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Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

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Re: Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

#3

Post by galaxyLogic »

>disinterested critical discourse is really just a willful schadenfreude?

I think the writer has misunderstood the word "schadenfreude". He seems to understand it as "joy you get from hurting somebody else".

I always understood SchadenFreude to mean "the joy you get from somebody else's loss or other misfortune" - with no active participation by you in causing it.

Re: Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

#5

Post by donjoe »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #3

>disinterested critical discourse is really just a willful schadenfreude? I think the writer has misunderstood the word "schadenfreude". He seems to understand it as "joy you get from hurting somebody else". I always understood SchadenFreude to mean "the joy you get from somebody else's loss or other misfortune" - with no active participation by you in causing it.

Yes, that's exactly how you would use it in German. The word itself actually consists of 'Schaden' (damage/harm) and 'Freude' (joy/pleasure/happiness). In case someone gets 'damaged', you'd feel joy and experience 'Schadenfreude'.

If your car-addicted neighbor annoying the whole neighborhood with his 400 HP engine would run over his own cat, you'd experience 'Schadenfreude'. You'd still feel sorry for the cat though ;)

Re: Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

#6

Post by cavanasm »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #3

>disinterested critical discourse is really just a willful schadenfreude? I think the writer has misunderstood the word "schadenfreude". He seems to understand it as "joy you get from hurting somebody else". I always understood SchadenFreude to mean "the joy you get from somebody else's loss or other misfortune" - with no active participation by you in causing it.

Yeah, joy from inflicting harm is sadism. Author probably just wanted to use the word schadenfreude. It's a really fun word.

Re: Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

#7

Post by WillReplyfFood »

Ideas have a life of theire own- and to use logic and other sharp tools to end that- to hunt down bad ideas, to watch them in the snow of noise, wriggling, theire entrails out, the justifications spasming one more time, to watch the last rasping breath roaking "it must be true, for i desired it" and thus invaliditing its existance. That is not Schadenfreude, its the joy of a predator, killing of what not should have been alive in the first place. If it where not for this hunt- we would still be bringing young sheeps to the cliff, to sacrifice them for good weather.

If your ideology of choice is regularly murdered- have you ever considered, though it feels right, it might simply be wrong in assumption and execution - superstition- and thus eternal food for the wulfes of this world? That a rethinkinking and updating might spare you needless pain? That all those battles you fight and loose every time - trying to bend reality to shape, might be wasted life time, that could be used otherwise- not if the critiques go away, but if the flaws go away?

Re: Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

#9

Post by JohnStrange »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #3

>disinterested critical discourse is really just a willful schadenfreude? I think the writer has misunderstood the word "schadenfreude". He seems to understand it as "joy you get from hurting somebody else". I always understood SchadenFreude to mean "the joy you get from somebody else's loss or other misfortune" - with no active participation by you in causing it.

That's correct, and I should mention that Schadenfreude can sometimes even be used with a positive connotation, namely when a bad person suffers some misfortune due to his own wrongdoings.

Re: Let Me Ruin This for You: The Schadenfreude of Criticism

#10

Post by manmal »

The author is essentially saying that criticism is a tool to hurt others. I find this idea interesting, and worthwhile to think about. A question I now have is, in this theory, who does one want to hurt exactly? Is it always the subject of my scorn I want to hurt with criticism, or is it more complicated than that - if I rant about Java on Twitter (I don’t do Java dev anymore), who do I want to hurt? Java devs? Oracle? All programmers? Or just myself? Or the population in general?
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