Bibliography

[[Envy – A Theory of Social Behaviour.pdf]]

• [[Highlights for Envy – A Theory of Social Behaviour]] [[Not jealous.pdf]]

Bible Words

Biblical References on Envy

• Psa_68:16  Why do you look with envy, O many-peaked mountain, at the mount that God desired for his abode, where the LORD will reside forever?
• Pro_3:31  Do not envy the violent and do not choose any of their ways;
• Pro_23:17  Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always continue in the fear of the LORD.
• Pro_24:1  Do not envy the wicked, nor desire to be with them;
• Pro_24:19  Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not envy the wicked;
• Ecc_4:4  Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from one person’s envy of another. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
• Ecc_9:6  Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun.
• Eze_31:9  I made it beautiful with its mass of branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God.
• Eze_35:11  therefore, as I live, says the Lord GOD, I will deal with you according to the anger and envy that you showed because of your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among you, when I judge you.
• Mar_7:22  adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.
• Rom_1:29  They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips,
• Gal_5:21  envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
• Php_1:15  Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.
• 1Ti_6:4  is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions,
• Tit_3:3  For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.
• Jas_3:14  But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.
• Jas_3:16  For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
• 1Pe_2:1  Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

Notes:

Fleeting Notes

Introduction

00:06:12: Definition of Envy
00:06:54: Are claims of racism interspersed with envy? I think so at times, IF I am willing to reflect upon times when others accused us of being privileged.
00:09:11: The proximate nature of envy. Why do our feelings of envy increase based on emotional ‘closeness’. Is the ego constantly evaluating closeness?
00:09:47: Aristotle – other’s people’s success is a reproach to us.
00:10:31: David Hume talks about the issue of ‘closeness’ as it pertains to envy and social media has changed what we consider to be ‘close’
00:11:42: Envy can have two components: similarities and subjective perspectives
00:13:51: We don’t confess our envy because we are surprised that we care about these things.
00:15:04: Envy positions or locates social status
00:15:54: Recap definition of envy.
00:16:45: Jealousy is a word that we use synonymously with envy
00:17:16: Jealousy is a protective emotion that one has and is afraid of losing.
00:19:45: Lord of the Rings – Jealousy and Envy over the ring
00:20:12: Gabriel Taylor — their relation to the status quo is different
00:20:42: Four types of envy
00:20:52: Leveling Orientation – envy is the great leveler, it it can’t level up, it will level down.

Four Types of Envy

00:30:22: Four types of envy – control orientation and focus orientation creates four quandrants.

• 00:31:26: Spiteful envy is when small children engage with their siblings. It spoils the good of others. Key Phrase: It should have been me and if I can’t have it — you can’t either.
• 00:35:12: Aggressive Envy is when the person is more focused on the rival than the good. You may take something (war, racism).
• 00:41:00: Inert Envy is when you are more focused on the good than the person. Biological limitations. Sulking but can lead to growth.
• 00:47:55: Emulative Envy is when you are focused on the good.

Turning Envy For Good
00:53:19: How can people turn emulative envy to improve themselves?

• Be honest with ourselves
• Look at how others are achieving their goals and use them as models to follow.
• Confess our envy and destigmatize

Emulative Envy is encouraged in the bible.

