It’s true that as Tiffany Watt Smith wrote in her book schadenfreude is not just a German word because in many countries and cultures there are also words to describe satisfaction in the suffering of other people: “The Japanese have a saying: “The misfortunes of others taste like honey.” The French speak of joie maligne, a diabolical delight in other people’s suffering. The Danish talk of skadefryd, and the Dutch of leedvermaak. In Hebrew enjoying other people’s catastrophes is simcha la‑ed, in Mandarin xìng‑zāi‑lè‑huò, in Serbo-Croat it is zlùradōst and in Russian zloradstvo. More than 2,000 years ago, Romans spoke of malevolentia. Earlier still, the Greeks described epichairekakia (literally epi, over, chairo, rejoice, kakia, disgrace).
Be there as it may, the fact is that recently Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck has urged Germans to save energy in order to “annoy Putin“. But why didn´t he urge Germans to save energy to save Ukrainian lives? Are Germans driven less by generosity than by schadenfreude?PS – The sadistic Russian army has been raping and killing Ukrainians for more than 2 months but only now are German politicians (like Finance Minister Christian Lindner) asking for an end to public payments to the motherfucking Gerhard Schroder. Still speaking of the different traditions that do exist in the different countries it’s really a shame that Germans do not have the Japanese tradition of honorable suicide.
Pacheco-Torgal 