What Is the Antidote to or Antonym for Schadenfreude?

anti-Schadenfreudian

Everyone is always talking about Schadenfreude, the pleasure of other people’s suffering. So many people apparently delight in their fellows experiencing pain that a term, lifted from the German (Schaden means damage and Freude, joy), and employed regularly by psychoanalysts, has become almost a colloquialism. Schadenfreude is as ubiquitous as cocksucker or fuck you. But what is the opposite of Schadenfreude asks our friend the East Village poet, Elinor Nauen? Is there a word for it? Googling antonyms one comes up with an internet exchange in which “Mitgefuhl,” the German word for compassion is suggested. Fat chance you’re going to come across many mitgefuhlians at New York literary cocktail parties where a veneer of humanism camouflages a cannibalistic dog eat dog subculture. And it really doesn’t hit the nail on the head. If Schadenfreude is like a sigh of relief when one realizes someone is worse off rather than better off than you, then the opposite would be a full fledged enjoyment of say a rival snagging the boy you wanted to marry or publishing that Great American novel you had spent years writing and for which all you have to show are a batch of form rejection letters. The opposite of Schadenfreude is enjoying it when someone has money and a wonderfully satisfying love life when your sexual dysfunctionality is only exceeded by the wretchedness of your financial state; it’s enjoying relinquishing the yellow shirt in the Tour de France, when another rider has put up the good fight. But what's a word which encompasses this sloppy, generous kiss to human existence, this Buddha like drool of altruism that only a baby oceanic ally connected to its mother’s womb experiences? If you are looking for German words there is Vergangenheitsbewaltegung which means dealing with the burden of the past and Gesellschaftsgeschichte, which is the history of society, but these are not antidotes for those who feel at home in the Salem Witch Hunts or with sinners being being tortured by the likes of Tomas de Torquemada. It turns out that trying to find a compound word that is the opposite of Schadenfreude is like finding a needle in a haystack. Mitgefuhl? Nein.

Kwangmyongsong-3 Unit 2

The question is, was the launching of the satellite by the North Koreans, a stillbirth? The Times   interviewed a Harvard astronomer named Jonathan McDowell who said, “It’s spinning or tumbling and we haven’t picked up any transmissions. Those two things are most consistent with the satellite being entirely inactive at this point.” (“Astonomers Say North Korean Satellitge is Mostly Likely Dead,” NYT, 12/17/12) Meanwhile the Times also reported that the North Korean “state media” have been portraying the launch as a resounding success, claiming that the satellite is broadcasting such hot songs as “Song of Gen. Kim Il-sung” and “Song of Gen. Kim Jong-il” while “South Korean media detected what they considered a visibly swollen belly” on Ri Sol-ju, the wife of the new North Korean leader.  Schadenfreude is a German word that is used by psychoanalysts to describe the enjoyment of another person’s suffering. If we take pleasure in hearing that something bad has happened to an enemy, we suffer from Schadenfreude. Being able to enjoy the success of someone we hate or who threatens us might be the equivalent of turning the other cheek. Ri Sol-ju’s miscarrying would be a great triumph for the Schadenfreudians, but the birth of a healthy baby and the satellite launch proving such a success that Song of Gen. Kim Jong-il becomes a phenomenon on You Tube would at the very least be a challenge to those turn the other cheekers who might not like Kim Jong-un’s militaristic politics. Meanwhile get the name of the satellite, Kwangmyongsong-3 Unit 2.  A moniker like that poses a communications problem all its own.

The Drunken Boat

When you first hear that someone is suffering from an illness, romantic rejection, or financial setback, you respond with instantaneous demonstrations of sympathy, obligatory offers to do whatever you can (which is usually nothing), and self-congratulatory wails of indignation (which barely mask the schadenfreude—yes, like larceny, there is a little joy in others' suffering in everyone). But response to calamity is incremental. It comes in little waves. First there is shock, then relief (that it is not you), and then the blaming begins. They ate badly and didn’t do anything about the stress (victims of heart disease and cancer), didn’t really mind the books (financial disaster), didn’t see the writing on the wall (love). Calamity is frightening not so much for what it does to others, but because it can happen to you. But at least you can be assured that the victims of tragedy were responsible for their own demise. What a relief! All one has to do is avoid what unfortunate X, Y or Z does, and you won’t get cancer, fail in business, or lose a lover. Better yet, you won’t lose a business to a loved one who runs away with someone else because they’re afraid they’re dying of cancer and want to live for today! The unfortunate aspect to this reasoned approach to human loss is that it isolates the victim. Yes it’s bad, but if you have as little to do with him or her and go out of your way to avoid emulating their behavior, then you will be spared. It was sad about all those who went down with the Titanic, but none of this would have happened if they hadn’t taken a boat.

Empathophobia

There is nothing worse than coming upon a like-minded person. You feel the carpet has been pulled from under you the moment they start to identify with what you’ve said. It begins like one of those tremors that precede an earthquake. The tectonic plates begin to shift and before long there is a full eruption in which your own singular experiences are usurped by an outpouring that turns your inner life to Pompeii. If there is one thing that is nice about any experience, good or bad, it’s that it’s yours. Possession is nine tenths of the law, but now it turns out that your life history is not so special, and the selfsame set of occurrences have been the province of someone else, who has in all likelihood done a better job. Curiosity is nice, but it’s terribly deflating to come upon someone who understands exactly how you’re feeling. If they’ve been divorced as many times as you, then somehow the pain is trivialized. The same is true of the death of a parent or loved one. They have been through it all. After all, at some point everyone goes through it. But what good is such knowledge? The economy of scale produced by the fact that calamity occurs on more than one playing field doesn’t reduce the individual impact. Rather, it spreads it thin. If everybody breaks their leg, gets cancer, or is cheated on by their lover, it shouldn’t lessen the fact that this is my broken leg, my cancer, my cuckold’s horns. And just remember, the converse applies too. Hearing someone talk movingly about a life-changing experience, there’s always the temptation to say, “Me too!” But it’s precisely at times like these that it’s best to shut up.