The Art of Manliness - Unpacking The Emotion No One Likes to Talk About

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.980 of all the emotions there's one that people are arguably the most reluctant to talk about and

00:00:15.820 admit to feeling envy not only is there very little social discussion of envy but there's

00:00:21.480 also been very little academic scholarship on the topic as a result few people really

00:00:26.380 understand this emotion what it is why they feel it and what it means in their life today we'll

00:00:32.280 reveal the fascinating dimensions of the green-eyed monster with one of the few people

00:00:35.680 has given a lot of thought and studied this oft neglected but important subject sarah pertassi

00:00:40.360 a professor of philosophy and the author of the philosophy of envy today on the show sarah

00:00:45.980 defines it and explains how it's different from jealousy and why people are more comfortable

00:00:49.960 admitting to feeling jealous than envious sarah then unpacks what she thinks of the four types

00:00:54.620 of envy we work away from the worst type to a kind that is actually redeemable potentially

00:00:59.040 beneficial we enter a conversation with how envy something that's often considered the worst kind

00:01:03.980 of vice can in fact be used to achieve more excellence in your life after the show's over

00:01:09.640 check out our show notes at aom.is slash envy all right sarah pertassi welcome to the show

00:01:26.220 thank you so much for having me i'm really excited so you are a professor of philosophy and you have

00:01:32.020 written a book called the philosophy of envy now i imagine a lot of people didn't think there's a

00:01:37.540 philosophy of envy i'm curious what led you to take this deep dive into this emotion yes i get

00:01:43.820 asked this a lot and it's always a little embarrassing to answer i have to say because

00:01:48.080 sometimes people ask me so are you a very envious person and even though you know i defend envy it's

00:01:53.940 always a little hard to answer that question and i don't know if i'm a more envious person than the

00:01:59.560 average person but i definitely have always been deeply aware of my envy i talk a little bit about

00:02:06.000 this in the book even when i was a small child preparing for the first communion so not so small

00:02:11.720 about 10 years old i remember thinking that envy was clearly the worst of the deadly sins and that

00:02:18.520 was partially because i felt that nobody else confessed their envy or talked about their envy and

00:02:23.680 so i must surely have been the only one feeling this this green-eyed monster inside me and also

00:02:30.780 as a dancer i've always seen a lot of envy among dancers and then there is other stuff that only my

00:02:36.440 therapist knows about so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna tell you everything and so partially it's a

00:02:41.780 personal reaction a personal interest and partially it's because when i started looking into the topic

00:02:47.720 while there were some historical accounts there wasn't a lot of contemporary philosophy on envy and so

00:02:54.240 i always like to investigate topics that have been neglected so you do ballet correct yes i do

00:03:00.760 yeah and speaking of i i haven't seen the movie but like the black swan i think there's there's an

00:03:06.040 element of envy in that film correct absolutely and actually i use many clips or many images from

00:03:12.160 black swan in some of my presentations i have to say i'm not a fan of horrors so i've seen some scenes

00:03:18.580 but i haven't been able to watch the whole movie but i do think that that movie exemplifies

00:03:23.840 some things about envy and definitely the stereotype of envious dancers which is something i rely

00:03:30.460 on and again i don't think it's just a stereotype i do think that all the four kinds of envy that i

00:03:35.940 talk about in the book which we'll talk about later probably can be found very easily in the ballet world

00:03:42.440 so you mentioned that there's not a lot out there written about envy why do you think it gets overlooked

00:03:47.740 well i do wonder if to some extent it is a matter of the moral and social stigma attached to it

00:03:56.920 as people know that usually envy is considered this unconfessable emotion this emotion that cannot

00:04:02.260 be confessed and also it's just a bad thing for many people you know if you ask them what do you

00:04:07.480 think about envy they will think that it's something bad and so i do wonder if that has affected even the

00:04:14.520 scholarship on it it's interesting because you know i had a i edited a collection an interdisciplinary

00:04:21.080 collection on envy and there were some psychologists who was writing for it and he

00:04:25.240 jan crucios he's one of the experts on envy and he looked at the empirical investigation of emotions in

00:04:31.600 the last few decades and even though there has been a lot of work on emotions even even in psychology

00:04:37.680 envy is comparatively more neglected and so it's not just philosophy in in many and even for instance when

00:04:44.660 i look for literature on envy in sociology aside from a classical work from the 1960s there's basically

00:04:51.460 nothing so it's it's not just philosophy there is an interdisciplinary fear of envy that i think even

00:04:57.700 affects its research so let's get uh socratic here and do definitions so envy is a word i think we've

00:05:04.700 heard a lot we use it a lot but i think if you're to ask people like what exactly is envy some people

00:05:10.340 would give you kind of a vague description of what it is so what exactly is envy yes so i'm going to

00:05:18.800 give you a long definition and then i'm going to explain it because it's a mouthful so i define envy as

00:05:24.940 an aversive response to a perceived disadvantage or inferiority vis-a-vis a similar other with regard to

00:05:33.800 a domain of self-importance that can motivate to level up or down so it sounds complicated

00:05:40.220 but it's not too complicated so first of all envy is aversive with regard to affect it means that

00:05:46.440 it's painful or unpleasant it's something that we usually don't like feeling and why do we feel this

00:05:53.000 kind of painful feeling well that's because we perceive someone else as being in a superior position

00:05:59.520 as having some kind of advantage as being better as coming off better than us and this is meaningful

00:06:06.060 this inferiority is not just painful but it also it's also it says something about us because the

00:06:11.420 other person is similar to us in some respect and because this inferiority or disadvantage is felt with

00:06:19.060 regard to what psychologists call a domain of self-importance which means that it's relevant to

00:06:24.820 our sense of identity it's something that it's important to us and finally because we perceive

00:06:30.260 ourselves to be inferior there's this gap that needs to be overcome and we can overcome in in one of two

00:06:37.200 ways we can level up by which i means we can push ourselves to the level of the other person or we can

00:06:44.600 level down we can pull the other person back to our level so to speak and so you know for example

00:06:51.540 imagine that i say i'm envious of i don't know a colleague of mine another philosopher right and so that

00:06:59.400 means that i i'm pained by the fact that i see this person as being a little better than me perhaps i think

00:07:05.280 of them as having superior philosophical talents and they're a philosopher imagine that you know i'm likely

00:07:10.780 to be envious of someone who's roughly my same age right i'm not going to be envious of a very young

00:07:16.480 colleague or a much older colleague who has had a lot of time to say develop their research but i'll likely

00:07:22.620 compare myself to someone who's more or less my age or you know the same kind of job as me and of course

00:07:28.820 being a philosopher is something that is very relevant to me and i will be motivated to get rid of this

00:07:34.480 painful feeling either by becoming as good as them or perhaps somehow by making them be worse and we can

