confession

| | Comments (5)

There are words I do not know. 'schadenfreude', for example. I have seen it all over the place, but even in context I just don't get it. I guess I will have to bite the bullet and look it up in the dictionary.

5 Comments

Schadenfreude: taking pleasure or rejoicing in the miseries, downfall, etc. of somebody else. Used to be called "morose delectation" in the old moral manuals before the Germans lent us their word.

karen marie

"malicious glee" is the best translation. If Jack Chick walked into a telephone pole.

The literal translation is "shadow joy". Instead of being bright, like real joy, it's dark because it's only the simulacrum of pleasure that comes from another's misfortune. I must confess that it's something of which I'm too often guilty.

Once you get used to it, it is a handy word.

I find it helpful in the confessional since I tend to have a problem with it, and saying schadenfreude saves a lot of time. Rather than a prolonged description of how I should have felt pity, sympathy, empathy etc . but what I really I felt in my soul was a curious sense of satisfaction. (eg. "I found myself beset with barely disguisable schadenfreude when the hot-shot bond trader who bought our old house and poured (an ill gotten)$2 million into it was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud.")

"Schade" is "harm", and of course "Freude" is "joy", so ...

February 2013

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28    
The WeatherPixie
CURRENT MOON

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by alicia published on March 21, 2004 12:18 PM.

what saint are you? was the previous entry in this blog.

interesting sites is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.