[ExI] Envy by Helmut Shoeck

[Lee Corbin]

Dan writes

> [Lee wrote]
> 
>> Don't forget the signaling effect of keeping the same subject
>> line.  It can be read "I am too busy, and have far more
>> important things to think about and to work on  than futzing
>> with such details."  As Keith has remarked, so much we
>> do is really about status.
> 
> This reminds me of that book by Helmut Shoeck -- _Envy_.
> Has anyone here read it?

Yes, we had a bit of discussion about it in October 2006
under the inappropriate subject line "Humor: evil eye"
(my fault).

>  Reading it, a few years ago, I started to pick up on envy
> in other people's and my behavior.  (Or maybe the truth is, I'm reading
> the book into my life rather than finding firming evidence.:)

I wrote back in October 2006:

     I think that the author of a book I'm reading, "Envy" by
     Helmut Shoeck, is onto something:

     There is an ongoing unconscious conspiracy to ignore
     the role of envy in human affairs and as an explanation for
     much of human conduct.  I attribute this mainly to the
     reluctance by anthropologists and other sensitive people
     to criticize primitive societies, in which envy plays such an
     overpowering role.

I would now also add that recognition of the role of envy also
implicitly criticizes many of the poor, and we can't have that. 

Lee