[!bible]+ 1 Corinthians 11:1 – ESV

1. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1 – ESV

00:57:37: Wrap up and overview

Transcription

Transcript

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00:00:45 – 00:01:00: We’re at McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:01:00 – 00:01:04: Of all the emotions, there’s one that people are arguably the most reluctant to talk about
00:01:04 – 00:01:08: and admit their feelings, envy.
00:01:08 – 00:01:11: Not only is there very little social discussion of envy, but there’s also been very little
00:01:11 – 00:01:13: academic scholarship on the topic.
00:01:13 – 00:01:19: As a result, few people really understand this emotion, what it is, why they feel it,
00:01:19 – 00:01:20: and what it means in their life.
00:01:20 – 00:01:24: Today we’ll reveal the fascinating dimension of the green-eyed monster with one of the
00:01:24 – 00:01:28: few people that’s given a lot of thought and study to this often neglected but important
00:01:28 – 00:01:33: subject, Sarah Pertassi, a professor of philosophy and the author of The Philosophy of Envy.
00:01:33 – 00:01:37: Today on the show, Sarah defines envy and explains how it’s different from jealousy
00:01:37 – 00:01:41: and why people are more comfortable admitting to feeling jealous than envious.
00:01:41 – 00:01:44: Sarah then unpacks what she thinks are the four types of envy.
00:01:44 – 00:01:49: We work our way from the worst type to a kind that is actually redeemable, potentially beneficial.
00:01:49 – 00:01:53: We enter a conversation with how envy, something that’s often considered the worst kind of
00:01:53 – 00:01:58: vice, can, in fact, be used to achieve more excellence in your life.
00:01:58 – 00:01:59: The show’s over.
00:01:59 – 00:02:00: Check out our show notes at awim.is.envy.
00:02:00 – 00:02:16: All right, Sarah Pertassi, welcome to the show.
00:02:16 – 00:02:17: Thank you so much for having me.
00:02:17 – 00:02:18: I’m really excited.
00:02:18 – 00:02:22: So you are a professor of philosophy and you have written a book called The Philosophy
00:02:22 – 00:02:23: of Envy.
00:02:23 – 00:02:28: Now, I imagine a lot of people didn’t think there’s a philosophy of envy.
00:02:28 – 00:02:31: I’m curious, what led you to take this deep dive into this emotion?
00:02:31 – 00:02:36: Yes, I get asked this a lot and it’s always a little embarrassing to answer, I have to
00:02:36 – 00:02:41: say, because sometimes people ask me, so are you a very envious person?
00:02:41 – 00:02:46: And even though, you know, I defend envy, it’s always a little hard to answer that question.
00:02:46 – 00:02:50: And I don’t know if I’m a more envious person than the average person, but I definitely
00:02:50 – 00:02:54: have always been deeply aware of my envy.
00:02:54 – 00:02:56: I talk a little bit about this in the book.
00:02:56 – 00:03:01: Even when I was a small child preparing for the First Communion, so not so small, about
00:03:01 – 00:03:07: 10 years old, I remember thinking that envy was clearly the worst of the deadly sins.
00:03:07 – 00:03:11: And that was partially because I felt that nobody else confessed their envy or talked
00:03:11 – 00:03:12: about their envy.
00:03:12 – 00:03:19: And so I must surely have been the only one feeling this green-eyed monster inside me.
00:03:19 – 00:03:24: And also, as a dancer, I’ve always seen a lot of envy among dancers, and then there
00:03:24 – 00:03:30: is other stuff that only my therapist knows about, so I’m not going to tell you everything.
00:03:30 – 00:03:34: And so partially it’s a personal reaction, a personal interest.
00:03:34 – 00:03:37: And partially it’s because when I started looking into the topic, while there were some
00:03:37 – 00:03:43: historical accounts, there wasn’t a lot of contemporary philosophy on envy.
00:03:43 – 00:03:46: And so I always like to investigate topics that have been neglected.
00:03:46 – 00:03:49: So you do ballet, correct?
00:03:49 – 00:03:50: Yes, I do.
00:03:50 – 00:03:51: Yeah.
00:03:51 – 00:03:55: And speaking of, I haven’t seen the movie, but like the Black Swan, I think there’s an
00:03:55 – 00:03:57: element of envy in that film, correct?
00:03:57 – 00:03:58: Absolutely.
00:03:58 – 00:04:03: And actually, I use many clips or many images from Black Swan in some of my presentations.
00:04:03 – 00:04:08: I have to say, I’m not a fan of horrors, so I’ve seen some scenes, but I haven’t been
00:04:08 – 00:04:10: able to watch the whole movie.
00:04:10 – 00:04:15: But I do think that that movie exemplifies some things about envy and definitely the
00:04:15 – 00:04:20: stereotype of envious dancers, which is something I rely on.
00:04:20 – 00:04:21: And again, I don’t think it’s just a stereotype.
00:04:21 – 00:04:26: I do think that all the four kinds of envy that I talk about in the book, which we’ll
00:04:26 – 00:04:31: talk about later, probably can be found very easily in the ballet world.
00:04:31 – 00:04:35: So you mentioned that there’s not a lot out there written about envy.
00:04:35 – 00:04:37: Why do you think it gets overlooked?
00:04:37 – 00:04:45: Well, I do wonder if to some extent it is a matter of the moral and social stigma attached
00:04:45 – 00:04:46: to it.
00:04:46 – 00:04:51: As people know that usually envy is considered this unconfessable emotion, this emotion that
00:04:51 – 00:04:52: cannot be confessed.
00:04:52 – 00:04:55: And also, it’s just a bad thing for many people.
00:04:55 – 00:04:58: If you ask them, what do you think about envy?
00:04:58 – 00:04:59: They will think that it’s something bad.
00:05:00 – 00:05:05: And so I do wonder if that has affected even the scholarship on it.
00:05:05 – 00:05:10: It’s interesting because, you know, I had, I edited a collection, an interdisciplinary
00:05:10 – 00:05:14: collection on envy, and there were some psychologists who was writing for it.
00:05:14 – 00:05:19: And he, Jan Crucius, he’s one of the experts on envy, and he looked at the empirical investigation
00:05:19 – 00:05:22: of emotions in the last few decades.
00:05:22 – 00:05:28: And even though there has been a lot of work on emotions, even in psychology, envy is comparatively
00:05:28 – 00:05:30: more neglected.
00:05:30 – 00:05:31: And so it’s not just philosophy.
00:05:31 – 00:05:37: In many, and even, for instance, when I look for literature on envy in sociology, aside
00:05:37 – 00:05:41: from a classical work from the 1960s, there’s basically nothing.
00:05:41 – 00:05:43: So it’s not just philosophy.
00:05:43 – 00:05:49: There is an interdisciplinary fear of envy that I think even affects its research.
00:05:49 – 00:05:52: So let’s get Socratic here and do definitions.
00:05:52 – 00:05:56: So envy is a word I think we’ve heard a lot, we use it a lot.
00:05:56 – 00:05:59: But I think if you’d ask people, like, what exactly is envy?
00:05:59 – 00:06:03: Some people would give you kind of a vague description of what it is.
00:06:03 – 00:06:06: So what exactly is envy?
00:06:06 – 00:06:07: Yes.
00:06:07 – 00:06:11: So I’m going to give you a long definition, and then I’m going to explain it because it’s
00:06:11 – 00:06:12: a mouthful.
00:06:12 – 00:06:20: So I define envy as an aversive response to a perceived disadvantage or inferiority vis-a-vis
00:06:20 – 00:06:26: a similar other with regard to a domain of self-importance that can motivate to level
00:06:26 – 00:06:27: up or down.
00:06:27 – 00:06:31: So it sounds complicated, but it’s not too complicated.
00:06:31 – 00:06:35: So first of all, envy is aversive with regard to affect.
00:06:35 – 00:06:37: It means that it’s painful or unpleasant.
00:06:37 – 00:06:40: It’s something that we usually don’t like feeling.
00:06:40 – 00:06:43: And why do we feel this kind of painful feeling?
00:06:43 – 00:06:49: Well, that’s because we perceive someone else as being in a superior position, as having
00:06:49 – 00:06:54: some kind of advantage, as being better, as coming off better than us.
00:06:54 – 00:06:55: And this is meaningful.
00:06:55 – 00:06:59: This inferiority is not just painful, but it also, it’s also, it says something about
00:06:59 – 00:07:04: us because the other person is similar to us in some respect.
00:07:04 – 00:07:09: And because this inferiority or disadvantage is felt with regard to what psychologists
00:07:09 – 00:07:15: call a domain of self-importance, which means that it’s relevant to our sense of identity.
00:07:15 – 00:07:17: It’s something that is important to us.
00:07:17 – 00:07:22: And finally, because we perceive ourselves to be inferior, there’s this gap that needs
00:07:22 – 00:07:23: to be overcome.
00:07:23 – 00:07:27: And we can overcome it in one of two ways.
00:07:27 – 00:07:33: We can level up, by which means we can push ourselves to the level of the other person,
00:07:33 – 00:07:34: or we can level down.
00:07:34 – 00:07:38: We can pull the other person back to our level, so to speak.
00:07:38 – 00:07:45: And so, you know, for example, imagine that I say I’m envious of, I don’t know, a colleague
00:07:45 – 00:07:48: of mine, another philosopher, right?
00:07:48 – 00:07:53: And so that means that I’m pained by the fact that I see this person as being a little better
00:07:53 – 00:07:54: than me.
00:07:54 – 00:07:57: Perhaps I think of them as having superior philosophical talents.
00:07:57 – 00:07:58: And they’re a philosopher.
00:07:58 – 00:08:03: Imagine that, you know, I’m likely to be envious of someone who’s roughly my same age, right?
00:08:03 – 00:08:08: I’m not going to be envious of a very young colleague or a much older colleague who has
00:08:08 – 00:08:12: had a lot of time to, say, develop their research, but I’ll likely compare myself to someone
00:08:12 – 00:08:17: who’s more or less my age or, you know, the same kind of job as me.
00:08:17 – 00:08:21: And of course, being a philosopher is something that is very relevant to me.
00:08:21 – 00:08:26: And I will be motivated to get rid of this painful feeling, either by becoming as good
00:08:26 – 00:08:30: as them, or perhaps somehow by making them be worse.
00:08:30 – 00:08:33: And we can talk later about the ways in which this can happen.
00:08:33 – 00:08:38: Okay, so in this definition that you have, this has been influenced by other philosophers.
00:08:38 – 00:08:44: Aristotle, in his rhetoric, came up with a very similar definition of envy that you
00:08:44 – 00:08:45: described.
00:08:45 – 00:08:47: You know, he talks about it’s a social emotion.
00:08:47 – 00:08:53: We feel it when we experience that pain of inferiority to someone who is our equal.
00:08:53 – 00:08:58: He talks about here, he says, we usually don’t feel envy towards those who have lived a hundred
00:08:58 – 00:09:04: centuries ago, or those not yet born, or those who dwell near the pillars of Hercules.
00:09:04 – 00:09:10: And so for me, like, I don’t feel envy of someone who lives in, you know, another town
00:09:10 – 00:09:13: because I don’t know who they are, for example.
00:09:13 – 00:09:14: Yeah.
00:09:14 – 00:09:15: Yeah.
00:09:15 – 00:09:19: And I mean, so my definition is really, I like to think of it, it comes both from the
00:09:19 – 00:09:22: psychological and the philosophical tradition.
00:09:22 – 00:09:24: So I kind of intersected different things.
00:09:24 – 00:09:30: And I think it’s not a particularly controversial definition, but I do incorporate philosophical
00:09:30 – 00:09:33: accounts more, for instance, than some psychologists.
00:09:33 – 00:09:34: And I like Aristotle’s account.
00:09:34 – 00:09:39: I think he got a lot of things right that, I mean, he says things about envy that have
00:09:39 – 00:09:45: been confirmed empirically by social psychologists in, you know, in the 20th and 21st century.
00:09:45 – 00:09:50: And one of the things he says is that other people’s success is a reproach to us.
00:09:50 – 00:09:51: Right.
00:09:51 – 00:09:56: And of course, that can only be the case if the person is similar to us in some respect.
00:09:56 – 00:10:00: Someone, imagine that, you know, like I have a friend.
00:10:00 – 00:10:06: who is a great soccer player, her success is not going to make me feel bad about myself
00:10:06 – 00:10:10: because I don’t care about being a soccer player and actually I’m going to bask in reflected
00:10:10 – 00:10:11: glory.
00:10:11 – 00:10:15: I’m going to tell everyone, that’s my friend, she’s so good because her success is not a
00:10:15 – 00:10:18: reproach to me in that case.
00:10:18 – 00:10:23: But if you’re talking about, you know, the same domain of self-importance, then the fact
00:10:23 – 00:10:27: that she’s so similar to me, but she’s doing better than me will make, you know, will make
00:10:27 – 00:10:29: me wonder what did I do wrong, right?
00:10:29 – 00:10:31: Why am I not getting the same successes?
00:10:31 – 00:10:36: And Hume, David Hume, a Scottish philosopher from the 18th century, also talks about what
00:10:36 – 00:10:40: you just mentioned, this idea of closeness, right?
00:10:40 – 00:10:46: If someone is far away from us, just geographically, for instance, it’s not going to be as common
00:10:46 – 00:10:51: for me, as easy for me to compare myself to the Imelda, of course, in the age of internet
00:10:51 – 00:10:54: and social media, that has changed a little bit, right?
00:10:54 – 00:10:59: But in David Hume’s times, or even, of course, in Aristotle’s times, if those people live
00:10:59 – 00:11:04: in a different town, you know, their success doesn’t impact you in any way.
00:11:04 – 00:11:08: And again, social media has kind of changed the equation, and what it means to be close