00:07:41.860 talk later about the ways in which this can happen okay so in this definition that you have this has been

00:07:47.540 influenced by other philosophers aristotle in his rhetoric came up with a very similar definition of envy that

00:07:55.140 you described you know he talks about it's a social emotion we feel it when we experience that pain of

00:08:01.020 inferiority to someone who is our equal he talks about here he says we usually don't feel envy towards

00:08:08.140 those who have lived a hundred centuries ago or those not yet born or those who dwell near the pillars

00:08:13.800 of hercules yeah and so for me like i don't feel envy of someone who lives in you know another town

00:08:21.800 because i don't know who they are yeah for example yeah yeah and i mean so my definition is really

00:08:27.280 i like to think of it it comes both from the psychological and the philosophical tradition so

00:08:33.040 i i kind of intersected different things and i think it's it's a it's not a particularly controversial

00:08:37.860 definition but i do incorporate philosophical accounts more for instance than some psychologists

00:08:43.720 and i like aristotle's account i think he got a lot of things right that i mean he he says things about

00:08:49.640 envy that have been confirmed empirically by social psychologists in you know in the 20th and 21st century

00:08:55.500 and one of the things he says is that other people's success is a reproach to us right and of course

00:09:02.240 that can only be the case if the person is similar to us in some respect that someone imagine that you

00:09:08.780 know like i have a friend who is a great soccer player her success is not going to make me feel

00:09:15.440 bad about myself because i don't care about being a soccer player and actually i'm going to bask in

00:09:20.560 reflected glory i'm going to tell everyone that's my friend she's so good because her success is not a

00:09:26.880 approach to me in that case but if you're talking about you know the same domain of self-importance

00:09:33.500 then the fact that she's so similar to me but she's doing better than me will make you know will make

00:09:38.460 me wonder what did i do wrong right why am i not getting the same successes and hume david hume a

00:09:44.220 scottish philosopher from the 18th century also talks about what you just mentioned this idea of

00:09:49.300 closeness right if if someone is far away from us just geographically for instance it's not going

00:09:55.860 to be as common for me as as easy for me to compare myself to them although of course in the in age of

00:10:01.620 internet and social media that has changed a little bit right but in david hume's times or even of course

00:10:07.800 in aristotle's times if those people live in a different town you know their success doesn't impact

00:10:13.180 you in any way and again social media has kind of changed the equation and what it means to be

00:10:19.000 close to someone has changed a bit well okay so that bit we envy people who are like us similar

00:10:25.600 to us so i i don't i don't envy like jeff bezos or elon musk they're they're just so wealthy so rich

00:10:32.720 it's like not even in my frame of reference but i could envy a neighbor or a close friend or at least

00:10:39.700 your envy is likely to be more intense in that case and look some people often at this point say oh but

00:10:46.180 it's not true people envy the rich i i envy jeff bezos right well and so to me to my response to

00:10:52.880 that is if you if if you're someone who's not a billionaire and you do envy jeff bezos two things

00:10:58.880 are possible one is that you envy him with regard to like you perceive yourself to be similar to him

00:11:07.280 in some respects in which you are similar to him right we're all human beings who want to be happy

00:11:12.200 who want to be comfortable maybe jeff bezos seems really happy to you and you feel unhappy at this

00:11:18.360 point in life right and so in that respect of course you can compare yourself to anybody there are some

00:11:23.780 ways in which we all are similar to each other just in virtue of being human beings and so on

00:11:28.680 the second thing is that this is about perception not reality if you envy jeff bezos maybe you see

00:11:34.720 yourself as similar to him in some respect maybe you're an aspiring billionaire or something and even

00:11:39.900 though from a third personal perspective if i look at you too i'm like well are you insane like you're

00:11:45.200 so different from jeff bezos but from the inside maybe you feel very similar to him right so it's all

00:11:52.640 like emotions a lot of times are a matter of subjective perception and so i might think that

00:11:57.620 like a friend of mine if they envy jeff bezos and they're very different well maybe their envy doesn't

00:12:03.340 make sense or it's unfitting in some ways it's irrational in some ways but they still feel it right

00:12:08.740 and the fact that they feel it reveals to me their self-perception what they value and so on and so

00:12:15.640 forth but i'm with you i actually don't envy very rich persons because they're so different for me

00:12:20.820 well and then the other point about envy that you really flesh out i think is important is that

00:12:25.000 the thing you envy has to be important to you so you talked about that earlier you're not going to

00:12:29.140 envy your friend who's really great at soccer because you don't play soccer right and i think there's a

00:12:33.580 great line in the book and maybe a philosopher said it too but you know the question you can ask

00:12:39.040 someone's like tell me what you envy and i'll tell you what's important to you yes yes yeah i mean i say

00:12:45.360 that because of course you know paraphrasing other similar dicta yeah i mean the idea is that if you if

00:12:50.200 your envy is very revealing and that's why sometimes we don't confess our envy there are many reasons why

00:12:55.940 we don't confess our envy it's multi-determined but one reason is that we might find ourselves to be

00:13:01.480 envious of someone and then kind of be ashamed that we're envious because we are surprised that

00:13:06.880 we care about those things right imagine that i'm you know i'm an academic and i want to think of

00:13:12.860 myself as indifferent to materialistic pursuits and you know maybe i'm a feminist and i think that

00:13:19.880 you shouldn't care about appearances and then i find myself envious of a friend who just had

00:13:24.420 say plastic surgery or who uses botox or something like that and as an academic who's a feminist

00:13:31.020 i might not want i might not like right to feel that i'm envious i'm like oh if i'm envious of her

00:13:37.140 you know lack of wrinkles or her plump lips or her new you know bra size or whatever that tells me

00:13:44.280 something about myself that i might not like to know about myself and therefore i might not want to

00:13:51.180 tell other people that i'm envious because i'm revealing something pretty personal about myself

00:13:57.020 well and i think the other reason people too don't like to just talk about feeling envy so there's

00:14:02.740 the point because it can reveal something about herself that maybe we don't like oh actually i do

00:14:07.500 care about material wealth even though i don't i think of myself the person who doesn't but also it's

00:14:13.240 about social status when you admit envy you're kind of admitting that i think you're better than me

00:14:19.140 absolutely and people people don't like to do that people don't like to do that right you're admitting

00:14:25.420 that that one even just that you're comparing yourself to others and in some cultures or contexts

00:14:31.080 we're told we're not supposed to do that even though i think it's impossible but that's another matter

00:14:35.820 but also yeah you're revealing that you see yourself you know as inferior to someone and that's also

00:14:41.880 information that maybe from an evolutionary perspective maybe there is also a reason why

00:14:45.960 we don't confess envy because that may be an information that we don't want to give out

