envy spurs ambition...it's just a shame that the type of life most people are striving for is fundamentally unsustainable and therefore will cause future problems for our species.