00:11:08 – 00:11:10: to someone has changed a bit.
00:11:10 – 00:11:15: Well, okay, so that bit, we envy people who are like us, similar to us.
00:11:15 – 00:11:20: So I don’t, I don’t envy like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.
00:11:20 – 00:11:25: They’re just so wealthy, so rich, it’s like not even in my frame of reference, but I could
00:11:25 – 00:11:27: envy a neighbor or a close friend.
00:11:27 – 00:11:28: Exactly.
00:11:29 – 00:11:33: So at least your envy is likely to be more intense in that case.
00:11:33 – 00:11:36: And look, some people often at this point say, oh, but it’s not true.
00:11:36 – 00:11:37: People envy the rich.
00:11:37 – 00:11:39: I envy Jeff Bezos, right?
00:11:39 – 00:11:45: Well, and so to me, to my response to that is, if you, if you’re someone who’s not a
00:11:45 – 00:11:49: billionaire and you do envy Jeff Bezos, two things are possible.
00:11:49 – 00:11:56: One is that you envy him with regard to, like, you perceive yourself to be similar to him
00:11:56 – 00:11:59: in some respects in which you are similar to him, right?
00:11:59 – 00:12:03: We’re all human beings who want to be happy, who want to be comfortable.
00:12:03 – 00:12:08: Maybe Jeff Bezos seems really happy to you and you feel unhappy at this point in life,
00:12:08 – 00:12:09: right?
00:12:09 – 00:12:12: And so in that respect, of course, you can compare yourself to anybody.
00:12:12 – 00:12:16: There are some ways in which we all are similar to each other, just in virtue of being human
00:12:16 – 00:12:18: beings and so on.
00:12:18 – 00:12:21: The second thing is that this is about perception, not reality.
00:12:21 – 00:12:26: If you envy Jeff Bezos, maybe you see yourself as similar to him in some respect.
00:12:26 – 00:12:28: Maybe you’re an aspiring billionaire or something.
00:12:28 – 00:12:33: And even though from a third personal perspective, if I look at you too, I’m like, well, are
00:12:33 – 00:12:34: you insane?
00:12:34 – 00:12:36: You’re so different from Jeff Bezos.
00:12:36 – 00:12:40: But from the inside, maybe you feel very similar to him, right?
00:12:40 – 00:12:45: So it’s all like emotions a lot of times are a matter of subjective perception.
00:12:45 – 00:12:50: And so I might think that like a friend of mine, if they envy Jeff Bezos and they’re
00:12:50 – 00:12:55: very different, well, maybe their envy doesn’t make sense or is unfitting in some ways.
00:12:55 – 00:12:58: It’s irrational in some ways, but they still feel it, right?
00:12:58 – 00:13:03: And the fact that they feel it reveals to me their self-perception, what they value
00:13:03 – 00:13:05: and so on and so forth.
00:13:05 – 00:13:06: But I’m with you.
00:13:06 – 00:13:10: I actually don’t envy very rich persons because they’re so different from me.
00:13:10 – 00:13:13: Oh, and then the other point about envy that you really fleshed out, I think it’s important
00:13:13 – 00:13:16: is that the thing you envy has to be important to you.
00:13:16 – 00:13:18: So you talked about that earlier.
00:13:18 – 00:13:21: You’re not going to envy your friend who’s really great at soccer because you don’t play
00:13:21 – 00:13:22: soccer.
00:13:22 – 00:13:23: Right.
00:13:23 – 00:13:27: And I think there’s a great line in the book, and maybe a philosopher said it too, but the
00:13:27 – 00:13:31: question you can ask someone like, tell me what you envy and I’ll tell you what’s important
00:13:31 – 00:13:32: to you.
00:13:32 – 00:13:33: Yes.
00:13:33 – 00:13:34: Yes.
00:13:34 – 00:13:35: Yeah.
00:13:35 – 00:13:37: I mean, I say that because, of course, you know, paraphrasing other similar dicta.
00:13:37 – 00:13:38: Yeah.
00:13:38 – 00:13:42: I mean, the idea is that if your envy is very revealing and that’s why sometimes we don’t
00:13:42 – 00:13:43: confess our envy.
00:13:43 – 00:13:46: There are many reasons why we don’t confess our envy.
00:13:46 – 00:13:47: It’s multi determined.
00:13:47 – 00:13:52: One reason is that we might find ourselves to be envious of someone and then kind of
00:13:52 – 00:13:57: be ashamed that we’re envious because we are surprised that we care about those things.
00:13:57 – 00:13:58: Right.
00:13:58 – 00:14:03: Imagine that I’m, you know, I’m an academic and I want to think of myself as indifferent
00:14:03 – 00:14:06: to materialistic pursuits.
00:14:06 – 00:14:10: And you know, maybe I’m a feminist and I think that you shouldn’t care about appearances.
00:14:10 – 00:14:15: And then I find myself envious of a friend who just had, say, plastic surgery or who
00:14:15 – 00:14:18: uses Botox or something like that.
00:14:18 – 00:14:22: And as an academic who’s a feminist, I might not want, I might not like, right, to feel
00:14:22 – 00:14:23: that I’m envious.
00:14:23 – 00:14:30: I’m like, oh, if I’m envious of her, you know, lack of wrinkles or her plump lips or her
00:14:30 – 00:14:35: new, you know, bra size or whatever, that tells me something about myself that I might
00:14:35 – 00:14:38: not like to know about myself.
00:14:38 – 00:14:44: And therefore, I might not want to tell other people that I’m envious because I’m revealing
00:14:44 – 00:14:46: something pretty personal about myself.
00:14:46 – 00:14:50: Well, and I think the other reason people, too, don’t like to just talk about feeling
00:14:50 – 00:14:51: envy.
00:14:51 – 00:14:55: So there’s the point because it can reveal something about herself that maybe we don’t
00:14:55 – 00:14:56: like.
00:14:56 – 00:15:00: Oh, actually, I do care about material wealth, even though I don’t.
00:15:00 – 00:15:03: I think of myself as a person who doesn’t, but also it’s about social status.
00:15:03 – 00:15:11: When you admit envy, you’re kind of admitting that, I think you’re better than me, and people
00:15:11 – 00:15:12: don’t like to do that.
00:15:12 – 00:15:14: People don’t like to do that, right?
00:15:14 – 00:15:18: You’re admitting that one, even just that, you’re comparing yourself to others, and in
00:15:18 – 00:15:23: some cultures or contexts, we’re told we’re not supposed to do that, even though I think
00:15:23 – 00:15:25: it’s impossible, but that’s another matter.
00:15:25 – 00:15:30: But also, yeah, you’re revealing that you see yourself as inferior to someone, and that’s
00:15:30 – 00:15:34: also information that maybe from an evolutionary perspective, maybe there is also a reason
00:15:34 – 00:15:40: why we don’t confess envy, because that may be information that we don’t want to give
00:15:40 – 00:15:48: out, we don’t want to reveal to other people that we feel inferior to others, also lest
00:15:48 – 00:15:52: they agree with us, and they think, oh, you’re right, now that you point it out, I noticed
00:15:52 – 00:15:53: that too.
00:15:53 – 00:15:56: All right, so let’s recap that definition of envy, walk us through it again, I want
00:15:56 – 00:15:57: to just do a recap.
00:15:57 – 00:16:03: Yeah, so you feel bad, it’s never pleasant, it can be very painful, or less painful, but
00:16:03 – 00:16:09: it’s never a pleasant emotion, it’s a negative affect emotion, and it’s felt because you
00:16:09 – 00:16:15: feel inferior to someone else in some sense or others, you lack something, and this other
00:16:15 – 00:16:20: person that you’re envious of is similar to you in some relevant respects, you know, in
00:16:20 – 00:16:26: the same league, so to speak, right, the comparison makes sense, and it’s with regard to something
00:16:26 – 00:16:31: that you care about, and finally, because there’s this gap that is perceived between
00:16:31 – 00:16:36: you and the envied, and because it’s a negative emotion, you are motivated to overcome your
00:16:36 – 00:16:42: perceived inferiority, to fill this gap somehow, and you can either level up or down.
00:16:42 – 00:16:48: Okay, I love that, but let’s talk about jealousy, because jealousy is a word that often we use
00:16:48 – 00:16:55: synonymously with envy, but jealousy is not envy, so what’s the difference between the two?
00:16:55 – 00:17:00: Yeah, so these two terms are often confused, especially in English and some other languages,
00:17:00 – 00:17:07: this doesn’t apply to all languages, but there is a scholarly consensus, both in psychology
00:17:07 – 00:17:14: and philosophy, that these are distinct emotions, envy roughly has to do with lack, with perceiving
00:17:14 – 00:17:21: oneself to lacking an object, an advantage, a skill, a trait, and so on, whereas jealousy
00:17:21 – 00:17:27: is a protective emotion that is felt with regard to something that one has, and that
00:17:27 – 00:17:34: one is afraid of losing, so typically, for instance, with romantic jealousy, if I’m jealous
00:17:34 – 00:17:39: of my partner, and of course, this could mean, you know, it means that I’m jealous that some
00:17:39 – 00:17:45: competitor will take away my partner from me, say, that means that I see this relationship
00:17:45 – 00:17:51: with my partner as something that I have, right, in quotes, I have this person, she’s
00:17:51 – 00:17:57: my girlfriend, she’s my boyfriend, and I want to protect this valuable object that I have,
00:17:57 – 00:18:03: and so I’m afraid of losing it, so jealousy is about loss, or potential loss, and envy
00:18:03 – 00:18:10: is about lack, and so in a way, we can say that jealousy guards what envy covets, so
00:18:10 – 00:18:14: they are complementary emotions, even though they also can be felt at the same time, so
00:18:14 – 00:18:19: again, in the case of a romantic rivalry, maybe I’m both jealous and envious of someone,
00:18:19 – 00:18:24: right, I think that they are hitting on my girlfriend, and so I’m jealous of them, I
00:18:24 – 00:18:28: want to make sure they stay away from my girlfriend, but at the same time, maybe I think they’re
00:18:28 – 00:18:33: cool, I think he’s cooler than me, or he’s more attractive, and so I want to, I’m also
00:18:33 – 00:18:39: envious of him, so they can be felt at the same time, but they can also be felt by two
00:18:39 – 00:18:43: people in the same situation, right, so they are complementary emotions, and the reason
00:18:43 – 00:18:48: why sometimes we confuse one with the other, at least in English and other languages, is
00:18:48 – 00:18:53: that I argue, I mean, it’s not just me arguing this, is that sometimes, so jealousy, because
00:18:53 – 00:18:59: it’s an emotion that is protective of a status quo, it’s more legitimate, like even though
00:18:59 – 00:19:03: it can be excessive, people tend to think that it’s okay to be a little jealous, it’s
00:19:03 – 00:19:09: okay to protect what’s yours, and so there is not as much stigma attached to it, so it’s
00:19:09 – 00:19:14: easier to confess jealousy, and so what has happened with time is that when we feel a
00:19:14 – 00:19:21: kind of envy that is not as bad as other kinds, then we tend to use the word jealous, it’s
00:19:21 – 00:19:28: as if jealousy now encompasses jealousy proper, and a certain kind of benign envy, and so
00:19:28 – 00:19:30: that’s why people confuse the two terms.
00:19:30 – 00:19:35: Oh, and you give a good example of the distinction between jealousy and envy, in Lord of the
00:19:35 – 00:19:41: Rings, the ring, so Frodo, he had the ring, and he was jealous, he protected that thing,
00:19:41 – 00:19:45: he didn’t want to give it up, so he’s always looking at people like, oh, you’re after the
00:19:45 – 00:19:51: ring, and then you had Gollum, who owned the ring before, he was envious, he wanted the
00:19:51 – 00:19:52: ring.
00:19:52 – 00:19:56: Exactly, yeah, I think that’s a good case to show that jealousy is not just about romantic
00:19:56 – 00:19:59: jealousy, even though we often talk about it in that case, where you can say,
00:20:00 – 00:20:05: You know, I’m jealous of my objects, I’m jealous of my time, I’m jealous of my privacy, and
00:20:05 – 00:20:06: so on and so forth.
00:20:06 – 00:20:08: And so they’re both triadic emotions.
00:20:08 – 00:20:12: They have a lot of things in common, but they’re also very different at the same time in the
00:20:12 – 00:20:18: sense that they are, again, Gabriel Taylor, a contemporary philosopher, talks about how
00:20:18 – 00:20:21: their relation to the status quo is different.
00:20:21 – 00:20:22: It’s symmetrical.
00:20:22 – 00:20:23: It’s the opposite thing.
00:20:23 – 00:20:28: Envy wants to change the status quo with regard to a valued object, whereas jealousy wants
00:20:28 – 00:20:31: to maintain the status quo with regard to a valued object.
00:20:31 – 00:20:32: Okay.
00:20:32 – 00:20:36: So we got this great broad definition of what envy is in general.
00:20:36 – 00:20:38: We’ve distinguished it from jealousy.
00:20:38 – 00:20:42: But one of the things you do in this book that I think is really unique is you make
00:20:42 – 00:20:47: the case that there isn’t just one type of envy, there are four types of envy.
00:20:47 – 00:20:53: But to understand the four types of envy, we first need to understand this idea of leveling
00:20:53 – 00:20:54: orientation that you lay out in the book.
00:20:54 – 00:20:58: So what do you mean by leveling orientation?
00:20:58 – 00:21:04: So this idea of leveling orientation, the term comes from this quote by Dorothy Sawyer.
00:21:04 – 00:21:06: She says, Envy is the great leveler.
00:21:06 – 00:21:09: If it cannot level up, it will level down.
00:21:09 – 00:21:14: And so what she means there is that, again, imagine that, you know, I envy my sibling
00:21:14 – 00:21:17: who got a really new shiny toy, right?
00:21:17 – 00:21:19: So she has this toy.
