The Catbird Seat

What the heck is “Schadenfreude”? you’re probably thinking to yourself right now.

It was the Word of the Day on Merriam-Webster.com on July 19th.

No, silly girl. What does it mean? you reply.

Of course. I beg your pardon.

The dictionary definition is: “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.”

Oh. How do you say it? you nonchalantly ask, knowing that if you can pronounce it correctly, you’ll sound uber-intelligent when you use it in conversation with your coworkers tomorrow.

SHAH-dun-froy-duh.

SHAH-dun-froy-duh, you rehearse in your head.

So WTHCATA? (Who The Heck Cares About This Anyway? {thanks, Grant, for that one!})

I do.

For some reason this word has stayed with me for almost a week now. Maybe the reason is this quote from the M-W full description of schadenfreude

“What a fearful thing is it that any language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others,” wrote Richard Trench of Dublin, an archbishop with literary predilections, of the German “Schadenfreude” in 1852

It sunk a barb in me.

At my birthday celebration at PF Chang’s last week, I told the girls about this word.

One of the girls told a hilarious story about a friend seeing a mutual acquaintance in the grocery store. The friend was going to say a pleasant “Hello!”, but stopped short when he noticed the acquaintance had managed to get her skirt fully caught in her underwear to the extent that one whole cheek (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know-what-I-mean?) was clearly exposed.

All us girls at the table were already laughing, but the icing on the cake was the description of the acquaintance: beautiful, always perfectly coiffed, finger- and toenails professionally painted, expensively and nicely dressed, never without full-face makeup.

Oh, and don’t forget…rich and uppity.

Not only did the friend not speak, he also didn’t mention her obviously visible unmentionables.

The reason why the Germans invented the word “schadenfreude”, and why sweet little archbishop Trench was so horrified by it is the fact that it smacks of revenge.

Socially acceptable revenge. If not revenge, then justice, at least.

After all, the world as we know it is pretty darn unfair.

Mean, cruel people wind up rich and powerful. Beautiful girls sometimes “steal” your boyfriend. Ungracious and ungrateful women marry “up” and never have to work a day in their lives, or even raise their own children.

It’s no wonder we delight in other’s misfortunes sometimes.

The toilet paper on the bottom of the shoe…
The green piece of food stuck embarrassingly in between the two front teeth…
The unzipped “fly”…
The cup of coffee spilled on a crisp, freshly laundered white shirt…

And that’s just the little stuff; I could go on and on.

We rejoice because we feel like Fate just leveled the playing field, even if for just a moment.

Yet, if we believe in a just God, the God who said, “Vengeance is mine” (Romans 12:19) and “For I, the LORD, love justice;” (Isa 61:8), then we must concede our desire for schadenfreude, and let God be the judge.

And we should probably read and practice the rest of the Romans passage and take great solace in the Isaiah passage.

Maybe then we’d no longer have a use for the word schadenfreude.

Filed under: General, Catbird, Like a fire, Random Thoughts on July 26th, 2006