When bad things happen to other people / John Portmann.
""Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies," Gore Vidal once observed. It's funny, it's terrible, and it's true. What is it in human nature that makes us derive pleasure from others' - even friends' - suffering? John Portmann explores this all...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Routledge,
2000.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Publisher description |
| Summary: | ""Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies," Gore Vidal once observed. It's funny, it's terrible, and it's true. What is it in human nature that makes us derive pleasure from others' - even friends' - suffering? John Portmann explores this all-too-human foible - what the Germans call Schadenfreude - in the first book ever written about this universal emotion." "Disagreement about suffering - what it is, who deserves it, and how much - has compelled philosophers for centuries. Portmann humanizes Schadenfreude by investigating what diverse thinkers like Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Freud, or Toni Morrison said about it. But Portmann does even more. Using Schadenfreude as a springboard, he explores pressing issues in contemporary society. For instance, what does our insatiable appetite for media images depicting power, scandal, and betrayal tell us about our culture? And, is capital punishment a modern-day euphemism for revenge?"--Jacket. |
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| Physical Description: | xxi, 242 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0415923344 9780415923347 0415923352 9780415923354 0203903552 9780203903551 |