00:21:19 – 00:21:20: I don’t have it.
00:21:20 – 00:21:21: What can I do?
00:21:21 – 00:21:23: Well, there are two options.
00:21:23 – 00:21:28: I could bug my parents so that they get me the new toy too, right?
00:21:28 – 00:21:29: So we’re even.
00:21:29 – 00:21:33: She has a new shiny toy and I have it too, so I’m leveling up.
00:21:33 – 00:21:40: Or I can, for instance, steal the toy from her or even break it.
00:21:40 – 00:21:44: And that way, I don’t have the toy, but neither does she at this point, right?
00:21:44 – 00:21:49: And so this idea that you can level up or down, actually, you can find it not in these
00:21:49 – 00:21:52: terms, but you can already find it in Aristotle.
00:21:52 – 00:21:55: I argue in the book that Aristotle distinguishes between two emotions.
00:21:55 – 00:21:59: But even if, you know, independently from the details, what he does is that he thinks
00:21:59 – 00:22:04: that you can either level up or you can level down.
00:22:04 – 00:22:10: And what matters, what motivates you to want to do one or the others is what you care about.
00:22:10 – 00:22:16: So if I’m envious of someone because they have something that I really care about, then
00:22:16 – 00:22:19: naturally, I am motivated to try to get it myself, right?
00:22:19 – 00:22:21: Because that’s what I really care about.
00:22:21 – 00:22:26: It’s not that I’m bothered that another person has this thing, but I really care about that.
00:22:26 – 00:22:30: In the case of philosophy and philosophical talents, if I envy my colleague because they
00:22:30 – 00:22:37: are great at writing very clear papers, well, I don’t want them to lose their clarity in
00:22:37 – 00:22:38: writing.
00:22:38 – 00:22:40: I want to acquire it myself, right?
00:22:40 – 00:22:42: Because that’s what matters to me.
00:22:42 – 00:22:46: But if instead I am envious of a colleague because, I don’t know, maybe we went to grad
00:22:46 – 00:22:47: school together.
00:22:47 – 00:22:49: We were kind of rival all along.
00:22:49 – 00:22:50: I don’t like them.
00:22:50 – 00:22:53: They’re kind of snobbish and not nice to me, right?
00:22:53 – 00:22:57: In that case, the fact that they have some kind of advantage, perhaps they get a better
00:22:57 – 00:22:59: office.
00:22:59 – 00:23:04: Maybe it’s not that I care about the better office, but I’m just bothered that this person
00:23:04 – 00:23:07: that I don’t like is getting this advantage.
00:23:07 – 00:23:12: In that case, I will be more motivated to level down, to have them lose that advantage.
00:23:12 – 00:23:17: And so Aristotle already, I think, identifies this important feature.
00:23:17 – 00:23:24: But then what I noticed is that there’s a different kind of explanatory model of this
00:23:24 – 00:23:28: different leveling orientation in psychology.
00:23:28 – 00:23:36: So social psychologists have observed that when we feel in control over a situation,
00:23:36 – 00:23:43: that also means that usually we don’t develop hostility or antipathy toward the envied.
00:23:43 – 00:23:47: And if we feel that we can improve our situation, then we’re going to be motivated
00:23:48 – 00:23:49: to improve that situation.
00:23:49 – 00:23:54: But if we feel hopeless and helpless, as two Italian psychologists put it in a classical
00:23:54 – 00:23:59: article, then we develop hostility toward the other person.
00:23:59 – 00:24:02: And also, again, we don’t feel capable of improving our situation.
00:24:02 – 00:24:06: And so we want to level down, we want to bring them down.
00:24:06 – 00:24:11: And so once you see that there are these different explanatory models, and because I think that
00:24:11 – 00:24:15: actually these are complementary, they’re not alternative proposals, but they can be
00:24:15 – 00:24:19: combined, that’s how you get my four kinds of envy.
00:24:19 – 00:24:21: Okay, I thought this was really interesting.
00:24:21 – 00:24:26: So to recap here, to get rid of the bad feeling we experience whenever we experience envy,
00:24:26 – 00:24:28: we have to level up or level down.
00:24:28 – 00:24:35: If we are focused on the object that the person that we envy has, so it could be a position,
00:24:35 – 00:24:38: talent, etc., we’re more likely to level.
00:24:38 – 00:24:41: We’re actually going to try to make ourselves better so we can get that thing too.
00:24:41 – 00:24:45: But if we just don’t like the person, we’re just focused on the person, then we don’t
00:24:45 – 00:24:48: really care about the thing they have, then we’re going to level them down.
00:24:48 – 00:24:52: I think you kind of see this with siblings, like little kids.
00:24:52 – 00:24:57: They would see that one kid had something else, and like my daughter might not have
00:24:57 – 00:25:00: cared that my son had a baseball.
00:25:00 – 00:25:05: card. But like, she was just upset that he had the baseball card. She didn’t. It’s because she was
00:25:05 – 00:25:12: like upset with him. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I think that works. Yeah, that’s
00:25:12 – 00:25:17: perfect. That’s a perfect example, right? Siblings rivalry, usually, for whatever complicated,
00:25:17 – 00:25:23: you know, evolutionary reasons, you know, you’d wonder why, why did we evolve to have siblings
00:25:23 – 00:25:27: rivalry? I don’t know. I’m sure the evolutionary psychologists have an answer to that. But there
00:25:27 – 00:25:31: is this kind of long, this is like background condition of rivalry, right? Especially at some
00:25:31 – 00:25:36: point in their lives, every parent knows that they’re just constantly bickering. And so even
00:25:36 – 00:25:42: when they really don’t care about some other advantage, they just resent when the other,
00:25:42 – 00:25:49: the other sibling has it, right? And so they’re more focused on the envied than the envied object.
00:25:49 – 00:25:52: And so I think this is the kind of explanation that you find in Aristotle. And I think there
00:25:52 – 00:25:58: is something very right to it. But at the same time, there is this other factor that, you know,
00:25:58 – 00:26:04: sometimes you can do something about the situation and sometimes you cannot. And when you can do
00:26:04 – 00:26:09: something about the situation, usually you feel a certain kind of envy and when what psychologists
00:26:09 – 00:26:15: call benign envy. And when you cannot do anything about the situation in the sense that you cannot
00:26:15 – 00:26:22: overcome your disadvantages by getting the envy good, then you tend to level down, right? To try
00:26:22 – 00:26:27: to spoil it for the other person. And again, so instead of having, you know, so something I
00:26:27 – 00:26:35: omitted to say is that psychologists distinguish between benign and malicious envy. But because
00:26:35 – 00:26:41: I also introduced the Aristotelian explanation, I argue that in fact, you can get four kinds of envy
00:26:41 – 00:26:47: instead of just two, because the varieties of envy are more, it’s a more nuanced account.
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00:30:19 – 00:30:22: Okay, so there’s envy where you can do
00:30:22 – 00:30:24: something about the situation.
00:30:24 – 00:30:27: Then there’s an envy where you don’t have control.
00:30:27 – 00:30:29: And then there’s envy where you’re focused on something,
00:30:29 – 00:30:33: a possession or a quality or a talent that someone has.
00:30:33 – 00:30:36: And then there’s envy where you’re just focused
00:30:36 – 00:30:38: on the person themselves.
00:30:38 – 00:30:41: And these dimensions, the control orientation
00:30:41 – 00:30:45: and the focus orientation, they form like a quadrant.
00:30:45 – 00:30:48: And this quadrant forms those four different types of envy.
00:30:48 – 00:30:51: There’s envy where you can’t change the situation
00:30:51 – 00:30:53: and you’re focused on the person
00:30:53 – 00:30:55: and you call that spiteful envy.
00:30:55 – 00:30:58: Then there’s envy where you can do something
00:30:58 – 00:31:01: and you’re focused on the person and that’s aggressive envy.
00:31:01 – 00:31:05: Then there’s envy where you can’t control the situation
00:31:05 – 00:31:08: and you’re focused on the thing the person has
00:31:08 – 00:31:10: and you call that inert envy.
00:31:10 – 00:31:13: And then there’s envy where you do have some control
00:31:13 – 00:31:16: and you’re focused on the thing
00:31:16 – 00:31:18: and that’s called emulative envy.
00:31:18 – 00:31:21: And we’re gonna unpack and explain these four types of envy.
00:31:21 – 00:31:24: And I like to go from the worst type
00:31:24 – 00:31:25: and then work our way up.
00:31:25 – 00:31:28: So let’s start with spiteful envy.
00:31:28 – 00:31:30: What is spiteful envy?
00:31:30 – 00:31:33: So spiteful envy is again, the kind of envy
00:31:33 – 00:31:35: that maybe a lot of small children
00:31:35 – 00:31:37: engage with their siblings.
00:31:37 – 00:31:40: Imagine this situation where you know
00:31:40 – 00:31:44: that your sibling has gotten a new shiny toy
00:31:44 – 00:31:48: and perhaps because they’ve gotten better grades or whatever
00:31:48 – 00:31:51: and you don’t really care about the toy itself.
00:31:51 – 00:31:53: Perhaps it’s a kind of toy that you don’t like
00:31:53 – 00:31:56: but you are really upset that your sibling got something
00:31:56 – 00:31:58: and you’re more focused on the envied
00:31:58 – 00:32:02: than on the good that you’re missing, that you’re lacking.
00:32:02 – 00:32:03: And at the same time, however,
00:32:03 – 00:32:05: perhaps you know that your parents
00:32:05 – 00:32:07: are not gonna change their mind.
00:32:07 – 00:32:09: They have already said that this is a special reward.
00:32:09 – 00:32:12: You’re not gonna get one, stop whining.
00:32:12 – 00:32:14: And imagine it’s a situation where
00:32:14 – 00:32:16: perhaps it’s not a physical object that you can steal
00:32:16 – 00:32:17: but it’s like, I don’t know,
00:32:17 – 00:32:20: maybe a special experience or something like that, right?
00:32:20 – 00:32:23: Maybe they’re getting to have a party,
00:32:23 – 00:32:25: a special party with their friends.
00:32:25 – 00:32:30: And so what you do is that you just throw a tantrum
00:32:30 – 00:32:33: during the party, you behave in awful ways
00:32:33 – 00:32:35: and you don’t get anything for yourself.
00:32:35 – 00:32:38: In fact, you might even be punished for what you have done
00:32:38 – 00:32:41: and that actually would count as uber spiteful envy
00:32:41 – 00:32:43: but I don’t wanna complicate things too much.
00:32:43 – 00:32:46: But so you just spoil the fun of the other person.
00:32:46 – 00:32:48: So in a way you spoil their good,
00:32:48 – 00:32:51: their special party that you couldn’t have.
00:32:51 – 00:32:53: And so this is the worst kind of envy
00:32:53 – 00:32:56: because it spoils the good of covets.
00:32:56 – 00:32:58: It’s bad for you.
00:32:58 – 00:33:00: You’re not getting anything good out of it
00:33:00 – 00:33:04: except perhaps for a very fleeting sense of satisfaction.
00:33:04 – 00:33:06: And of course it’s immoral.
00:33:06 – 00:33:08: Maybe your sibling really deserved a special party
00:33:08 – 00:33:10: and maybe they had this really good grades
00:33:10 – 00:33:13: and they deserve their reward.
00:33:13 – 00:33:15: And so it’s the worst kind of envy.
00:33:15 – 00:33:17: And then I have various examples
00:33:17 – 00:33:18: of this kind of spiteful envy
00:33:18 – 00:33:22: but this is just one kind of everyday example of it.
00:33:22 – 00:33:24: Yeah, that’s where the spiteful envy,
00:33:24 – 00:33:26: that’s where that phrase,
00:33:26 – 00:33:28: cut off your nose to spite yourself, right?
00:33:28 – 00:33:29: Exactly.
00:33:29 – 00:33:31: You just hurt yourself or you just do something
00:33:31 – 00:33:34: even that harms you just to get back at the other person.
00:33:34 – 00:33:35: Right, exactly.
00:33:35 – 00:33:37: And you offer these different phrases
00:33:37 – 00:33:39: that describe the different types of envy.
00:33:39 – 00:33:42: And for spiteful envy, the phrase is,
00:33:42 – 00:33:44: it should have been me.
00:33:44 – 00:33:47: So you’re like, it should have been me
00:33:47 – 00:33:50: and if it can’t be me, then you can’t have it either.
00:33:50 – 00:33:53: Yes, nobody else gets it, yeah.
00:33:53 – 00:33:56: Okay, so spiteful envy, you’re focused on the envy
00:33:56 – 00:33:58: and you feel like you can’t do anything about it
00:33:58 – 00:33:59: and it just goes nowhere.
00:33:59 – 00:34:02: Yeah, the only thing you can do, you can spoil the good.
00:34:02 – 00:34:02: Spoil the good.
00:34:02 – 00:34:04: It motivates to spoil the good.
00:34:04 – 00:34:04: There’s actually,
00:34:04 – 00:34:07: have you ever seen the movie, Mississippi Burning?
00:34:07 – 00:34:08: No, I have not.
00:34:08 – 00:34:11: No, it’s about American civil rights history.
00:34:11 – 00:34:13: These two FBI agents go down to Mississippi
00:34:13 – 00:34:16: to investigate the murders of three black men
00:34:16 – 00:34:18: who were promoting voter registration.
00:34:18 – 00:34:19: And there’s this scene,
00:34:19 – 00:34:22: one of the FBI agents played by Gene Hackman,
00:34:22 – 00:34:24: where he’s talking about, he’s from the South
00:34:24 – 00:34:28: and he was telling the story to this one FBI agent
00:34:28 – 00:34:29: who’s from the North,
00:34:29 – 00:34:32: so he didn’t really understand the racism in the South.
00:34:32 – 00:34:34: And he was talking about when he was growing up,
00:34:34 – 00:34:38: there was a sharecropper that lived next to him
00:34:38 – 00:34:41: who was black and he got a new mule.
