Pedagogica: Schadenfreude: a species of unconscious bias

Have you noticed? Feeling good, justified, righteous, vindicated, confirmed, a pleasurable sensation on hearing of certain misfortunes to certain people or a certain person in certain places and situations? It doesn't need to be expressed in self-talk, though that may emerge if I let it: "They deserve it!" "She had it coming!" "Serves him right!" It's called Schadenfreude and lives in its original Teutonic orthography as it is next to impossible to translate into English or most other languages–we keep it as it is.

This inner feeling may be a culturally acquired or individually learned, an unconscious bias inclining us toward a certain automatic affective response toward those involved. For example:

A hurricane sweeps through the Caribbean and makes landfall in the US Southern States. Being a acculturated Yankee who relishes his Puerto Rican adventures and cherishes folks I know there, I am distraught at the distress in Boquerón but yet somehow enjoying the news that the tropical cyclone has made landfall in Savannah knocking things cattywampus.

Does my knee-jerk disdain for the South come from history books, jokes about Bubba, lack of first-hand knowledge, no kinfolk, Southern accents? Probably yeens can figure how suma ‘dis got me t' tote this hankerin', and how this varmint in m' brain can egg on a heap of trouble if not managed. Y’er darn tootin'! Sumpin's outta kilter. Not everythin's hunky dorey in me amygdala an' I reckon I'd ruther do sumpin lickety split. But then ah gotta' ask m'self, what ahm fixin' to do? B'for m'words getcha goose and y'all pitch a hissy fit, callin' me an egg-suckin' dawg fer the cultural appropriation in this paragraph, I'd best haul back to my native Ohioan accent... I did heard n'Alabama good ol’boy once say, "Yankees is like hemorrhoids: Pain in the butt when they comes down n' always a relief when they goes back up."

So, what am I fixin' t'do? Here's my three-step fix when I sense this sweet satisfaction, this emotional goo oozing over a malevolent event:

Step 1: Start by pinpointing this feeling for what it is –Schadenfreude. I don't need to label it, but just make myself identify and accept what it is, clearly recognize how it feels, whom it targets. Then I look for what closeted judgements it tells me I have formed and have formed me toward the individual or group in question and are now part of my stored baggage.

Step 2: Prompt myself to "Get real!" and ask what's really going on, what's happening to whom and why? What does the trigger event actually look like, how does it feel like to those involved? Recognizing the reality of the pain, the loss, the distress lets me generate an alternative set of connections to the event that allows empathy to replace the disdain of Schadenfreude.

Step 3: Finally, I make sure that my subsequent words and actions are consonant with the reality I now see or can find and empathize with. Perhaps, where appropriate, I may share with others my efforts at dealing with and overcoming my Schadenfreude bias, maybe helping them address their own.

Not surprisingly, practicing these steps is also conducive to inner reconciliation with one’s self, a higher sense of peace and well-being, as well as sowing seeds of reconciliation with others.