Jealousy is one of those terribly basic emotions that needs no explanation, similar to anger, fear, or elation. The field of psychology might not agree, but to my untrained eye it seems like envy is one of those things we are born with the ability to feel. If the other baby has a pacifier and I don't, I want it. This behavior changes little as we get older, although some of us mature emotionally beyond the age of 13 and attempt to put a lid on it. But let's be honest, it never really goes away. We can learn how to be happy for other people when they succeed, but we still want the shiny toys for ourselves too. For example, if one of my academic colleagues suddenly gets a job at Harvard I'm going to be happy for him; I'm also going to think, "Damn, I wish that was me."
I think that's OK. Which is to say I don't think it makes me a horrible person to react that way. I don't begrudge other people their successes and I also want to succeed. But what if I was a lot more bitter and angry? (note: I am already pretty bitter and angry) What if the administrations of universities across America whipped all of us at the bottom of the academic food chain into a frenzy over the rich, cushy lives of tenured faculty until we practically demanded that they destroy the tenure system altogether? "If we can't have the good life, no one can have it!" would be the rallying cry. Part-time, no benefit work for everyone! That, I would argue, would not be a very healthy expression of jealousy. I mean, if I'm going to have a shitty life what do I gain from other people having one too? Dragging other people down into the mud doesn't help me; doing so would be little more than a childish and petty (if understandable) reaction.
This issue is playing out on a national stage in the battles (or upcoming battles) over public employee pensions and health benefits (i.e. this piece on the current struggles in New Jersey). Republicans are building support for draconian cuts to the size and compensation of the public sector workforce – Those goddamn greedy teachers! – based on a very simple, natural reaction to tough economic times. Chris Christie, for example, isn't doing anything more complicated than pointing at public employees' benefits and telling the rest of the state, "Look! They have much better benefits than you. Doesn't that make you mad?" Boy does it.
And of course voters react the only way American voters know how. Demand better benefits and working conditions for themselves? Heavens no. Demand that Christie reconsider the state millionaire tax he vetoed over the summer so the state can meet its contractual obligations? Oh hell no. They demand the dismantling of public sector benefits. If I can't have 'em, nobody can.
It's yet another of the fantastic tricks our political elites have engineered since the 1970s. Cut private sector benefits, let real wages stagnate, and then tell the former middle class, "Now that you're struggling, doesn't it piss you off to have to pay for the pension of some cop who retires at 53?" It really is brilliant. Historically, plutocrats have had to force race-to-the-bottom capitalism on working people over tooth and nail opposition. Now they've found a way to make the serfs practically demand it.
It's amazing how they can get people to think so counter-intuitively. You could even say I'm jealous.
HoosierPoli says:
It's just a simple redefinition of labor relations, from collective bargaining power to at-will "right to work" wage slavery. It's a generation-long project finally come to fruition, and there will be no end without the kind of dramatic collective-action and lawbreaking that lead to the last leap forward for labor.
Which is to say, there will be no end.
Robert says:
There's a hypocrisy here on the part of the republicans: Vilifying these public and/or unioned employees who are doing better, but not amazing, while deifying multi-millionaires who are doing amazing. AND IT'S WORKING?!
"Aw, idin it sad those millionaires are getting raped by gubmint taxation…WUT? These union scumbags are gittin' dental?!"
Robert says:
I was a career Federal civil servant – twenty four years at the VA Hospital. Sometimes I wished I'd gotten one of those cartoon civil service jobs – you know, the paunchy guys in short sleeved white shirts and ties, who drink coffee and ignore the telephone all day.
People who rail about 'the government' would do better to be more specific about what it is 'government' is doing right now that they would like it to stop doing. I realize that, for some of them, that list would begin with 'stop torturing me with remote transmissions and take the chip out of my skull'. But the ones who are less obviously insane should also get their turn.
Radical Scientist says:
Judging from the google, I think I picked up a difference between envy and jealousy that most people don't use, but that I've found really handy. I learned that envy is when you want something like what someone else has, whereas jealousy is about wanting to take something away from someone and keep it for yourself. Envy is when you hope your friend's awesome girlfriend has a sister, jealousy is when you hit on her when he's not around.