00:34:41 – 00:34:44: But Gene Hackman or the Gene Hackman character,
00:34:44 – 00:34:47: his father was poor and he couldn’t afford a new mule.
00:34:47 – 00:34:49: And it really, it upset him.
00:34:49 – 00:34:51: Like he felt that inferiority.
00:34:51 – 00:34:54: This white guy felt inferior to this black guy.
00:34:54 – 00:34:56: I don’t think the guy even really cared about the mule.
00:34:56 – 00:34:58: Like he was just upset that there was a black guy
00:34:58 – 00:34:59: that was better than him.
00:34:59 – 00:35:00: Yeah.
00:35:00 – 00:35:05: And so the way the story goes is Gene Hackman’s character’s dad, he poisons the mule.
00:35:05 – 00:35:06: Yeah, he just spoils it.
00:35:06 – 00:35:07: So that’s spiteful envy, right?
00:35:07 – 00:35:08: Yes.
00:35:08 – 00:35:09: Yeah.
00:35:09 – 00:35:10: That’s a great example of spiteful envy.
00:35:10 – 00:35:11: Okay.
00:35:11 – 00:35:13: So let’s move to aggressive envy.
00:35:13 – 00:35:14: What’s aggressive envy?
00:35:14 – 00:35:18: So aggressive, I mean, in this case, for instance, he could have stolen the mule, right?
00:35:18 – 00:35:23: And that kind of aggressive envy is like, there are some situations where we can steal
00:35:23 – 00:35:29: the envy good, and sometimes we can do it and get away with it, right?
00:35:29 – 00:35:34: So imagine that, again, you live in this racist place, and perhaps if you stole the mule,
00:35:34 – 00:35:36: maybe he would have not been punished, right?
00:35:36 – 00:35:38: He could have gotten away with it.
00:35:38 – 00:35:44: And in other cases, we can imagine doing things, you know, as a subterfuge, like you do it,
00:35:44 – 00:35:49: but you hide that you stole the good, so to speak.
00:35:49 – 00:35:53: In the book, I sometimes use the example, it sounds a little cartoonish, but actually
00:35:53 – 00:35:56: it’s not that cartoonish, examples of sabotage, right?
00:35:56 – 00:36:01: You have, you know, I have this idea of a ballerina who is the understudy of another one.
00:36:01 – 00:36:06: She’s not as good as the other person, but she makes the ballerina fall down the stairs,
00:36:06 – 00:36:08: and so she gets the same role.
00:36:08 – 00:36:13: She hasn’t gotten any better, but she managed to sabotage the rival and get the role.
00:36:13 – 00:36:19: Or imagine in a foot race, if I trip the person in front of me and she falls, then I managed
00:36:19 – 00:36:25: to get there first, and so I haven’t become a better runner, but I still get something.
00:36:25 – 00:36:27: In this case, I get first place.
00:36:27 – 00:36:31: And I think it’s important to differentiate these two kind of envy, which is something
00:36:31 – 00:36:35: that this difference gets lost when people just talk about malicious envy, because in
00:36:35 – 00:36:38: one case, you get a genuine advantage.
00:36:38 – 00:36:43: You get the mule, you get the role, you get the toy that you stole, you get the first
00:36:43 – 00:36:44: place.
00:36:44 – 00:36:51: And even though it doesn’t improve yourself, it doesn’t make you better on your own terms.
00:36:51 – 00:36:56: In situations where, you know, in zero-sum games, as sometimes people call them, in situation
00:36:56 – 00:37:02: where, you know, if one person wins, the other loses, well, you get a genuine advantage.
00:37:02 – 00:37:07: And so I think this is the kind of envy that perhaps someone who doesn’t have a moral conscience,
00:37:07 – 00:37:12: maybe, I don’t know, a psychopath or something like that, these people can get away with
00:37:12 – 00:37:17: doing bad things like this, and I think this is the kind of emotion that motivates them
00:37:17 – 00:37:18: is aggressive envy.
00:37:18 – 00:37:22: So in this case, you’re more focused on the rival than the good.
00:37:22 – 00:37:26: You want to bring them down, but you also end up getting something out of it.
00:37:26 – 00:37:32: And so it’s not from a prudential perspective, as philosophers say, from the perspective
00:37:32 – 00:37:36: of your own well-being and gains, well, you do gain something.
00:37:36 – 00:37:37: Right.
00:37:37 – 00:37:38: Okay.
00:37:38 – 00:37:43: So with aggressive envy, you see something that someone has, you want the thing, so you
00:37:43 – 00:37:44: might take the thing.
00:37:44 – 00:37:48: And you talk about, like, aggressive envy can possibly be an explanation of why countries
00:37:48 – 00:37:49: go to war.
00:37:49 – 00:37:50: Right.
00:37:50 – 00:37:54: I mean, this is something that the philosopher Adam Smith talks about in The Theory of Moral
00:37:54 – 00:38:00: Sentiments, and this is, again, a philosopher from the modern era in the history of philosophy.
00:38:00 – 00:38:07: And so he, I think he’s right that when we think about wars, a lot of times wars are
00:38:07 – 00:38:09: about resources, right?
00:38:09 – 00:38:15: You want some land or access to the sea or oil or, you know, usually it’s about some
00:38:15 – 00:38:17: kind of material gains.
00:38:17 – 00:38:23: And you can think of it as some sort of collective envy as countries could have feelings or definitely
00:38:23 – 00:38:26: groups of people can have feelings, right?
00:38:26 – 00:38:32: And so they are motivated by aggressive envy by taking away something from another nation
00:38:32 – 00:38:34: or another group of people.
00:38:34 – 00:38:38: I’m sure this happened, you know, perhaps when there were just tribes or villages, you
00:38:38 – 00:38:43: know, conflicts between smaller groups of people, I think might have been motivated
00:38:43 – 00:38:46: by aggressive envy.
00:38:46 – 00:38:51: And so in a way, this is a form of leveling down that also ends up being a little bit
00:38:51 – 00:38:56: of a leveling up in the sense that if you have just one thing, so, you know, in a situation
00:38:56 – 00:39:02: where either someone wins or someone loses, the distinction between leveling down and
00:39:02 – 00:39:05: leveling up in practice is lost, right?
00:39:05 – 00:39:11: Because what means for one person to level up, it means to, you know, get a person who’s
00:39:11 – 00:39:13: leveled down at the same time.
00:39:13 – 00:39:18: But what matters is the mindset in a lot of situations, like, for instance, athletic
00:39:18 – 00:39:21: achievements or skills, right?
00:39:21 – 00:39:28: With things you can’t quite see the difference, but with traits, if what I care about is becoming
00:39:28 – 00:39:34: a better dancer or a better philosopher, then there is a difference between wanting the
00:39:34 – 00:39:38: other person to become worse and wanting myself to be better.
00:39:38 – 00:39:43: And so there is a different kind of mindset that goes with these different kinds of envy.
00:39:43 – 00:39:49: I think people listening, they might have experienced aggressive envy in the office.
00:39:49 – 00:39:53: When people talk about, oh, I just hate the office politics and the backstabbing that
00:39:53 – 00:39:54: goes on.
00:39:54 – 00:39:57: It’s probably aggressive envy is going on there, right?
00:39:57 – 00:39:59: It may be that, you know, yeah, I think so.
00:40:00 – 00:40:01: Yeah.
00:40:01 – 00:40:06: Like I could say if there’s a promotion, there’s only one spot, there’s two or three people
00:40:06 – 00:40:12: who are going for that one spot, there’s the temptation to do some things to level people
00:40:12 – 00:40:15: down so that you look better and you get the job.
00:40:15 – 00:40:17: Yes, exactly.
00:40:17 – 00:40:18: Yeah.
00:40:18 – 00:40:22: And I think another thing that happens, like I think gossip, I mean, gossip has a social
00:40:22 – 00:40:23: function.
00:40:23 – 00:40:27: It’s just not, it’s not always a negative thing, but I think a lot of time gossip is a way
00:40:27 – 00:40:31: of leveling down, you know, ruining someone’s reputation.
00:40:31 – 00:40:34: And again, sometimes it’s really just spoiling the good.
00:40:34 – 00:40:38: Sometimes gossip doesn’t actually bring you to level down in the sense that you want.
00:40:38 – 00:40:44: But again, sometimes you can spread rumors and you can make another person be liked less
00:40:44 – 00:40:48: and that allows you to come out better in the comparison.
00:40:48 – 00:40:53: And there is this idea that, you know, sometimes maybe you can’t, you can’t run faster, but
00:40:53 – 00:40:58: you can trip someone else and that way you have a comparative advantage.
00:40:58 – 00:40:59: Okay.
00:40:59 – 00:41:00: So we talk about aggressive envy.
00:41:00 – 00:41:02: Let’s talk about inert envy.
00:41:02 – 00:41:04: What is inert envy?
00:41:04 – 00:41:05: Yes.
00:41:05 – 00:41:10: So inert envy is actually my favorite kind of envy because I think it’s under discussed
00:41:10 – 00:41:11: in the literature.
00:41:11 – 00:41:17: Inert envy is when you are more focused on the good than the envy.
00:41:17 – 00:41:24: So imagine that, again, you really care about acquiring, say, a certain valuable skill.
00:41:24 – 00:41:28: However, you don’t feel that you’re in control of the situation.
00:41:28 – 00:41:32: You don’t think that you can improve your situation, that you can level up.
00:41:32 – 00:41:35: It’s a situation where it defeats itself, right?
00:41:35 – 00:41:41: You find yourself wanting to, wanting something that you already think you can’t have.
00:41:41 – 00:41:47: So for instance, I think a lot of people who feel so-called baby envy are in this kind
00:41:47 – 00:41:48: of situation.
00:41:48 – 00:41:52: If they want a biological child, that’s something that typically you can’t control, right?
00:41:52 – 00:41:53: I mean, it’s biology.
00:41:53 – 00:41:54: If you’re not fertile, you’re not fertile.
00:41:54 – 00:41:59: I mean, yeah, technology helps, but at some point you have to accept that you might not
00:41:59 – 00:42:01: be able to have a biological child.
00:42:01 – 00:42:06: And so you might envy people who can, and you don’t want them, I mean, you’re happy
00:42:06 – 00:42:12: for them that they have a baby and you don’t want them to lose their children.
00:42:12 – 00:42:18: And at the same time, you feel this very painful desire to not be around them and you
00:42:18 – 00:42:25: just want to, you know, sulk in a corner and just, it’s very passive, as I say, you know,
00:42:25 – 00:42:32: it’s called inert envy because it doesn’t really motivate you to do much other than,
00:42:32 – 00:42:36: you know, sulk in a corner and feel sad for yourself.
00:42:36 – 00:42:41: And so I think that this is a particular kind of emotion that where you would want to level
00:42:41 – 00:42:43: up, but you can’t.
00:42:43 – 00:42:47: So what do people typically do in this?
00:42:47 – 00:42:50: I mean, besides sulking, how do they, they’re feeling the pain.
00:42:50 – 00:42:55: They realize that they can’t get the good, but I’m sure there’s still that desire to
00:42:55 – 00:42:56: get rid of the pain.
00:42:56 – 00:42:58: So how do people do that?
00:42:58 – 00:43:04: I think alienation or getting away from the situation and like an avoidance reaction is
00:43:04 – 00:43:05: likely.
00:43:05 – 00:43:08: Imagine that, for instance, you feel envious of a friend.
00:43:08 – 00:43:13: You’re probably not going to want to hang out with this friend much also because you
00:43:13 – 00:43:19: might think that if you keep being close to the envied, it’s going to be very painful.
00:43:19 – 00:43:24: And chances are, I think sometimes what happens is that you’re going to start engaging in
00:43:24 – 00:43:29: this sort of magical thinking where it’s the other person’s fault somehow, you know, or
00:43:29 – 00:43:32: they’re rubbing their fortune in my face.
00:43:32 – 00:43:35: You might think you have, you might have similar thoughts, even though they’re not doing anything
00:43:35 – 00:43:36: like that.
00:43:36 – 00:43:40: And so then I think you might develop feelings of hostility toward the person and you might
00:43:40 – 00:43:43: become more focused on the envy.
00:43:43 – 00:43:48: And that’s actually when you might start having aggressive envy in yourself.
00:43:48 – 00:43:53: So if you, you know, I remember once I was reading online about some experiences of baby
00:43:53 – 00:43:58: envy and one person wrote about feeling like they wanted to push a pregnant woman down
00:43:58 – 00:44:00: the subway train.
00:44:00 – 00:44:06: And of course, this person was very scared to be feeling such aggressive impulse.
00:44:06 – 00:44:08: But again, I think it’s in a way it’s understandable, right?
00:44:08 – 00:44:12: If you’re suffering a lot, then you’re going to start thinking other people are at fault
00:44:12 – 00:44:15: because again, this is a self-defeating emotion.
00:44:15 – 00:44:17: It’s such a counterproductive state.
00:44:17 – 00:44:19: There’s nothing you can do about it, right?
00:44:19 – 00:44:24: And so then I think, you know, envy can easily evolve into aggressive envy or even actually
00:44:24 – 00:44:28: in this case, if you throw a pregnant lady under, you know, if you kill her, of course
00:44:28 – 00:44:29: the baby is lost.
00:44:29 – 00:44:31: So that’s actually spiteful envy.
00:44:31 – 00:44:36: Aggressive envy would be stealing the baby, which rarely it happens, right?
00:44:36 – 00:44:37: It does happen.
00:44:37 – 00:44:41: It’s not a frequent occurrence, but there are some cases where someone who can’t have
00:44:41 – 00:44:43: a baby steals a baby.
00:44:43 – 00:44:46: So I think inert envy really sucks.
00:44:46 – 00:44:48: It’s really hard to deal with.
00:44:48 – 00:44:55: And I think the only thing to do is perhaps to find similar, if not identical goals.