00:14:52.100 we we don't want to reveal to other people that we feel inferior to others also lest they agree with

00:14:59.620 us and they think oh you're right now that you pointed out i noticed that too all right so let's

00:15:04.600 recap that definition of envy just walk us through it again i want to just do yeah so you feel bad it's

00:15:10.100 never pleasant it can be very painful or less painful but it's never a pleasant emotion it's a negative

00:15:15.640 affect emotion and it's felt because you feel inferior to someone else in some sense or others you lack

00:15:23.500 something and this other person that you're envious of is similar to you in some relevant respects you

00:15:30.640 know in the same league so to speak right the comparison makes sense and it's with regard to

00:15:36.680 something that you care about and finally because there's this gap there is perceived between you and

00:15:42.640 the envied and because it's a negative emotion you are motivated to overcome your perceived inferiority

00:15:48.900 to to fill this gap somehow and you can either level up or down okay i love that but let's talk

00:15:55.720 about jealousy because jealousy is a word that often we use synonymously with envy yes but jealousy

00:16:02.880 is not envy so what's the difference between the two yeah so these two terms are often confused

00:16:09.560 especially in english and some other languages this doesn't apply to all all languages but there is

00:16:15.440 a scholarly consensus both in psychology and philosophy that these are distinct emotions

00:16:20.760 envy roughly has to do with lack with perceiving oneself to lacking an object an advantage a skill a

00:16:29.520 trait and so on whereas jealousy is a protective emotion that is felt with regard to something that one

00:16:37.280 has and that one is afraid of losing so typically for instance with romantic jealousy if i'm jealous

00:16:45.000 of my partner and of course this could mean you know i it means that i'm jealous that some competitor

00:16:51.300 will take away my partner from me say that means that i see this relationship with my partner as

00:16:57.640 something that i have right i in in quotes i have this person she's my girlfriend she's my boyfriend

00:17:03.220 and i want to protect this valuable object that i have and so i'm afraid of losing it so jealousy is

00:17:10.880 about loss or potential loss and envy is about lack and so in a way we can say that jealousy guards

00:17:18.940 what envy covets so they are complementary emotions even though they also can be felt at the same time so

00:17:25.080 again in the case of a romantic rivalry maybe i'm both jealous and envious of someone right i think

00:17:30.980 that they are hitting on my girlfriend and so i'm jealous of them i want to make sure they stay

00:17:35.980 away from my girlfriend but at the same time maybe i think they're cool i think he's cooler than me or

00:17:41.400 he's more attractive and so i want to i'm also envious of him so they can be felt at the same time

00:17:47.120 but they can also be felt uh by two people in the same situation right so they are complementary emotions

00:17:53.220 and the reason why sometimes we confuse one with the other at least in english and other

00:17:57.440 languages is that i i argue i mean not just me arguing this is that sometimes so jealousy because

00:18:04.620 it's an emotion that is protective of a status quo it's more legitimate like even though it can be

00:18:10.540 excessive people tend to think that it's okay to be a little jealous it's okay to protect what's

00:18:15.680 yours and so there is not as much stigma attached to it so it's easier to confess jealousy and so what

00:18:22.760 has happened with time is that when we feel a kind of envy that is not as bad as other kinds

00:18:29.140 then we tend to use the word jealous it's as if jealousy now encompasses jealousy proper and a

00:18:36.060 certain kind of benign envy and so that's why people confuse the two terms oh you give a good

00:18:42.160 example of the distinction between jealousy and envy in lord of the rings the ring so yeah frodo he had

00:18:49.900 the ring and he was jealous he protected that thing he didn't want to give it up yes so he's always

00:18:54.680 looking at people like oh you after the ring and then you had golem who owned the ring before he was

00:19:01.160 envious he wanted the ring exactly yeah i think that's a good case to show that jealousy is not just about

00:19:07.060 romantic jealousy even though we often talk about it in that case where you can say you know i'm jealous

00:19:11.420 of my objects i'm jealous of my time i'm jealous of my privacy and and so on and so forth and so

00:19:17.440 they're they're both triadic emotions they have a lot of things in common but they're also very

00:19:21.220 different at the same time in the sense that they are again they're gabriel taylor a contemporary

00:19:26.980 philosopher talks about how their relation to the status quo is different it's symmetrical it's the

00:19:32.900 opposite thing envy wants to change the status quo with regard to a valued object whereas jealousy

00:19:38.820 wants to maintain the status quo with regard to a valued object okay so we got this great broad

00:19:45.420 definition of what envy is in general we've distinguished it from jealousy but one of the

00:19:50.160 things you do in this book that i think is really unique is you make the case that there isn't just

00:19:54.500 one type of envy there are four types of envy yeah but to understand the four types of envy we first

00:20:01.700 need to understand this idea of leveling orientation that you lay out in the book so what do you mean by

00:20:06.600 leveling orientation so this idea of leveling orientation the term comes from this quote by dority

00:20:14.220 sawyers she says envy is the great leveler if it cannot level up it will level down and so what

00:20:20.640 she means there is that again imagine that you know i envy my sibling who got a really new shiny toy

00:20:27.240 right so she has this toy i don't have it what can i do well there are two options i could bug my parents so

00:20:37.220 that they get me the new toy too right so we're even she has a new shiny toy and i have it too so i'm

00:20:42.860 leveling up or i can for instance steal the toy from her or even spoil or even break it and that way

00:20:51.780 i don't have the toy but neither does she at this point right and so this idea that you can level up or

00:20:58.380 down actually you can find it not in these terms but you can already find it in aristotle i argue in the

00:21:03.780 book that aristotle distinguishes between two emotions but even if you know independently from the

00:21:08.640 details what he does is that he thinks that you can either level up or you can level down and what

00:21:15.640 matters what motivates you to want to do one or the others is what you care about so if i'm envious of

00:21:22.160 someone because they have something that i really care about then naturally i am motivated to try to get in

00:21:29.460 myself right because that's what i really care about it's not that i'm bothered that another person has this

00:21:35.360 thing but i really care about that in the case of philosophy and philosophical talents if i envy my colleague

00:21:41.220 because they are great at writing very clear papers well i don't want them to lose their clarity in writing

00:21:48.800 i want to acquire it myself right because that's what matters to me but if instead i am envious of a colleague

00:21:55.320 because i don't know maybe we went to grad school together we were kind of rival or along i don't

00:22:00.380 like them they're kind of snobbish and not nice to me right in that case the fact that they have some

00:22:06.240 kind of advantage perhaps they get a better office maybe it's not that i care about the better office

00:22:12.960 but i'm just bothered that this person that i don't like is getting this advantage in that case i will

00:22:19.180 be more motivated to level down to have them lose that advantage and so aristotle already i think