A good chunk of being an adult is replacing jealousy with envy, because while well-harnessed envy can help you decide what you want from life, jealousy just flat out makes you a dick. Which, really, is what I think of when I see teabaggers complaining about their neighbors having slightly better working conditions–the healthy response would be 'Hey, no fair! How come I don't get job security and a pension like that? I gotta go have a word with my boss.' Instead, we get 'Waaaa! Fuck you! I hope the state breaks your contract and your job sucks as much as mine, or more, because…taxes.'
Ben says:
@ Robert:
I don't think there's a hypocrisy in Republican thinking towards unions and millionaires. It just reflects incredible misunderstanding as to how value is rewarded in a capitalist economy.
The Great American Myth is that pay increases are commensurate with increases in work: work harder, get more money. The millionaires worked harder because they have more money. But da freakin' unions didn't have to work harder for their lavish pensions. If they did, they wouldn't have had to negotiate and strike, since employers inherently reward workers with a fair wage in compensation for the value they give the company.
Of course this violates 10,000 things about what we know about how capitalist economies work; millionaires don't gather their wealth through working harder, employers don't pay the wage that compensates workers for their value, etc. But that's why it's a myth.
I wouldn't call believing this myth hypocritical, since the people who believe in it also believe that they too are bound by those same made-up rules about how capitalism works. "I worked hard and receive a fair wage. So did millionaires. But da freakin unions are trying to negotiate their way to higher pay, rather than working harder for it". It's stupid and mean, but not hypocritical, seems like.
keith says:
In my discipline, getting an asst. prof job at Harvard commits one to a vagabond life, as asst. profs there rarely get tenure. And given my experience on the job market, I've come to believe that the tenure system does indeed require overhaul. Not to part time positions and no benefits, but to renewable long-term contracts (say, every 5 or 7 years). The current system appears to be a big pipeline with very few jobs at the end, a situation that should not exist for the extensive training and deprivation grad students are expected to endure.
Kulkuri says:
Here's a pledge for all those that think government and the unions are the problem.
Lakoff says:
Read George Lakoff's books on framing and politics, and you'll understand the issue. A huge amount of advertising has gone into convincing people that taxes are a burden rather than an investment in society, and they have duly been convinced. When was the last time you heard anyone – anyone! – argue that taxation was a patriotic duty and an investment in the future? Anyone! No one is making that argument, left, right or center. So of course there's nothing but a race to the bottom. Seriously, ginandtacos guy, read Lakoff's books. They're enlightening.
acer says:
An on-point post. Politics has indeed become the more dispicable cousin of advertising.
Coincidentally, Gov. Sandwiches was my CotY pick.
acer says:
@RadSci:
I always thought "jealousy" was being overprotective of your own lot and "envy" was coveting your neighbor's, meaning that everyone who used "jealousy" in the "bitches be hatin'" sense was doin it rong.
acer says:
@RadSci:
I always thought "jealousy" was being overprotective of your own lot and "envy" was coveting your neighbor's, meaning that everyone who used "jealousy" in the "bitches be hatin'" sense was doin it rong. If it means "I've got to get one of those," then, yeah, I think envy can be healthy.
Southern Beale says:
There is an evolutionary imperative toward envy: it's the key component of competition, and competition is what drives evolution (along with change, of course). Competition for mates, competition for food, competition for territory … it's difficult to imagine these things existing without a certain degree of envy.
Southern Beale says:
Forgot to add … this is exactly how the elites get low-information voters to think counter-intuitively. By appealing to hard-wired, DNA-based, lizard-brain emotions. Envy. Fear. Sex. Hunger. You know the drill.
It's why I call this segment of the population Amygdala America.
ladiesbane says:
It's always been used to cultivate anti-union sentiment. Why should you factory workers get paid min-wage for body-wrecking repetitive motion while autoworkers (who do the same) are paid like princes? Better to wreck theirs than get yours.
And for the record: envy relates to what you don't have, but want; and jealousy relates to what you already have, and don't want to share or lose.
