Verified by 
Joseph Epstein quipped that, of the deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all. ‘Envy’ derives from the Latin invidia, ‘non-sight’. In Dante’s Inferno, the envious labour under cloaks of lead, their eyelids sewn tight with leaden wire—suggesting that envy arises from, or leads to, a form of blindness.
To experience envy, three conditions have to be met. First, we must be confronted with a person (or persons) with something—a possession, quality, or achievement—that has eluded us. Second, we must desire that something for ourself. And third, we must be personally pained by the associated emotions—‘personally pained’ because it is this personal dimension that distinguishes envy from more detached feelings such as outrage or injustice.
In sum, envy is the personal pain caused by the desire for the advantages of others. In Old Money (1988), Nelson W. Aldrich Jr. described the pain of envy as, ‘the almost frantic sense of emptiness inside oneself, as if the pump of one’s heart were sucking on air.’ Envy is mean and miserly, and arguably the most shameful of the deadly sins. Our envy is hardly ever admitted, often, not even to ourself.
Many people say ‘jealous’ when what they mean is ‘envious’. Envy and jealousy are subtly different constructs. If envy is the personal pain caused by the desire for the advantages of others, jealousy is the personal pain caused by the fear of losing one’s advantages to others, or sharing one’s advantages with others. In short, envy is covetous, jealousy is possessive. Jealousy is not circumscribed to the romantic sphere, but can also involve one’s friends, reputation, expertise, and so on. Compared to envy, jealousy is easier (or less hard) to admit to, suggesting that it might be the lesser of the two evils.
Envy is deeply ingrained in the human psyche and common to all times and people. Our ancestors lived in fear of arousing the envy of the gods, whom they placated with elaborate rituals and offerings. In Greek mythology, it is Hera’s envy for Aphrodite that set off the Trojan War. In the Bible, it is from envy that Cain murdered Abel, and ‘through the devil’s envy that death entered the world’. And in the Mahabharata, it is from ‘burning envy’ that Duryodhana waged epic war against his cousins the Pandavas.
Envy is usually directed towards those with whom we compare ourselves, those with whom we feel we are in competition. As Russell wrote: ‘Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.’ Envy has never been greater than it is today. Our age of equality encourages us to compare ourself to one and all, and social media make this only too easy, fanning the flames of our envy. By emphasizing the material and tangible over the spiritual and invisible, the twin pillars of consumerism and empiricism have undermined the one countervailing force capable of containing the blaze.
The pain of envy arises not from the desire for the advantages of others so much as the feeling of inferiority occasioned by their lack in ourself. Ironically, the energy expended in envy, and in not arousing it in others, holds us back from realizing our full potential. Envy also costs us friends and allies, and tempers, restrains, and undermines even our most intimate relationships. In some cases, it can lead to acts of sabotage, as with the child who breaks the toy that it knows it cannot have. Over time, our anguish and bitterness may give rise to mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia; and physical health problems such as infections, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. We are, quite literally, consumed by our envy.
It is a rare person who can be genuinely, unreservedly happy for someone else’s success, although this becomes easier if the success is trivial, or if it is a kind of failure, or if it is part of a bigger picture of failure. In some people, envy can give rise to defensive operations such as apathy, irony, scorn, snobbery, and narcissism, which have in common the use of contempt to minimize the existential threat posed by the advantages of others. Another common defence against envy is to incite it in those whom we would envy, reasoning that, if they envy us, we have no reason to envy them.
Bottled up envy can also morph into ressentiment, which is the reassignment of the pain that accompanies our sense of failure or inferiority onto a ready bogeyman, such as immigrants, gays, or the European Union. I discuss scapegoating at much greater length in my book, Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception.
People take great care to disguise their envy. Even so, it may be betrayed through indirect expressions such as Schadenfreude [German, lit. ‘harm-joy’], which is joy or pleasure derived from the misfortune of another. Schadenfreude helps to sell the news, which is riddled with stories of fallen celebrities, disgraced politicians, and disgruntled all-sorts. Although the term is modern—first attested, in German, in the 1740s—the emotion it denotes is much older. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle calls it epikhairekakia, which has the rare demerit of being even harder to pronounce.
But whatever we want to call it, the Book of Proverbs explicitly warns against it:
Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.
As the etymology (‘non-sight’) suggests, the fundamental problem with envy is that it blinds us to the bigger picture. When in its grips, we are as the captain of a ship who navigates not by the stars in the firmament but by the distorted lens of an inverted telescope. The vessel veers hither and thither, and is soon wrecked by rock, reef, or storm. By thwarting us, envy makes us even more envious, opening up a vicious circle of envy, short-sightedness, and pettiness.
It could be argued that envy, usually under the guise of outrage or compassion, is a force for social change that promotes democracy and equality. Left unchecked, the politics of envy ends in communism, which aims at creating a society that is free from envy. But in practice, those who live, and die, under the hammer and sickle become not less but more envious, grassing on their neighbours for the slightest of perceived advantages. Just as envy drives communism, so greed drives capitalism. Greed too can be fuelled by envy, but at least seeks to level up rather than level down, to build rather than destroy.
So, how to keep a lid on envy? When we envy a friend for her luxury car, we ignore or heavily discount all the efforts and sacrifices that have gone into affording and maintaining it, to say nothing of the risks and inconveniences of owning such a car. In the words of Charles Bukowski (d. 1994), ‘Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.'
In life, we are rich not only by what we have, but also and above all by what we do not. It’s easy to forget that the investment banker or hedge fund manager has essentially traded his soul for his ‘success’, and, as a result, lacks the vital capacity to enjoy whatever advantages he may have acquired. Such a hollowed-out husk is not to be envied but pitied. To keep a lid on envy, we have to keep on reframing, and reframing requires the perspective that envy denies.
What about the few who have inherited wealth without any effort or sacrifice? In the Hindu tradition, ‘lucky’ people are merely enjoying the fruits of their past karmic actions, including the past karmic actions of their parents, who nurtured and educated them, and of their grandparents, who nurtured and educated their parents, and so on.
Occasionally, as with lottery winners, luck is entirely undeserved, making our envy all the more virulent. But inherent in the nature of luck is that it evens out over time, so that there is no point in everyone taking turns to envy everyone else. In the long run, we tend to get more or less what we deserve—and then, whoever we are, our luck runs out.
Nature compensates for its shortcomings: if we do not have one thing, we surely have some other, even if it is not the sort of thing that is plastered on billboards. But while we envy, we focus on what we lack rather than we have and could otherwise be enjoying. Cultivating traits such as humility and gratitude can help us to develop proper perspective and protect against envy.
In the end, envy is a question of attitude. When we come across someone who is better or more successful than we are, we can react with joy, admiration, indifference, envy, or emulation. Envy is the pain that we feel because others have good things that we lack; emulation is the pain that we feel because we lack good things that others have. This is a subtle but important difference. By reacting with envy, we prevent ourselves from learning from those who know or understand more than we do, and thereby condemn ourselves to stagnation. But by reacting with emulation, we can ask to be taught and improve our lot.
Unlike envy, which is self-defeating, emulation enables us to grow and acquire the advantages that would otherwise have incited our envy. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle says that emulation is felt most of all by those who believe themselves to deserve certain good things that they do not yet have, and most keenly by those with an honourable or noble disposition.
In other words, whether we react with envy or emulation is a function of our self-esteem.
Read more in Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions.