00:22:24.960 identifies this important feature but then what i notice is that there's a different kind of

00:22:32.580 explanatory model of this different leveling orientation in psychology so social psychologists

00:22:40.520 have observed that when we feel in control over a situation that also means that usually we don't

00:22:49.520 develop hostility or antipathy toward the envy and you know if we feel that we can improve our situation

00:22:56.440 then we're going to be motivated to improve that situation but if we feel hopeless and helpless as two

00:23:02.860 italian psychologists put it in a classical article then we develop hostility toward the other person

00:23:09.980 and also again we don't feel capable of improving our situation and so we want to level down we want to

00:23:15.220 bring them down and so once you see that there are these different explanatory models and because i

00:23:21.640 think that actually these are complementary they're not alternative proposals but they can be combined

00:23:26.480 that's how you get my four kinds of envy okay i thought this was really interesting so to recap here

00:23:33.120 to get rid of the bad feeling we experience whenever we experience envy we have to level up or level down

00:23:38.880 if we are focused on the object that the person that we envy has so it could be a position talent

00:23:46.760 etc yeah we're more likely to level we're actually going to try to make ourselves better so we can get

00:23:51.440 that thing too but if we just don't like the person we're just focused on the person that we don't really

00:23:56.060 care about the thing they have then we're going to level them down i think you kind of see this with

00:24:00.660 siblings like little kids they would see that one kid had something else and like my you know my daughter

00:24:07.800 might not have cared that my son had a baseball card but like she was just upset that he had the

00:24:14.440 baseball card and she didn't it's because she was like upset with him right right yeah exactly yeah

00:24:20.900 and so i think that works yeah that's perfect that's a perfect example right siblings rivalry usually

00:24:26.360 for whatever complicated you know evolutionary reasons you know you'd wonder why why did we evolve

00:24:33.260 to have siblings rivalry i don't know i'm sure the evolutionary psychologists have an answer to that

00:24:37.560 but there is this kind of long this is like background condition of rivalry right especially

00:24:42.220 at some point in their lives every parent knows that they're just constantly bickering and so even

00:24:47.720 when they really don't care about some other advantage they just resent than the other the other sibling

00:24:54.280 has it right and so they're more focused on the envied than the envied object and so i think this is

00:25:01.040 the kind of explanation that you find in aristotle and i think there is something very right to it

00:25:05.180 but at the same time there is this other factor that you know sometimes you can do something about

00:25:11.360 the situation and sometimes you cannot and when you can do something about the situation usually you

00:25:17.620 feel a certain kind of envy and when what psychologists call benign envy and when you cannot do anything

00:25:23.960 about the situation in the sense that you cannot overcome your disadvantages by getting the envy good

00:25:30.060 then you tend to level down right to try to spoil it for the other person and again so instead of

00:25:36.340 having you know so so something i omitted to say is that psychology is distinguished between benign and

00:25:43.240 malicious envy but because i also introduced the aristotelian explanation i argue that in fact you can get

00:25:50.920 four kinds of envy instead of just two because the varieties of envy are are more it's a more nuanced account

00:25:58.680 we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:26:01.500 and now back to the show okay so there's envy where you can do something about the situation

00:26:10.440 then there's an envy where you don't have control and then there's envy where you're focused on something

00:26:16.380 you know possession or quality or a talent that someone has and then there's envy where you're just

00:26:22.120 focused on the person themselves and these dimensions the control orientation and the focus orientation

00:26:29.460 they form like a like a quadrant and that this quadrant forms those four different types of envy

00:26:35.200 there's envy where you can't change the situation and you're focused on the person and you call that

00:26:40.900 spiteful envy then there's envy where you can do something and you're focused on the person and that's

00:26:47.440 aggressive envy then there's envy where you can't control the situation and you're focused on the

00:26:53.560 thing the person has and you call that inert envy and then there's envy where you do have some control

00:27:00.380 and you you're focused on the thing and that's called emulative envy and we're going to unpack and

00:27:06.960 explain these four types of envy and i like to go from the worst type and then work our way up

00:27:12.480 so let's start with spiteful envy what is spiteful envy so spiteful envy is again the kind of envy that

00:27:19.900 maybe a lot of small children engage with their siblings imagine this situation where you know that

00:27:26.760 your sibling has gotten a new shiny toy and perhaps you know because they've gotten better grades or

00:27:33.580 whatever and you don't really care about the toy itself perhaps it's a kind of toy that you don't like

00:27:39.300 but you are really upset that your sibling got something and you didn't so you're more focused

00:27:44.640 on the envied than on the good that you're missing that you're lacking and at the same time however

00:27:50.820 perhaps you know that your parents are not going to change their mind they have already said that

00:27:55.640 this is a special reward you're not going to get one stop whining and imagine it's a situation where

00:28:01.200 perhaps it's not a physical object that you can steal but it's like i don't know maybe a special

00:28:05.640 experience or something like that right maybe they're get they're getting to have a party a

00:28:10.980 special party with their friends and so what you do is that you just throw a tantrum during the party

00:28:17.860 you behave in awful ways and you don't get anything for yourself in fact you might even be punished for

00:28:25.120 what you have done and that actually would count as uber spiteful envy but i don't want to complicate

00:28:29.420 things too much but so you just spoil the fun of the other person so in a way you spoil their good

00:28:35.540 their special party that you couldn't have and so this is the worst kind of envy because it spoils

00:28:42.200 the good it covets it's bad for you you're not getting anything good out of it except perhaps for

00:28:48.520 a very fleeting sense of satisfaction and of course it's immoral maybe your sibling really deserved a

00:28:55.040 special party maybe they you know they had this really good grades and they deserved their reward

00:28:59.480 and so it's the worst kind of of envy and then i have various examples of this kind of spiteful envy

00:29:05.760 but this is just one kind of everyday example of it yeah that's where the spiteful envy where

00:29:11.540 that's where that phrase you know cut off your nose to spite yourself right exactly you just hurt

00:29:16.560 yourself or you know you just do something even that harms you just to get back at the other person

00:29:20.700 right exactly and you offer these uh different phrases that describe the different types of envy

00:29:26.440 and for spiteful envy the phrase is it should have been me so you're like it should have been me

00:29:33.780 and if it can't be me then you can't have it either yes nobody else gets it yeah okay so

00:29:40.920 spiteful envy you're focused on the envy and you feel like you can't do anything about it and it just

00:29:45.920 goes nowhere yeah the only thing you can do you can spoil the good spoil the good motivates to spoil

00:29:50.660 there's actually have you ever seen the movie mississippi burning no i have not no it's about

00:29:56.420 it's part about american civil rights history these two fbi agents go down to mississippi to

00:30:00.620 investigate the murders of three black men who were promoting voter registration and there's this