There are healthy and unhealthy degrees of both, I'm sure, but it's rotten to break someone else's foundation because you don't have one. A hidden problem of egalitarianism is the feeling that no one should do better than anyone else.
Richard S says:
If I was a kid growing up in NJ the last thing I would chose as a choice of career is teaching. You might have the child of on of these ignorant pigs in the classroom and you'd have to put up with being vilified by stupid politicians. My daughter is an extremely good teacher and she's going to bail the minute she finds an alternative. It's becoming a horrible career – who want these ignorant brats anyway?
Southern Beale says:
Richard S:
It's not just New Jersey. The entire attack on public employees' unions has been orchestrated by the GOP for YEARS. Remember during the Bush Administration all of those attacks on the teachers as "terrorists"?
BigHank53 says:
I just find it kind of amazing that these asshat republican voters have never thought their position all the way through. We could burn down all our failing public schools with the unionized teachers still inside and slow-roast every last one of those pension-sucking retirees over the coals, and where would we be?
We'd be right in the middle of Fucked, instead of on the border like we are now. The GOP would be simultaneously insisting that Labor is the only thing that should ever be taxed, and that Labor should have no price floor. Bonus points if you can figure out how to fund anything fancier than a Cub Scout Troop on that kind of budget.
Hey, does anyone remember the GOP complaining when the debt ceiling was raised in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, or the second time in 2008? No?
Paul W. Luscher says:
Well, I guess it shows that, as a nation, we're not too bright…..buying into the idea that it's good to give up the things our parents and grandparents fought for..the unions, benefits, health and safety rules, etc…
Nan says:
Spooky. We're on the same wavelength. The S.O. and I were talking earlier this morning about how we've never been able to understand why so many people seem so eager to fuck themselves. The rational response to seeing someone with a good (union) job with decent benefits should be to try to figure out how to unionize your own workplace, i.e., try to raise everyone to a higher level, but instead the fucktard response (let's drag everyone down) reigns supreme.
Xynzee says:
The S-Af'ers have a term for this: having a dog in the manger. Because a dog is hungry but can't eat hay, it sits in the manger and scares away the livestock so they can't eat either, rather than go look for something it can.
We see the same type of BS w international trade and tariffs. Part of the reason Western companies can't "compete" w China and India is that we've got rules to protect the environment. So instead of saying you put in place environmental protection, and pay decent wages we'll remove the tariffs (ie come up to our standards), we say we've gotta get rid of these to "be competitive (ie lower our standards).
Patrick says:
We're about to go down this road here in Texas. Our "fiscally responsible" Governor and "fiscally prudent" legislature have left us staring at a $20-$28 billion dollar smoking crater in the middle of our state budget. Rather than even mention that taxes could be raised on corporations and/or the wealthy, the Lege is getting right to the point: cutting public education jobs and leveraging some good old fashioned cronyism to undo our TRS pension system.
As a staff member at a public university, I fully expect to get reamed. I can't speak for how universities and those of us who work at them are viewed in other states, but here in Texas the general air of contempt toward us is palpable. Even though most of us who work here in IT do so at a discount to what we could make in the private sector, we're resented because of the stability of our jobs. Well, at least up until now.
In 2010, we had a crushing landslide for not just Republicans, but TEA Party Republicans. The hard-fought Dem gains of the last three elections were literally all wiped out and we got two party switchers headed from our side of the aisle over to the Republicans to ensure they have a supermajority in the state House.
They've been given the keys to govern and I expect them to deeply and truly fuck this state up. And you know what will happen in 2012? No matter how badly they fuck it up, they'll be given the keys again. It won't be because voters think that they are competent; it will happen because of the militantly myopic coalition of pissed off suburbanites and rural bluehairs are going to have to find someone to blame for their continued declining standard of living, As long as there's one public employee who has a shred of decent pay or a chance of having a decent retirement, these subs and oldsters will keep sending Republicans back to the Lege to undo those things.
Then, in the end, they will finally have the dysfunctional, unresponsive, shitty government that they think they already have and they'll go ahead and outsource the last vestiges of democracy.