Sexual Utopia in Power by F. Roger Devlin

The fault often is disguised, for example, as righteous indignation or a zeal for justice. People are therefore reluctant to admit, even to themselves, that they are envious. Crimes, including murder, have been motivated by it.

Occasionally one may hear people say “I envy you” in relation to some small advantage, but the speaker does not mean he would rather see his friend lose the advantage or come to grief. Few people are prepared to admit to serious feelings of envy. This essentially futile character of envy, its lack of constructive purpose, has traditionally caused it to be considered an especially shameful fault. A person with an envious disposition tends to see whatever confirms his envy, and he can always find new inequalities to focus on once one has been removed. This is one reason schemes for redistributing wealth do not solve the problem of envy. His concern is not primarily with his leg per se, but with a sense of inferiority in comparison with others, which he would like to avenge upon others. An envious man with a broken leg does not so much want to be whole again as to see everyone else break their legs. Very often, it is aroused by advantages which by their very nature cannot be transferred from one person to another, or by things that would be of no benefit to the envious man if he did come into their possession. Invidious comparisons arise most easily among relative peers.Įnvy is also distinct from any desire to possess the advantage in question. In fact, truly enormous differences such as between a peasant and a king tend not to arouse envy, because the peasant has a hard time even imagining himself in the king’s place. The differences in status that provoke such feelings need not be great. The envious man dwells on his perceived inferiority, which humiliates him and often arouses a sense of impotence or self-pity. In that case, the result is emulation, not envy. Sometimes unfavorable comparisons of this kind motivate people to try to get a similar advantage for themselves. Today we are witnessing the collapse of this earlier resistance.Įnvy is a negative feeling aroused by noticing an advantage enjoyed by someone else.

There is a tendency among our people to underestimate the importance of envy because Western civilization has been unusually successful in overcoming its effects, for reasons I will go into later. Many writers have alluded to it in passing, but I have never come across a thematic discussion. This is adapted from remarks given at the 18th American Renaissance conference on November 13, 2021.Įven before I begin, I imagine most of you have probably sensed at one time or another that envy does play such a role in race relations.

Sexual Utopia in Power by F. Roger Devlin