00:30:06.220 scene one of the fbi agents played by gene hackman where he's talking about he's from the south

00:30:11.340 and he just he was telling the story to this one fbi agent who's from the north so he didn't

00:30:16.960 really understand the racism in the south and he was talking about when he was growing up there was

00:30:22.580 a sharecropper that lived next to him who was black and he got a new mule but gene hackman or the gene

00:30:30.020 hackman character his father was poor and he couldn't afford a new mule and it really it upset him like

00:30:36.840 he felt that inferiority this white guy felt inferior to this this black guy i don't think the guy even

00:30:42.460 really cared about the mule like he was just upset that there was a black guy that was better than him

00:30:46.460 yeah and so the way the story goes is gene hackman's character's dad he poisons the mule yeah he just

00:30:52.940 spoils it so that's spiteful envy right yes yeah that's a great example of spiteful envy okay so let's

00:30:58.660 move to aggressive envy what's aggressive envy so aggressive i mean in this case for instance he could

00:31:03.680 have stolen the mule right and that kind of aggressive envy is like there are some situation

00:31:08.440 where we can steal the envy good and sometimes we can do it and get away with it right so imagine

00:31:16.960 that again you live in this racist place and perhaps if he stole the mule maybe he would have not been

00:31:22.240 punished right he could have gotten away with it and in other cases we can imagine doing things

00:31:28.100 you know as a subterfuge like you you do it but you you you hide that you stole the good so to speak

00:31:36.140 in the book i sometimes use the example it sounds a little cartoonish but actually it's not that

00:31:40.500 cartoonish examples of sabotage right sometimes you have you know i have this idea of a ballerina

00:31:45.760 who is the understudy of another one she's not as good as the other person but she makes the

00:31:51.600 ballerina fall down the stairs and so she gets the same role she hasn't gotten any better but she

00:31:57.540 managed to sabotage the rival and get the role or imagine in a foot race if i trip the person in front

00:32:04.160 of me and she falls then i managed to get there first and so i haven't become a better runner but

00:32:10.760 i still get something in this case i get first place and i think it's important to differentiate

00:32:16.240 these two kind of envy which is something that this difference gets lost when people just talk about

00:32:21.080 malicious envy because in one case you get a genuine advantage you get the mule you get the role you get

00:32:27.920 the toy that you stole you get the first place and even though it doesn't improve yourself it doesn't

00:32:34.780 make you better on your own terms in situations where you know in zero-sum games as sometimes people

00:32:42.260 call them in situation where you know if if one person wins the other loses well you get a genuine

00:32:48.860 advantage and so i think this is the kind of envy that perhaps someone who doesn't have a moral

00:32:53.920 conscience maybe i don't know a psychopath or something like that these people can get away

00:32:59.560 with doing bad things like this and i think this is the the kind of emotion that motivates them is

00:33:04.960 aggressive envy so in this case you're more focused on the rival than the good you want to bring them

00:33:10.100 down but you also end up getting something out of it and so it's not from a prudential perspective

00:33:16.440 as philosophers say from the perspective of your own well-being and gains well you do gain something

00:33:23.640 right okay so with aggressive envy you see something that someone has you want the thing

00:33:29.840 so you might take the thing and you talk about like aggressive envy can possibly be an explanation of why

00:33:35.080 countries go to war right i mean this is something that the philosopher adam smith talks about in the

00:33:40.580 theory of moral sentiments and uh this is again a philosopher from the modern era in the history of

00:33:46.600 philosophy and so he i think he's right that when we think about wars a lot of times wars are about

00:33:54.800 resources right you want some land or access to the sea or oil or you know usually it's about some kind

00:34:02.480 of material gains and you can think of it as some sort of collective envy if countries could have

00:34:08.760 feelings uh or definitely groups of people can have feelings right and so they are motivated by

00:34:15.380 aggressive envy by taking away something from from another nation or another group of people i'm sure

00:34:21.380 this happened you know perhaps when there were just tribes or villages you know conflicts between

00:34:27.620 smaller groups of people i think might have been motivated by aggressive envy and so in in a way this is a form

00:34:35.540 of leveling down that also ends up being a little bit of a leveling up in the sense that if you have just

00:34:41.840 one thing so you know in situation where either someone win or someone loses the distinction between

00:34:48.840 leveling down and leveling up in practice is lost right because what means for one person to level up

00:34:55.600 it means to also you know the other person is leveled down at the same time but what matters is the mindset

00:35:01.780 in a lot of situations like for instance athletic achievements or skills right with things you can't quite see the

00:35:09.900 difference but with traits if what i care about is becoming a better dancer or a better philosopher

00:35:17.040 then there is a difference between wanting the other person to become worse and wanting myself to be

00:35:24.420 better and so there is a different kind of mindset that goes with these different kinds of envy

00:35:29.860 i think people listening they might have experienced aggressive envy in the office you know that when people

00:35:36.740 talk about oh i just hate the office politics and the backstabbing that goes on it's probably

00:35:42.120 aggressive envies going on there right it may be that you know yeah i think so yeah like i could say

00:35:48.280 if you're if there's a promotion there's only one spot there's two or three people who are going for

00:35:53.760 that one spot there's the temptation to do some things to level people down so that you look better

00:36:01.340 and you get the job yes exactly yeah and i think another thing that happens like i think gossip

00:36:07.600 i mean gossip has a social function it's just not it's not always a negative thing but i think a lot of

00:36:13.040 time gossip is a way of leveling down you know ruining someone's reputation and again sometimes it's really

00:36:19.700 just spoiling the good sometimes gossip doesn't actually bring you to level down in the sense that you want

00:36:24.940 but again sometimes you can spread rumors and you can make another person be liked less and that allows

00:36:32.180 you to come out better in the comparison and there is this idea that you know sometimes maybe you can't

00:36:38.980 you can't run faster but you can trip someone else in that way you have a comparative advantage

00:36:45.340 okay so we talk about aggressive envy let's talk about inert envy what is inert envy yes so inert envy

00:36:53.140 is actually my favorite kind of envy because i think it's under discussed in the literature

00:36:58.360 inert envy is when you're more focused on the the good than the envy so imagine that again you really

00:37:06.520 care about acquiring say a certain valuable skill however you don't feel that you're in control of

00:37:15.080 the situation you don't think that you can improve your situation that you can level up it's a situation

00:37:20.060 where it defeats itself right you find yourself wanting to wanting something that you already think

00:37:26.620 you can't have so for instance i think a lot of people who feel so-called baby envy are in this kind

00:37:34.260 of situation if they want a biological child that's something that typically you can't control right i mean

00:37:39.460 it's biology if you're not fertile you're not fertile i mean yeah technology helps but at some point

00:37:44.120 you have to accept that you might not be able to have a biological child and so you might envy people

