(no subject)

[theweaselking]

"Schadenfreude" - People keep using this word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

The feeling you get when you read this is not schadenfreude. Not unless you feel *bad* about the incompetent fuckwit cheerleader for war criminals being unemployable because he's an incompetent fuckwit cheerleader for war criminals.

This feeling is not schadenfreude. Schadenfreude involves guilty - the feeling that you maybe *shouldn't* be happy about this.

Comments

[jdarkwulf.livejournal.com]

Main Entry: scha·den·freu·de
Pronunciation: \ˈshä-dən-ˌfrȯi-də\
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy
Date: 1895
: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude.: "Schadenfreude is the best form of joy."

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Really? Because...well, I know that Avenue Q isn't always the best source, but they're pretty clear that it's "happiness at the misfortune of others." Google backs this up--none of the definitions I see require guilt.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I most certainly have that guilt. After all, I try to keep my karmic balance absolutely as neutral as possible, so that in my reincarnation phase I may reside in nirvana.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

All the definitions I've ever seen involve it being a *guilty* pleasure.

I could be wrong!

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I guess it's how you define a "guilty pleasure." Schadenfreude itself is a guilty pleasure--you know that karmically it's not healthy to laugh at other people's misfortunes. But that doesn't mean you have to feel guilty about the misfortune itself.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Can I feel pleasure about his guilt?

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Schadenfreude, I have always heard it said, is "malicious delight at the misfortune of others" -- not guilty, but actively full of malice.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

How many NeoConTards do you know that feel guilty about fucking the poor, the brown, the distant?

Guilt implies a conscience.

Then again, I am assuming that those fuckers can have any feelings whatsoever.

[squizzlzilla.livejournal.com]

I don't usually take much pleasure in the misfortune of others, but in this case i'm prepared to make an exception.

But then, it's not really misfortune, is it. He appears rather to have lied repeatedly and with malice aforethought, and so now finds himself hung out to dry.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

And I didn't feel the least bit of joy, Schaede or otherwise, because that fucker still makes more for a single private speaking engagement than I make in two years. There are still people missing body parts or decades from their lives - or their lives altogether - because he lacks a conscience. He'll set up his own goddamned practice once he's unilaterally pardoned by the outgoing President and they'll specialise in being a thinktank and drawing up NeoCon policy. And he'll make more in one private speaking engagement than I'll make in three years, and will eventually get back into the White House under some other NeoConTard.

[squizzlzilla.livejournal.com]

what you said.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

He's not been hung out to dry.

Consider the example of George Gordon Battle Liddy.

Consider the example of Ben Stein.

Consider Kissinger, consider Ashcroft.

It is merely a matter of time.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Does he have any?

[boixboi.livejournal.com]

Quite simply, no. Schadenfruede is simply the joy you feel at the suffering of others. No sense of guilt is implied, although most people will admit that this sort of thing is a "guilty pleasure," given that it is not particularly acceptable or nice. It is frequently used when referring to the pitfalls of people close to you (e.g. ex-boy/girlfriends, annoying co-workers, particularly evil relatives), the sort of people you don't feel much guilt at all for wishing harm upon.

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Take it from a native speaker of german: you're wrong.

Schadenfreude is feeling joy because someone else is somehow miserable. That's it.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Guilt is horseshit.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Very well! It is schadenfreude!

[catcom.livejournal.com]

Well, in a legal sense...

[fearmeforiampink]

There is the issue of 'how people use it' gradually overruling the dictionary definition, and people seem to use it as "A malicious pleasure at the misfortune of others" or "pleasure at the misfortune of others which you think you probably should feel guilty about"

[richboye.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I always fancy that when I am a wealthy tycoon I will have a palatial yacht whom I shall christen the U.S.S. Schadenfreude.

Just 'cause.