00:44:55 – 00:44:59: For instance, usually, you know, you could adopt a baby, right?
00:45:00 – 00:45:01: is an option in this case.
00:45:01 – 00:45:04: And so try to think of things like that, right?
00:45:04 – 00:45:06: I can’t have these exact things,
00:45:06 – 00:45:08: but perhaps I can have something similar to it.
00:45:08 – 00:45:09: Well, you can, you,
00:45:09 – 00:45:11: I think a lot of people may have experienced
00:45:11 – 00:45:12: inert envy in the office,
00:45:12 – 00:45:16: going back to the idea, the job, the promotion, right?
00:45:16 – 00:45:18: So there’s one position available.
00:45:18 – 00:45:21: Let’s say two other people are also going for the position.
00:45:21 – 00:45:23: You didn’t get it.
00:45:23 – 00:45:24: And it’s not that you aren’t happy
00:45:24 – 00:45:25: for the person that got it.
00:45:25 – 00:45:27: Like you don’t dislike your colleague
00:45:27 – 00:45:28: that got the promotion.
00:45:28 – 00:45:29: You’re happy for them,
00:45:29 – 00:45:31: but like you really wanted that thing.
00:45:31 – 00:45:32: And then you realize,
00:45:32 – 00:45:33: well, there’s nothing I can do to get that promotion.
00:45:33 – 00:45:35: It’s that position’s gone.
00:45:35 – 00:45:37: And so what you end up doing,
00:45:37 – 00:45:38: you kind of do that sulking thing.
00:45:38 – 00:45:41: You’re going to give compliments and congratulations,
00:45:41 – 00:45:45: but they’re going to be kind of lukewarm and half-hearted.
00:45:45 – 00:45:48: It’s like, oh, I’m so happy for you.
00:45:48 – 00:45:49: Oh, I wish I had,
00:45:49 – 00:45:51: I wish I had what you had.
00:45:51 – 00:45:53: And then you also talk about another response
00:45:53 – 00:45:57: that people do to deal with the pain of inert envy, right?
00:45:57 – 00:45:59: So they’re focused on the thing.
00:45:59 – 00:46:00: They feel like they can’t do anything
00:46:00 – 00:46:02: to level up to get the thing.
00:46:02 – 00:46:03: Sometimes we might engage in what’s typically
00:46:03 – 00:46:06: called sour grapes from Aesop’s fables.
00:46:06 – 00:46:09: Well, I didn’t want that job anyway.
00:46:09 – 00:46:09: That job stinks.
00:46:09 – 00:46:11: I’m so glad I didn’t get it.
00:46:11 – 00:46:13: Right, exactly, right.
00:46:13 – 00:46:15: And I mean, and there is still a couple of things.
00:46:15 – 00:46:17: One other thing that you can do sometimes,
00:46:17 – 00:46:20: in addition to compliments or congratulations
00:46:20 – 00:46:21: that are not truly felt,
00:46:21 – 00:46:25: we engage in what I call sort of dehumanizing compliments.
00:46:25 – 00:46:27: Things like, oh, you’re such a machine.
00:46:27 – 00:46:30: And that’s one way also of decreasing similarity
00:46:30 – 00:46:31: of thinking, well, this person got the job
00:46:31 – 00:46:33: because they don’t sleep at night, right?
00:46:33 – 00:46:35: So the fact that I didn’t get it,
00:46:35 – 00:46:38: it’s just because I sleep at night and I have a life,
00:46:38 – 00:46:40: whereas the person doesn’t have a life
00:46:40 – 00:46:41: or something like that.
00:46:41 – 00:46:43: But another way is, as you say,
00:46:43 – 00:46:46: there’s a kind of persuading yourself
00:46:46 – 00:46:47: that you didn’t really want that thing.
00:46:47 – 00:46:50: And sometimes it’s, you know,
00:46:50 – 00:46:52: this kind of what is sometimes called adaptive preference.
00:46:52 – 00:46:54: Sometimes it’s irrational
00:46:54 – 00:46:56: and it’s not a good way of coping with things
00:46:56 – 00:46:57: because perhaps that was something
00:46:57 – 00:46:59: that you really cared about.
00:46:59 – 00:47:01: But it can still be a good thing.
00:47:01 – 00:47:04: Sometimes reshaping our preferences
00:47:04 – 00:47:06: in light of what’s possible,
00:47:06 – 00:47:09: in light of real life constraints
00:47:09 – 00:47:11: is a good coping mechanism, right?
00:47:11 – 00:47:13: Perhaps you were shooting for a job
00:47:13 – 00:47:16: that was just too hard for you to get.
00:47:16 – 00:47:18: Perhaps you’re comparing yourself to someone
00:47:18 – 00:47:20: who’s not really similar to you.
00:47:20 – 00:47:22: Perhaps they are objectively much better than you.
00:47:22 – 00:47:26: And so perhaps you should find a different kind of goal
00:47:26 – 00:47:28: that is more attainable.
00:47:28 – 00:47:30: And finally, another thing that you can do
00:47:30 – 00:47:32: is that you can think about that person.
00:47:32 – 00:47:34: How did that person achieve that goal?
00:47:34 – 00:47:38: If you are right, that that’s the right goal for you
00:47:38 – 00:47:40: and that person is similar to you,
00:47:40 – 00:47:43: you know, you have roughly the same abilities
00:47:43 – 00:47:46: of that colleague and maybe what they did,
00:47:46 – 00:47:47: maybe they were just luckier,
00:47:47 – 00:47:49: but maybe you can learn from them
00:47:49 – 00:47:52: and see how did I get that promotion, right?
00:47:52 – 00:47:53: You can emulate them.
00:47:53 – 00:47:55: And that’s how we get to the final kind of envy,
00:47:55 – 00:47:59: emulative envy, when you’re focused on the good
00:47:59 – 00:48:03: and you feel that you can improve your situation.
00:48:03 – 00:48:05: That’s when you feel emulative envy.
00:48:05 – 00:48:07: And so maybe you can also move from inert
00:48:07 – 00:48:12: to emulative envy by adopting a growth mindset
00:48:12 – 00:48:13: and thinking, you know what?
00:48:13 – 00:48:17: If that person got that job, maybe I can too.
00:48:17 – 00:48:19: I just have to work harder.
00:48:19 – 00:48:22: I have to maybe, you know, change my priorities
00:48:22 – 00:48:24: or adopt a different training,
00:48:24 – 00:48:27: or, you know, depending on what the good is,
00:48:27 – 00:48:29: different things are possible.
00:48:29 – 00:48:31: Well, just to end on inert envy,
00:48:31 – 00:48:33: and then we’ll talk about emulative envy here.
00:48:33 – 00:48:35: But yeah, I like that idea that inert envy,
00:48:35 – 00:48:38: that sort of sulking and just being sad
00:48:38 – 00:48:41: that you don’t have the thing that the other person has,
00:48:41 – 00:48:43: that can actually, I like the idea that it can lead
00:48:43 – 00:48:45: to growth and maybe new opportunities.
00:48:45 – 00:48:47: I think when you were a kid,
00:48:47 – 00:48:48: we’ve probably all experienced that.
00:48:48 – 00:48:51: I remember, there’s like sports I tried out for
00:48:51 – 00:48:52: or activities that I tried out for,
00:48:52 – 00:48:55: because I saw that a friend had that thing
00:48:55 – 00:48:57: or had a talent for that, and they were successful.
00:48:57 – 00:49:00: And I wanted that too, it looked really great.
00:49:00 – 00:49:01: And then I tried the thing,
00:49:01 – 00:49:04: and then I realized like, I’m not very good at this.
00:49:04 – 00:49:07: And I don’t know if I’ll ever get really good at this.
00:49:07 – 00:49:09: But I’m glad I went through that experience
00:49:09 – 00:49:12: because I was able to figure out, well, this isn’t for me.
00:49:12 – 00:49:14: Maybe there’s something else out there
00:49:14 – 00:49:17: that better suits my talents and my proclivities.
00:49:17 – 00:49:19: Yeah, it’s a lesson in humility.
00:49:19 – 00:49:21: I really liked that idea, actually.
00:49:21 – 00:49:24: And I was recently listening to the radio
00:49:24 – 00:49:27: and they were talking about how nowadays,
00:49:27 – 00:49:29: kids specialize too early in sports.
00:49:29 – 00:49:32: And that creates all sorts of problems.
00:49:32 – 00:49:35: Already in high school, if you’re not a very good athlete,
00:49:35 – 00:49:37: you can’t play certain popular sports,
00:49:37 – 00:49:38: which is a pity, right?
00:49:38 – 00:49:42: Because you deprive kids of an important source of fun,
00:49:42 – 00:49:45: of meaning, you stress them too much.
00:49:45 – 00:49:47: And it used to be that people had more of a chance
00:49:47 – 00:49:50: to experiment with different kinds of sports,
00:49:50 – 00:49:53: which I think is a source of richness, right?
00:49:53 – 00:49:55: And I think, especially in this case,
00:49:55 – 00:49:57: you’re right that feeling an envy
00:49:57 – 00:50:00: for someone who’s maybe better than you at basketball.
00:50:00 – 00:50:04: can be a very important lesson in humility,
00:50:04 – 00:50:06: in learning to deal with disappointment,
00:50:06 – 00:50:08: and just learning to deal with the fact
00:50:08 – 00:50:10: that sometimes people are better than us, right?
00:50:10 – 00:50:12: You’re bound, nobody can be good at everything,
00:50:12 – 00:50:14: and what matters is to find something
00:50:14 – 00:50:16: that you enjoy and are good at.
00:50:16 – 00:50:20: But we have to accept that sometimes people are better,
00:50:20 – 00:50:23: and it’s a good experience to have.
00:50:23 – 00:50:25: So yeah, I like your take on this.
00:50:25 – 00:50:27: So let’s talk about emulative envy.
00:50:27 – 00:50:28: This is the positive type of envy.
00:50:28 – 00:50:31: So you described the characteristics there
00:50:31 – 00:50:34: with emulative envy, it’s you’re focused on the good,
00:50:34 – 00:50:36: not on the envied, and then you feel like
00:50:36 – 00:50:38: you can do something about to level yourself up
00:50:38 – 00:50:40: to get that thing.
00:50:40 – 00:50:43: But how is that still, that sounds like a good thing.
00:50:43 – 00:50:44: Like how could that be envy?
00:50:44 – 00:50:46: Like it just sounds like you saw someone,
00:50:46 – 00:50:48: they’re like being an example to you.
00:50:48 – 00:50:50: How is it still envy?
00:50:50 – 00:50:51: Well, it’s still envy.
00:50:51 – 00:50:54: First of all, let’s go back to our definition.
00:50:54 – 00:50:59: It’s still unpleasant when you envy someone,
00:50:59 – 00:51:02: you are perceiving them as superior to you
00:51:02 – 00:51:04: with regard to something that you really care about, right?
00:51:04 – 00:51:08: So it’s still gonna be an unpleasant emotion,
00:51:08 – 00:51:11: and it’s still gonna tell you that that person
00:51:11 – 00:51:13: is superior to you in some respect.
00:51:13 – 00:51:16: So it’s not, a lot of times people ask me
00:51:16 – 00:51:18: how it’s different from admiration,
00:51:18 – 00:51:20: but admiration actually is a very different emotion.
00:51:20 – 00:51:23: First of all, it’s a positive affect emotion.
00:51:23 – 00:51:26: You don’t feel bad when you feel admiration.
00:51:26 – 00:51:28: It’s an affiliative emotion,
00:51:28 – 00:51:30: you want to be closer to the person you admire.
00:51:30 – 00:51:33: And when you envy someone, you might not dislike them,
00:51:33 – 00:51:35: you don’t feel hostility if it’s emulative envy,
00:51:35 – 00:51:40: but still there is a competitive element to it.
00:51:41 – 00:51:45: And usually admiration arises either toward people
00:51:45 – 00:51:46: who are much better than us,
00:51:46 – 00:51:49: and so they are dissimilar in that regard,
00:51:49 – 00:51:51: or it arises with regard to domains
00:51:51 – 00:51:53: that are not self-important.
00:51:54 – 00:51:56: So I admire great scientists,
00:51:56 – 00:52:01: noble peace prizes, people that are very different from me.
00:52:02 – 00:52:05: It is also the motivational tendency of admiration
00:52:05 – 00:52:07: is usually if there is improvement,
00:52:07 – 00:52:11: it’s long-term improvement, and it’s about being inspired,
00:52:11 – 00:52:16: it’s about developing a certain kind of long-term plan,
00:52:16 – 00:52:18: but emulative envy is an emotion
00:52:18 – 00:52:21: that is much more about immediate self-improvement.
00:52:21 – 00:52:24: So they’re very different emotions.
00:52:24 – 00:52:24: Okay, I like that.
00:52:24 – 00:52:26: So admiration, it feels good,
00:52:26 – 00:52:29: it can inspire you to level up,
00:52:29 – 00:52:31: but it’s more in a general way,
00:52:31 – 00:52:33: it’s more of in a long-term way.
00:52:33 – 00:52:35: It’s like when you see people you admire,
00:52:35 – 00:52:38: they’re less likely to be doing
00:52:38 – 00:52:41: the exact same thing that you do.
00:52:41 – 00:52:43: Like when I see people who are doing awesome things
00:52:43 – 00:52:47: in the world that don’t exactly relate to what I’m doing,
00:52:47 – 00:52:49: it doesn’t make me feel bad about myself.
00:52:49 – 00:52:51: I’m just like, man, I’m really glad
00:52:51 – 00:52:53: there’s awesome people out there doing awesome things,
00:52:53 – 00:52:56: sharing their talents with the world.
00:52:56 – 00:53:00: With emulative envy, it does make you feel bad,
00:53:00 – 00:53:01: even if it’s just a little bit.
00:53:01 – 00:53:04: Like you can feel dejected, you feel some shame.
00:53:04 – 00:53:07: You’re like, man, I wanna be like that.
00:53:07 – 00:53:09: But then you feel motivated,
00:53:09 – 00:53:10: become more like that in the short term.
00:53:10 – 00:53:12: It’s more of an immediate thing.
00:53:12 – 00:53:13: Right.
00:53:13 – 00:53:18: So how can people harness emulative envy
00:53:18 – 00:53:21: to improve themselves?
00:53:21 – 00:53:23: I really like this idea that we can use envy
00:53:23 – 00:53:24: for positive gains.
00:53:24 – 00:53:28: I think typically in the philosophical tradition
00:53:28 – 00:53:31: and the psychological research,
00:53:31 – 00:53:33: envy is seen as this bad thing.
00:53:33 – 00:53:36: But I really like this idea that envy can be a spur
00:53:36 – 00:53:39: to improve ourselves in a positive way.
00:53:39 – 00:53:40: Yeah.
00:53:40 – 00:53:43: Yeah, I think the way we can harness its power
00:53:43 – 00:53:48: is to be honest about it, at least with oneself.
00:53:50 – 00:53:53: Because I think the temptation, whenever we feel envy,