00:37:49.780 who can and you don't want that i mean you're happy for them that they have a baby and you don't want

00:37:56.040 them to lose their children and at the same time you feel this very painful desire to not be around them

00:38:04.920 and and you just want to you know sulk in a corner and just it's it's very passive as i say you know

00:38:12.840 it's called inert envy because it doesn't really motivate you to to do much other than you know

00:38:19.780 sulk in a corner and be feel sad for yourself and so i think that this is a particular kind of emotion

00:38:27.000 that where you would want to level up but you can't so what do people typically do in this i mean

00:38:34.380 besides sulking like how do they they're feeling the pain they realize that they can't get the good

00:38:40.240 but i'm sure there's still that desire to get rid of the pain so how do people do that i think

00:38:46.060 alienation or getting away from the situation like an avoidant reaction is likely imagine that for

00:38:53.080 instance you feel envious of a friend you're probably not going to want to hang out with this friend

00:38:58.680 much also because you might think that if you keep being close to the envied it's going to be very

00:39:05.580 painful and chances are i think sometimes what happens is that you're going to start engaging in

00:39:11.340 this sort of magical thinking where it's the other person's fault somehow you know or they're rubbing

00:39:17.380 their fortune in my face you might think you have you might have similar thoughts even though they're not

00:39:21.980 doing anything like that and so then i think you might develop feelings of hostility toward the person

00:39:27.320 and you might become more focused on the envy and that's actually when you might start having

00:39:32.260 aggressive envy in yourself so if you you know i remember once i was reading online about some

00:39:38.920 experiences of baby envy and one person wrote about feeling like they wanted to push a pregnant woman

00:39:44.620 down the subway train and of course this person was very scared to be feeling such aggressive

00:39:51.180 impulse and but but but again i think it's in a way it's understandable right if you're suffering a lot

00:39:56.960 then you're going to start thinking other people are at fault because you because again this is a

00:40:01.060 self-defeating emotion it's such a counterproductive state you there's nothing you can do about it

00:40:05.720 right and so then i think inert envy can easily evolve into aggressive envy or even actually in this

00:40:12.200 case if you throw a pregnant lady under you know if you kill her of course the baby is lost so that's

00:40:17.240 actually spiteful and the aggressive envy would be stealing the baby which rarely it happens right

00:40:22.640 it does happen it's not a frequent occurrence but there are some cases where someone who can't have

00:40:28.280 a baby steals a baby so i think inert envy really sucks it's really hard to deal with and i think the

00:40:36.200 only thing to do is perhaps to find similar if not identical goals so for instance usually you know

00:40:45.000 you could adopt a baby right adoption is an option in this case and so try to think of things like

00:40:50.720 that right i can't have this exact thing but perhaps i can have something similar to it well you

00:40:56.240 can you i think a lot of people may have experienced inert envy in the office going back to the idea the

00:41:00.820 the job the promotion right so there's one position available let's say two other people are also going for

00:41:07.860 the position you didn't get it and it's not that you aren't happy for the person that got it like you

00:41:13.060 don't dislike your colleague that got the promotion right you're happy for them but like you really

00:41:17.180 wanted that thing and then you realize well there's nothing i can do to get that promotion it's that

00:41:21.060 that position's gone and so what you end up doing you kind of do that sulking thing you're going to

00:41:26.000 give compliments and congratulations but it's going to be kind of lukewarm and yeah half-hearted it's

00:41:32.460 like oh i'm so happy for you oh i wish i had i wish i wish i had what you had and then you also talk

00:41:39.640 about another response that people do to deal with the pain of inert envy right so they're focused on the

00:41:45.520 thing they feel like they can't do anything to level up to get the thing sometimes we might

00:41:49.940 engage in what's typically called sour grapes from aesop's fables well i didn't want that job

00:41:55.640 anyway that job stinks i'm so glad i didn't get it right exactly right and i mean and there is so a

00:42:02.040 couple of things one other thing that you can do sometimes you know in addition to compliments or

00:42:06.740 congratulations that are not truly felt we engage in what i what i call sort of dehumanizing

00:42:11.240 compliments things like oh you're such a machine and that's one way also of decreasing similarity

00:42:16.820 of thinking well this person got the job because they don't sleep at night right so the fact that i

00:42:22.140 didn't get it it's just because you know i sleep at night and i have a life whereas the person doesn't

00:42:26.820 have a life or something like that but another way is as you say there's a kind of persuading yourself

00:42:32.920 that you didn't really want that thing and sometimes it's you know this kind of what is sometimes

00:42:38.480 called adaptive preference sometimes it's irrational and it's not a good way of coping

00:42:42.900 with things because perhaps that was something that you really cared about but it can also be a

00:42:47.620 good thing sometimes reshaping our preferences in light of what's possible in light of real life

00:42:55.240 constraints is a good coping mechanism right perhaps you were shooting for a job that was just too hard

00:43:01.880 for you to get perhaps you were you're comparing yourself to someone who's not really similar to you

00:43:07.100 perhaps they are objectively much better than you and so perhaps you should find a different kind of

00:43:12.780 goal that is more attainable and another finally another thing that you can do is that you can think

00:43:17.880 about that person how did that person achieve that goal if you are right that that's the right goal for

00:43:25.260 you and that person is similar to you you know you you have roughly the same abilities of that colleague

00:43:31.020 and maybe what they did maybe they were just luckier but maybe you can learn from them and see how did

00:43:37.480 they get that promotion right you can emulate them and that's how we get to the final kind of envy

00:43:42.660 emulative envy when you're focused on the good and you feel that you can improve your situation that's when

00:43:50.520 you feel emulative envy and so maybe you can also move from inert to emulative envy by adopting a growth

00:43:57.940 mindset and thinking you know what if that person got that job maybe i can too i just have to work

00:44:05.640 harder i have to maybe you know change my priorities or adopt a different training or you know depending

00:44:12.660 on what the good is different things are possible well just to end on inert envy and then we'll talk

00:44:18.680 about emulative envy here but yeah i like that idea that inert envy that sort of sulking and just being

00:44:24.620 sad that you don't have the thing that the other person has that can actually i like the idea that

00:44:29.480 it can lead to growth and maybe new opportunities i think when you were kids we've probably all

00:44:34.900 experienced that i remember there's like sports i tried out for activities that i tried out for because

00:44:39.780 i i saw that you know a friend had that thing or had a talent for that and they were successful and

00:44:44.740 i wanted that too it looked really great and then i tried the thing and then i realized like i'm not

00:44:50.520 very good at this and i don't know if i'll ever get really good at this and but i'm glad i went

00:44:55.360 through that experience because i i was able to figure out well this isn't for me maybe there's

00:45:00.400 something else out there that better suits my talents and my proclivities yeah it's a lesson in

