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An anthropologist acquaintance of mine once questioned the universality of envy. Isn’t it culturally determined? Surely one could imagine a society in which relative differences between people would not produce pain and ill will. Our Western, competitive ways create the conditions for envy -- such that it only seems a natural, prevalent emotion. He pointed to a culture he claimed was largely free of unpleasant, invidious emotions.
“Do you have kids?” I asked.
“Yes."
“I would imagine you try to treat them equally?”
“Of course."
“Why?”
He saw where I was heading. And he took my point. I sensed he had experienced, like me, the challenges of guiding his kids away from self-focused concerns over getting their share and more toward the value of shar-ing. Like me, it seemed, he could remember the pain and anger his kids would feel when they felt disadvantaged compared to a sibling. And, I figured that the challenges were more acute when his kids were young and less apt to present the feelings they were “supposed” to feel -- rather than those they were actually feeling.
For my wife and I, our early failed, teaching moments came when we were watching movies together with our two daughters. Popcorn was a required pairing with the movies. I usually made the popcorn and had the task of filling our bowls with popcorn. I learned early on that it was wise to choose equal-sized bowls for the kids and to heap these bowls with equal amounts of popcorn. This was because failing to do so, even if the discrepancy was small, would never go undetected. And usually, it was the daughter who got less who reacted with immediate, intense complaint.
“Why did she get more?” “It’s not fair!”
We would urge both kids not to worry about such small differences. In fact, we would urge them to be happy over their sibling getting more.
This was a foolish idea.
Now, it wasn’t that they wanted more than their sibling. But they were highly disturbed by getting less.
As I think about it, however, I am glad that our daughters both noted discrepancies in how they were treated and cared about getting less.
Would they manage well in the world if such discrepancies went unnoticed and if they were content with being undervalued?
Indeed, envy, which may be the best emotion label we have for the pain we feel when we notice another person advantage, is probably a quite adaptive, necessary pain – if we are to avoid veering off into extinction as a species. This is not to devalue other motives that are more generous in spirit, which also have adaptive importance.
There is no getting rid of envy. As we mature and achieve wisdom from our experience, we must develop ways of coping with envy’s inevitable presence, letting it play its role in our lives among the cast of other emotions and proclivities.