00:53:53 – 00:53:57: the temptation is to deny even to ourselves
00:53:57 – 00:54:00: that we’re feeling envy because it is unpleasant
00:54:00 – 00:54:03: and because nobody wants to feel inferior to someone else.
00:54:03 – 00:54:06: But instead, I think we have to kind of mindfully accept it.
00:54:06 – 00:54:09: And first of all, see if it’s fitting,
00:54:10 – 00:54:14: if I emulative envy someone with regard
00:54:14 – 00:54:17: to what’s sometimes called conspicuous consumption,
00:54:17 – 00:54:22: engaging in an arms race of consumeristic goods.
00:54:23 – 00:54:26: Maybe that’s not a good thing.
00:54:26 – 00:54:28: Do I want to emulative envy someone
00:54:28 – 00:54:31: who buys more and more expensive cars?
00:54:31 – 00:54:32: I don’t know.
00:54:32 – 00:54:33: Maybe I’m being moralistic here,
00:54:33 – 00:54:35: but I’m not sure that’s gonna,
00:54:35 – 00:54:37: I think empirical evidence shows
00:54:37 – 00:54:40: that this kind of materialistic goals
00:54:40 – 00:54:42: don’t really lead us to be happier.
00:54:42 – 00:54:44: But if I’m envying someone
00:54:44 – 00:54:45: because they’re a better philosopher,
00:54:45 – 00:54:49: they’re a better writer, they’re a stronger athlete,
00:54:49 – 00:54:51: or they’re a better parent,
00:54:51 – 00:54:53: I mean, there are all sorts of things that we can envy.
00:54:53 – 00:54:55: They’re actually good.
00:54:55 – 00:54:56: They’re good goals.
00:54:56 – 00:54:58: And so we can look at how these people
00:54:58 – 00:55:00: are achieving their goals.
00:55:00 – 00:55:07: goals and use them as models for us to follow.
00:55:07 – 00:55:12: And I think it’s one thing that we could all do, and I notice people who know me do that
00:55:12 – 00:55:18: more now, is to just confess our envy and de-stigmatize and accept that it’s a normal
00:55:18 – 00:55:19: emotion.
00:55:19 – 00:55:25: And once it’s out there, I think it’s easier to say, you know what, I’m envious of you
00:55:25 – 00:55:30: and I think I want to do what you do.
00:55:30 – 00:55:35: And maybe if we de-stigmatize this kind of emotion, then the envied can also provide
00:55:35 – 00:55:37: advice and support, right?
00:55:37 – 00:55:43: They can, instead of being scared by our envy, because they think it’s a dangerous thing,
00:55:43 – 00:55:49: then they can, you know, generously and gracefully acknowledge that, yeah, you know, my situation
00:55:49 – 00:55:54: is enviable, but, you know, let me help you achieve the same goal.
00:55:54 – 00:55:59: So I think there does need to be a societal change with regard to envy, because I think
00:55:59 – 00:56:05: also the envied have some sort of duty to share how they got what they have.
00:56:05 – 00:56:10: Yeah, that can be scary, though, for the envied, because you hear over and over again, like,
00:56:10 – 00:56:16: you have to fear envy, because if someone envies you, it means they might take what
00:56:16 – 00:56:20: you have or might want to just replace you or just get rid of you or take what you have.
00:56:21 – 00:56:26: I think we’ve all, I know there’s people in my life that I’ve encountered, and there’s
00:56:26 – 00:56:30: this friend of mine who, he’s like this awesome dad, he’s really crafty, he can, you know,
00:56:30 – 00:56:36: just build things, he can whip up a treehouse, and whenever I see what he does for his kids,
00:56:36 – 00:56:37: it makes me feel bad.
00:56:37 – 00:56:41: I’m like, man, I’m not a good dad in that regard.
00:56:41 – 00:56:45: But at the same time, it’s like, I don’t begrudge, I don’t feel, I don’t want to, like, punch
00:56:45 – 00:56:47: him in the face, because it makes me feel bad.
00:56:47 – 00:56:51: So that actually inspires me, that I should learn some new skills, I should get on YouTube
00:56:51 – 00:56:53: and learn how to make a treehouse.
00:56:53 – 00:56:54: Yeah, yeah.
00:56:54 – 00:56:58: And there are some scholars who now, you know, they think that, so there’s this idea in moral
00:56:58 – 00:57:05: philosophy that moral education has largely to do with moral exemplars.
00:57:05 – 00:57:09: We learn to be good by looking at other people who are good, you know, learning to be good
00:57:09 – 00:57:13: is not something that you can learn from books, it’s not like math or physics.
00:57:13 – 00:57:17: And so within this idea of moral exemplars, there are some scholars now who are talking
00:57:17 – 00:57:21: about inspiring envy, right, just like you mentioned.
00:57:21 – 00:57:26: And so this is a kind of emulative envy that has to do with being inspired and trying to
00:57:26 – 00:57:31: become better by looking at how people are.
00:57:31 – 00:57:36: And so people are using this idea of inspiration as a consequence of emulative envy.
00:57:36 – 00:57:38: Okay, so let’s go through the different types of envy.
00:57:38 – 00:57:41: We have spiteful envy, that’s the worst kind.
00:57:41 – 00:57:45: That’s when we say, it should have been me, and if it can’t be me, no one’s going to have
00:57:45 – 00:57:46: it.
00:57:46 – 00:57:50: Then you have aggressive envy, and that’s, we say, it should be me.
00:57:50 – 00:57:55: And so we’ll just push the ballerina down the stairs, so they’re not the lead ballerina
00:57:55 – 00:57:56: anymore.
00:57:56 – 00:57:59: Then we have inert envy, where we just kind of mope and say, oh, it could have been me.
00:57:59 – 00:58:02: I could have been a contender and nothing I can do about it.
00:58:02 – 00:58:07: But inert envy might have some value, can you, during that sulking, you can maybe think
00:58:07 – 00:58:10: of new ways, reevaluate your goals in life.
00:58:10 – 00:58:14: And then emulative envy, it’s positive, we say to ourselves, it could be me, right?
00:58:14 – 00:58:18: I see someone doing great, they make me feel bad, because I am inferior to them, but they
00:58:18 – 00:58:20: inspire me to get better.
00:58:20 – 00:58:21: Exactly.
00:58:21 – 00:58:22: I love that.
00:58:22 – 00:58:27: So, I mean, here’s the question, is it possible to never feel envy?
00:58:27 – 00:58:30: Like, some people still have that idea that all types of envy are bad.
00:58:30 – 00:58:35: I think we made the case that some envy is worse than others.
00:58:35 – 00:58:38: But let’s say, like, someone wants to be like, well, I just, I never feel envy.
00:58:38 – 00:58:39: Is that possible?
00:58:39 – 00:58:44: I mean, you know, is it conceptually possible?
00:58:44 – 00:58:45: Sure.
00:58:45 – 00:58:48: Is it realistically, psychologically possible?
00:58:48 – 00:58:49: I doubt it.
00:58:49 – 00:58:53: I mean, you know, it’s hard to answer this question empirically, because envy is an emotion
00:58:53 – 00:58:54: that hides itself.
00:58:54 – 00:59:01: Again, we are taught to inhibit and suppress envy from an early age in most cultures and
00:59:01 – 00:59:05: traditions where envy is condemned as an immoral emotion.
00:59:05 – 00:59:11: And so, of course, we tend to not admit envy even to ourselves.
00:59:11 – 00:59:14: And so, when you run a study and you want to try and see if people feel envy, there’s
00:59:14 – 00:59:18: going to be some people who will manage to hide their envy.
00:59:18 – 00:59:19: And of course, people are idiosyncratic.
00:59:19 – 00:59:23: I mean, I’m sure there are some people who never feel envy, just like there are some
00:59:23 – 00:59:25: people who never feel empathy.
00:59:25 – 00:59:26: Some people never feel guilt.
00:59:26 – 00:59:29: I mean, you know, human beings can be pretty weird, right?
00:59:29 – 00:59:35: But for most of us, I think the social psychological evidence show that most people feel envy
00:59:36 – 00:59:42: Children who have not been socialized fully to hide their envy actually feel a lot of envy.
00:59:42 – 00:59:46: Small children are envious of anyone all the time.
00:59:46 – 00:59:50: You know, sometimes they are also envious of people who are not similar to them because
00:59:50 – 00:59:53: they can’t draw those distinctions.
00:59:53 – 00:59:57: Anthropologists tell us that there is no culture void of envy that has been discovered so far.
00:59:57 – 00:59:59: So, you know, is it possible?
01:00:00 – 01:00:06: to never feel envy? At some level, I guess the answer is perhaps yes for some special individuals,
01:00:07 – 01:00:12: but I think most of us feel envy at least sometimes. Some people do tend to be more
01:00:12 – 01:00:17: envious than others, like with anything else, but I’m personally skeptical. Whenever someone
01:00:17 – 01:00:24: tells me, oh, I never feel envy, I have my doubts. And I think that either they define envy in a
01:00:24 – 01:00:30: different way. Perhaps, again, they think of times where they feel positive, benign envy as being
01:00:30 – 01:00:38: jealous. So yeah, I’m skeptical that people can never feel envy. It’s a normal… I mean,
01:00:38 – 01:00:44: and we know, again, also the literature on social comparison tell us that we compare ourselves to
01:00:44 – 01:00:50: other people all the time, inadvertently, unconsciously, automatically. So we might not
01:00:50 – 01:00:55: realize that we’re feeling envy, but we do. Well, you highlight research from psychology
01:00:55 – 01:01:00: and social science, and even philosophers have talked about this. If the goal in life is to
01:01:00 – 01:01:05: pursue excellence, flourishing, well, how do you know what is a flourishing life? How do you know
01:01:05 – 01:01:10: what an excellent life is? Well, you have to compare, right? It’s like, am I a good parent?
01:01:10 – 01:01:13: What does a good parent look like? And how do I stack up to good parents? Or am I a good
01:01:13 – 01:01:19: philosophy professor? Or am I a good podcaster? So you have to compare. And in that comparison,
01:01:20 – 01:01:25: you’re going to likely experience some type of envy. Yeah, I mean, excellence, when we think
01:01:25 – 01:01:29: about how to define excellence, I mean, this excellence, this can get complicated, but in
01:01:29 – 01:01:36: simple terms, it’s being quite above average. There is no concept of average that is non-comparative.
01:01:37 – 01:01:44: Even when you think about parenting, what used to be a good father is not the same as what is a good
01:01:44 – 01:01:49: father now, right? It used to be you don’t beat your children, and you come home for dinner,
01:01:49 – 01:01:54: and you glance at your children every now and then, great parent, that great father, at least,
01:01:54 – 01:01:58: that’s not the same thing anymore. And how do you know that? Well, you compare, right? Even if you
01:01:58 – 01:02:03: don’t compare yourself to, I can believe that someone says, I don’t compare myself to other
01:02:03 – 01:02:09: parents. I mean, I doubt it, but I will pretend to believe it. But maybe you compare yourself to your
01:02:09 – 01:02:14: father, right? How many people say, oh, compared to my father, I’m such a good father or mother.
01:02:14 – 01:02:19: We compare all the time, and that’s how we know if we are a good parent, a good philosopher,
01:02:19 – 01:02:26: a good podcaster, and so on. Right, so envy might be the price we have to pay sometimes for
01:02:26 – 01:02:33: excellence. Yes, yes, that’s well put. And again, in some cases, it’s a hefty price, and in some
01:02:33 – 01:02:39: cases, it’s not. But definitely, it’s a price because it’s not a pleasant emotion. So in that
01:02:39 – 01:02:44: regard, yes, it’s a price. And I guess the goal is, the aim should be, if we’re going to experience
01:02:44 – 01:02:50: envy, at least let it be that more productive, emulative envy. And that just requires,
01:02:51 – 01:02:55: yeah, you have to kind of do work mentally inside yourself. Okay, I’m going to focus on the thing
01:02:55 – 01:03:00: and then think about what can I do to level myself up instead of leveling that other person down.
01:03:00 – 01:03:07: Yes, and a similar emotion in this respect, I think, is grief. We can’t have love without grief.
01:03:08 – 01:03:15: We can’t have, you know, the exciting part about being with someone we love without paying the
01:03:15 – 01:03:19: price of grieving them when they’re gone or when they abandon us, right? But there are
01:03:20 – 01:03:27: more helpful ways of feeling grief, more productive ways of feeling grief than others.
01:03:27 – 01:03:32: And so I think the same thing goes for envy. Well, Sarah, this has been a great conversation.
01:03:32 – 01:03:39: Where can people go to learn more about your work? So I have a simple webpage that can be
01:03:39 – 01:03:44: easily found by Googling me, but that’s not always as updated as I would like it to be.
01:03:44 – 01:03:51: So you can find me on social media, X, and I have a Facebook public profile. And for those who are
01:03:51 – 01:03:56: very philosophically minded, there is a website for philosophers called PhilPapers. And I always
01:03:56 – 01:04:03: upload my work there. So even people who don’t have access to, you know, scientific journals,
01:04:03 – 01:04:05: I always put my papers there so they can be read there.
01:04:06 – 01:04:08: Fantastic. Well, Sarah Portassi, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.
01:04:09 – 01:04:10: Thank you so much.
01:04:11 – 01:04:14: My guest today was Sarah Portassi. She’s the author of the book, The Philosophy of Envy.
01:04:14 – 01:04:18: It’s available on Amazon.com. Check out our show notes at awm.is slash envy.
01:04:18 – 01:04:21: Find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic.
01:04:28 – 01:04:32: Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at
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Summary