00:45:05.860 humility i really like that idea actually and you know i was recently listening to the radio and they

00:45:11.780 were talking about how nowadays kids specialize too early in sports and that creates all sorts of

00:45:17.980 problems you know already in high school if you're not a very good athlete you can't play

00:45:23.100 certain popular sports which is a pity right because you deprive kids of an important source

00:45:28.200 of fun of meaning you stress them too much and it used to be that people had more of a chance to

00:45:34.820 experiment with different kinds of sports which i think is a source of richness right and and i think

00:45:41.380 especially in this case that you're right that feeling inert envy for someone who's maybe better than you

00:45:46.120 at basketball can be a very important lesson in humility in learning to deal with disappointment

00:45:53.380 and just learning to deal with the fact that sometimes people are better than us right you're

00:45:58.020 bound nobody can be good at everything and what matters is find something that you enjoy and are good

00:46:03.220 at but we have to accept that sometimes people are are better and and it's a good experience to have

00:46:10.060 so um yeah i i like your take on this so let's talk about emulative envy this is the positive type

00:46:15.300 of envy so you you describe the characteristics there with emulative envy it's you're focused on

00:46:20.340 the good not on the envied and then you feel like you can do something about to level yourself up to

00:46:26.020 get that thing yes but how is that still that sounds like a good thing like how could that be envy like

00:46:31.840 it just sounds like you saw someone they're like and it being an example to you so how is it still envy

00:46:36.280 well it's still envy first of all if you know let's go back to our definition it's still unpleasant

00:46:42.240 when you envy someone you are perceiving them as superior to you with regard to something that you

00:46:50.560 really care about right so it's still going to be an unpleasant uh emotion and it's still going to tell

00:46:56.520 you that that person is superior to you in some respect so it's not a lot of times people ask me how

00:47:03.960 it's different from admiration but admiration actually is a very different emotion first of

00:47:08.120 all it's a positive affect emotion you don't feel bad when you feel admiration it's an affiliative

00:47:14.220 emotion you want to be closer to the person you admire and when you envy someone you might not

00:47:19.220 dislike them you don't feel hostility if it's emulative envy but still there is a competitive element

00:47:26.860 to it and usually admiration arises either toward people who are much better than us and so they are

00:47:34.320 dissimilar in that regard or it arises with regard to domains that are not self-important so you know i

00:47:40.860 admire great scientists you know noble peace prizes people that you know are very different from me it is

00:47:49.440 also the motivational tendency of admiration is usually uh if there is improvement it's long-term

00:47:55.380 improvement and it's about being inspired it's about developing a certain kind of long-term plan

00:48:02.700 but emily of envy is an emotion that is much more about immediate self-improvement so it they're very

00:48:09.160 different emotions okay i like that so admiration it feels good it can inspire you to level up but it's

00:48:16.500 more in a it's like a general way it's more of in a long-term way it's like when you see people you

00:48:21.800 admire they're less likely to be doing the the exact same thing that you do like when i see people who

00:48:29.720 are doing awesome things in the world and that don't exactly relate to what i'm doing it doesn't

00:48:34.920 make me feel bad about myself i'm just like man i'm really glad there's awesome people out there doing

00:48:40.000 awesome things sharing their talents with the world with emulative envy it does make you feel bad even

00:48:47.720 if it's just a little bit like you can feel dejected uh you feel some shame um you're like man i want to

00:48:53.820 be like that but then you feel motivated become more like that in the short term it's more of an

00:48:58.380 immediate thing right so how can people harness emulative envy to improve themselves i think i really

00:49:09.020 like this idea that we can use envy for positive gains i think typically in the philosophical tradition

00:49:15.380 and the psychological research envy is seen as this bad thing but i really like this idea that

00:49:21.360 envy can be a spur to improve ourselves in a positive way yeah yeah i think the way we can

00:49:28.720 harness its power is to be honest about it at least with oneself because i think the temptation

00:49:38.300 whenever we feel envy the temptation is to deny even toward ourselves that we're feeling

00:49:45.040 envy because it is unpleasant and because nobody wants to feel inferior to someone else but instead

00:49:51.220 i think we have to kind of mindfully accept it and first of all see if it's fitting if it's you know

00:49:58.140 if i emulative envy someone with regard to what's sometimes called conspicuous consumption engaging in a

00:50:05.900 in an arms race of you know of consumeristic goods maybe that's not not that's not a good thing

00:50:13.640 do i want to emulative envy someone who buys more and more expensive cars i don't know maybe i'm being

00:50:19.940 moralistic here but i'm not sure that's gonna i think empirical evidence shows that this kind of

00:50:25.300 materialistic goals don't really lead us to be happier but if i'm envying someone because they're

00:50:31.760 a better philosopher they're a better writer they're a stronger athlete or they're a better parent i mean

00:50:38.160 there are all sorts of things that we can envy they're actually good they're good goals and so

00:50:43.360 we can look at how these people are achieving their goals and use them as as models for us to follow

00:50:52.360 and and i think it's one thing that we could all do and i notice people who know me do that more now is

00:51:00.260 to just confess our envy and destigmatize and accept that it's a normal emotion and once it's out there

00:51:07.560 i think it's easier to say you know what i'm envious of you and i think i i want to do what

00:51:16.360 you do and and maybe if we destigmatize this kind of emotion then the envied can also provide advice

00:51:22.960 and support right they can instead of being scared by our envy because they think it's a dangerous thing

00:51:30.100 then they can you know generously and gracefully acknowledge that yeah you know my situation is

00:51:37.160 enviable but you know let me help you achieve the same goal so i think there does need to be a

00:51:44.100 societal change with regard to envy because i think also the envied have some sort of duty to share how

00:51:50.460 they got what they have yeah that can be scary though for the envied because you hear over and over

00:51:57.020 again like you have to fear envy because if someone envies you it means they might take what you have

00:52:03.660 might want to just replace you or just get rid of you or just take what you have right but yeah i think

00:52:08.360 we've all i i know there's people in my life that i've encountered and they like there's this friend

00:52:13.780 of mine who he's like this awesome dad he's really crafty he can you know just build things he can whip

00:52:19.700 up a tree house and whenever i see what he does for his kids i'm like it makes me feel bad i'm like man

00:52:24.700 i'm i'm not a good dad in that regard but at the same time it's like i don't begrudge i don't feel i

00:52:31.240 don't want to like punch him in the face because it makes me feel bad it actually inspires me so i

00:52:36.560 should learn some new skills i should get on youtube and learn how to make a tree house yeah

00:52:40.340 yeah and there are some scholars who now you know they think that so there's this idea in moral

00:52:45.320 philosophy that moral education has largely to do with moral examples we learn to be good by looking

00:52:53.500 at other people who are good you know learning to be good is not something that you can learn from

