“Schadenfreude” – A Bully’s Satisfaction. By ABC.

“Schadenfreude” – A Bully’s Satisfaction.

By ABC

Have you ever noticed a little smile sweep across your bully’s face just at the moment when you couldn’t feel more infuriated?  Well if you have, you are right.  “Real” Bullies, and by that, I mean bullies with a level of psychopathy, also referred to as sociopathy…

“gain satisfaction through

antisocial behavior”, characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct but masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal” -
-quoted from Wikipedia at this link:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Perceptual.2Femotional_recognition_deficits

Although this resource uses the word “satisfaction” to describe

what  “a psychopath gains through their antisocial behavior”, it is an entirely different kind of  “satisfaction” than both defined and  experienced by most of us.  “A bully’s satisfaction” is a perverse form of satisfaction,  being malicious in nature, rather than joyful or positive, as defined in English dictionaries.

There is actually no English word which links personal “satisfaction” to another person’s misfortune or harm.  Such a word doesn’t exist, because most people, are incapable of thinking in those terms, while denying the existence of the  few, who do.  Some languages acknowledge those few, having words for them, like the German word;

“Schadenfreude”

–noun
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011.

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— n
delight in another’s misfortune

[German: from Schaden  harm + Freude  joy]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009

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“What a fearful thing is it that any language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony to the existence of the thing. And yet in more than one such a word is found. … In the Greek epikhairekakia,  in the German, ‘Schadenfreude.’ “

As quoted by Richard C. Trench, “On the Study of Words,” 1852

So there it is!  “Such a thing exists”, two languages having words, thereby “bearing testimony to the existence of the thing”, namely, “a bully’s satisfaction”, words of my own, for lack of a more fitting,

Image via Wikipedia

existing, English word.

“Schadenfreude” – “A bully’s satisfaction” – Remember the meaning well, if not the word(s), because the meaning does exists, even where a word for it does not, in the memory of many who have witnessed it.  Only some cultures, witnessing it enough,  to name it.

I wonder if the Germans came up with this word, before or after the Holocaust?

Adult Bullying in The Wake of the Tucson Shootings. By ABC

Image via Wikipedia

In the wake of the Tucson shootings, “adult bullying” in the United States has finally come forward as a recognizable topic in the media.  Although greatly misunderstood, and called by many other names, the issue of “adult bullying” is now a hot topic of public interest, with multimedia coverage and information sweeping across the nation daily.

President Obama has called for “Civility” in “political rhetoric”.  All sides are standing-down, putting their political agendas on hold, while the bullying behaviors of the political machine, continues to spin unabated and unrecognized as “bullying tactics”.  All the while, an entire nation of bystanders, watching, but not really seeing, that those hoping to gain, by pointing the finger of blame, are at the very core, of all that is wrong, when adults bully other adults.

“Adult bullying” is primarily about perception.  The “adult bully”, by this I mean a person with a level of “psychopathy”, is centered on how they are perceived and compared to, by others. Using tactics such as blame, twisted or half-truths, innuendo, gossip and lies, they are expert manipulators of people’s perception, capable of throwing an adversary’s character into doubt, while elevating their own political, social, or professional standing.

Firmly rooted in reality, able to reason, cope and distinguish the difference between right and wrong,  adult bullies, while having a level of psychopathy, mimic the normal behavior of others, and are not considered mentally ill in the usual sense of the word. These “successful psychopaths” have the appearance of emotional health, while having a diminished or absent ability to experience caring feelings for other people, instead, experiencing a type of satisfaction, with the misfortunes of others.  Our social denial, that people with such serious hidden flaws, really exists, and are a real threat in our day-to-day lives, adds to the prevalence and success of adult bullies, to do harm everywhere.

Can you spot the adult bully(ies), I mean the REAL bully(ies), with a level of psychopathy in this controversy? Here’s a hint; It’s not Sarah Palin.

Learn to Recognize it, Name it and End Adult Bullying and Mobbing Together!