This text explores the different types of envy, including spiteful envy, aggressive envy, inert envy, and emulative envy. Emulative envy is seen as a positive emotion that can inspire individuals to improve themselves. Envy is a common emotion that is often suppressed and hidden, but research suggests that most people feel it, especially children who have not yet learned to hide it. Envy arises from the need to compare oneself to others in order to determine excellence or success in different areas of life. Rather than viewing envy as a negative emotion, it can be seen as a potential source of inspiration and motivation for personal development. The goal should be to transform envy into emulative envy by focusing on personal growth rather than bringing others down. The text also compares the emotions of envy and grief, highlighting that both have more productive and helpful ways of experiencing them. The guest, Sarah Portas, discusses her work on envy and provides her website and social media profiles for more information.

Outline

00:00:00 – 00:00:45: Introduction: Diminishing Headlights and Envy
00:00:45 – 00:01:15: Sylvania’s Lighting Solutions
00:01:15 – 00:01:58: The Neglected Emotion of Envy
00:01:58 – 00:02:16: The Philosophy of Envy
00:02:16 – 00:02:41: Sarah Pertassi: Envy Researcher
00:02:41 – 00:03:07: Sarah’s Personal Connection to Envy
00:03:07 – 00:04:35: Envy in Society and Dance
00:04:35 – 00:05:59: Why Envy Is Overlooked
00:05:59 – 00:07:43: Defining Envy
00:07:43 – 00:08:42: Envy vs. Jealousy
00:08:42 – 00:12:58: The Four Types of Envy
00:12:58 – 00:14:39: Spiteful Envy: Spoiling the Good
00:14:39 – 00:00:00: Aggressive Envy: Taking What You Envy
00:00:00 – 00:05:11: Introduction to Envy and its Types
00:05:11 – 00:12:23: Types of Envy: Spiteful Envy
00:12:23 – 00:19:13: Types of Envy: Aggressive Envy
00:19:13 – 00:24:22: Types of Envy: Inert Envy
00:24:22 – 00:28:36: Dealing with Inert Envy
00:28:36 – 00:31:56: Types of Envy: Emulative Envy
00:31:56 – 00:33:46: Harnessing Emulative Envy for Personal Growth
00:33:46 – 00:35:14: Is it Possible to Never Feel Envy?
00:35:14 – 00:36:09: Envy as a Price for Excellence
00:36:09 – 01:05:28: Conclusion and Where to Learn More

Keywords

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