00:52:57.940 books it's not like math or physics and so within this idea of moral exemplars there are some scholars

00:53:04.020 now who are talking about inspiring envy right just like you mentioned and so this is a kind of

00:53:09.500 emulative envy that has to do with being inspired and trying to become better by looking at how people

00:53:16.740 are and so people are using this idea of inspiration as a consequence of emulative envy okay so just go

00:53:24.980 through the different types of envy we have spiteful envy that's the worst kind that's when we say it

00:53:29.520 should have been me and if it can't be me no one's gonna have it then you have aggressive envy and

00:53:34.740 that's the we say it should be me and so we'll just push the the ballerina down the stairs so they're not

00:53:41.280 yes the lead ballerina anymore then we have inert envy where we just kind of mope and say oh it could

00:53:46.260 have been me i could have been a contender and nothing i can do about it but inert envy might have

00:53:50.980 some value can you during that sulking you can maybe think of new ways reevaluate your goals in

00:53:56.900 life and then emulative envy it's positive we say to ourselves it could be me right i see someone

00:54:02.460 doing great they make me feel bad because i am inferior to them but they inspire me to get better

00:54:07.000 exactly i love that so i mean here's a question is it possible to never feel envy like some people

00:54:15.180 saw that idea that all types of envy are bad i think we made the case that some envy is worse

00:54:20.540 than others but let's say like someone wants to be like well i just i never feel envy is that

00:54:26.020 possible i mean you know is it conceptually possible sure is it realistically psychologically

00:54:34.040 possible i doubt it i mean you know it's hard to answer this question empirically because envy is an

00:54:39.940 emotion that hides itself again we are taught to inhibit and suppress envy from an early age in most

00:54:47.720 cultures and traditions where envy is condemned as an immoral emotion and so of course we tend to

00:54:54.300 not admit envy even to ourselves and so when you run a study and you want to try and see if people feel

00:55:01.000 envy there's going to be some people who will manage to hide their envy and of course people are

00:55:05.980 justyncratic i mean i'm sure there are some people who never feel envy just like there are some

00:55:10.640 people who never feel empathy some people never feel guilt i mean you know human beings can be pretty

00:55:15.080 weird right but for most of us i think the social psychological evidence show that most people

00:55:21.500 feel envy children who have not been socialized fully to hide their envy actually feel a lot of

00:55:28.900 envy small children are envious of anyone all the time you know sometimes they are also envious of

00:55:35.480 people who are not similar to them because they can't draw those distinctions anthropologists tell us

00:55:40.940 that there is no culture void of envy that has been discovered so far so you know is it possible

00:55:47.040 to never feel envy at some level i guess the answer is perhaps yes for some special individuals but i think

00:55:55.140 most of us feel envy at least sometimes some people do tend to be more envious than others like with

00:56:00.500 anything else but i'm personally skeptical whenever someone tells me oh i never feel envy i have my doubts

00:56:08.180 and i think that either that they find envy in a different way perhaps again they think of times

00:56:13.720 where they feel positive benign envy as being jealous so yeah i i'm skeptical that that people

00:56:22.600 can never feel envy it's it's a normal i mean and and we know again also the literature on social

00:56:28.240 comparison tell us that we compare ourselves to other people all the time inadvertently unconsciously

00:56:34.740 automatically so we might not realize that we're feeling envy but we do well you highlight research

00:56:41.560 from psychology and social science and even philosophers have talked about this if the goal

00:56:46.660 in life is to pursue excellence flourishing well how do you know what is a flourishing life like how do

00:56:52.880 you know what an excellent life is well you have to compare right it's like am i a good parent what

00:56:57.500 does a good parent look like and how do i stack up to good parents or am i a good philosophy professor

00:57:01.860 right or am i a good podcaster so you have to compare and in that comparison you're going to

00:57:07.780 likely experience some type of envy yeah i mean excellence when we think about how to define

00:57:13.040 excellent i mean this excellence this can get complicated but in simple terms it's being quite

00:57:19.720 above average there is no concept of average that is non-comparative even when you think about

00:57:25.600 parenting what used to be a good father is not the same as what is a good father now right it used to

00:57:33.240 be you don't beat your children and you come home for dinner and you glance at your children every now

00:57:38.500 and then great parent that great father at least that's not the same thing anymore and how do you know

00:57:43.920 that well you compare right even if you don't compare yourself to i can believe that someone says i don't

00:57:49.340 compare myself to other parents i mean i doubt it but i will pretend to believe it but maybe you compare

00:57:55.120 yourself to your father right how many people say oh compare to my father i'm such a good father or

00:58:00.700 mother we compare all the time and that's how we know if we are a good parent a good philosopher a good

00:58:07.300 podcaster and so on right so envy might be the price we have to pay sometimes for excellence yes yes

00:58:15.620 that's well put and and again in some cases it's a hefty price and in some cases it's not but definitely

00:58:22.860 it's it's a price because it's not a pleasant emotion so in that in that regard yes it's a price

00:58:27.700 and i guess the goal is the aim should be if we're going to experience envy at least let it be that

00:58:33.660 more productive emulative envy and that just requires yeah you have to kind of do work mentally

00:58:40.720 inside yourself okay i'm going to focus on the thing and then think about what can i do to level

00:58:45.060 myself up instead of leveling that other person down yes and a similar emotion in this respect i think

00:58:50.480 is grief we can't have love without grief we can't have you know the exciting part about being with

00:59:00.040 someone we love without paying the price of grieving them when they're gone or when they abandon us right

00:59:06.300 but there are more helpful ways of feeling grief more productive ways of feeling grief than others and

00:59:14.300 so i think the same thing goes for envy well sarah this has been a great conversation where can people

00:59:19.700 go to learn more about your work so i i have a simple web page that can be easily found by googling me

00:59:28.660 but that's not always as updated as i would like it to be so you can find me on social media x and i have

00:59:34.540 also a facebook public profile and for those who are very philosophically minded there is a website for

00:59:41.020 philosophers called phil papers and i always upload my work there so even people who don't have access to

00:59:47.800 you know scientific journals i always put my papers there so they can be read there

00:59:53.080 fantastic well sarah pertassi thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:59:55.880 uh thank you so much

00:59:57.460 my guest today was sarah pertassi she's the author of the book the philosophy of envy it's available on

01:00:02.560 amazon.com check out our show notes at awm.is slash envy we find links to resources we delve deeper into

01:00:07.860 this topic well that wraps up another edition of the awm podcast make sure to check out our website

01:00:19.660 at artofmanly.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles that

01:00:23.840 we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of and if you haven't done

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01:00:39.060 until next time this is brett mckay reminding you to not listen to a podcast but put what you've heard

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

Unpacking The Emotion No One Likes to Talk About

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