Pathological Envy in Post-Communism
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

The distinction between fiction and non-fiction became ever subtler
in the "Underground" world of post-socialism, "After the Rain" of
communism. In a lethal embrace, in an act of unprecedented
intercourse, literature penetrated reality as only the most fervent
lovers or the most avid haters do. A topsy turvy continent adrift
among the gales of newspeak, under the gaze of a million grey
bureaucrats passing for big brothers. A motion picture gone awry:
the plot long forgotten, the actors wondering forlornly on a
dilapidated scene and the credits flashing over and again, in an
endless loop.

This crazed landscape, this party of mad hatters, where time stood
still was the result of the two great equalizers: oppression and
ideology. The substrate of numerous experiments of groups without
control, the inhabitants of these feverish lands internalized their
own predicament. The broken toys of spoiled imperial children, the
guinea pigs of scientific materialism and then of materialism only -
they strutted around, eyes wide shut, ears clogged, mouths stapled,
lips sown with the wire of terror. Everyone was equal under their
occupiers, their tormentors, their slave masters. And everyone was
equal by decree, on pain of death or exile, by the horror-stricken
conviction called ideology. To succumb to the former was to survive -
to subscribe to the latter was to flourish. Many flourished.

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines envy as:

"A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone
else's possessions, qualities, or luck."

And an earlier version (The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) adds:

"Mortification and ill-will occasioned by the contemplation of
another's superior advantages."

Pathological envy - the second deadly sin - is a compounded emotion.
It is brought on by the realization of some lack, deficiency, or
inadequacy in oneself. It is the result of unfavourably comparing
oneself to others: to their success, their reputation, their
possessions, their luck, their qualities. It is misery and
humiliation and impotent rage and a tortuous, slippery path to
nowhere. The effort to break the padded walls of this self visited
purgatory often leads to attacks on the perceived source of
frustration.

Pathological envy is THE driving force of post communist Central and
Eastern Europe. Unable to cope with the sudden shift in values from
enforced and artificial equality to primitive, pirate capitalism -
the populace retreated to acrimony and bitterness. Faced with the
chasmic inequalities engendered by the serial collective robberies
known as "privatization" - it reacted with suppressed rage, with
despair, with the multiple sadness which is nostalgia. The land has
split between a colourful, dynamic, rapacious and omnivorous class -
and the sepia-like and quaint backdrop of their compatriots. As the
castles of the former rose - so were the abodes of the latter
humbled.

The resentment led to fears of abandoning one's self-control, of
confronting one's rulers and their cronies, of losing even the
little one was allowed to possess. It was a muted mutiny, a rebel-
less rebellion, a static trip from guilt to hate. To maintain these
seething undercurrents from erupting, to avoid the volcanic tremors
that precede every revolution - behaviour was formalized and
ritualized. Speech became ever vaguer and ambiguous. Effective
communication was halted. The community splintered and the very
fabric of society was consumed by this massive act of dissociation.

Pathological envy mutated into solutions the envious could live with.

Some sought to imitate or even emulate the newfound heroes of the
capitalist revolution. They immersed themselves in conspicuous
consumption, the badly matched purchases of the nouveaux riches
replete with the vulgar manners of unrefined power. They adhered to
coarse materialism with its confusion of ends and means. They
suffered the ever present agitation of envy, the constant comparison
to one's superiors, the plagued rat race. To get rich quick through
schemes of crime and corruption is thought by these people to be the
epitome of cleverness (providing one does not get caught), the sport
of living, a winked-at vice, a spice.

Yet others embarked on paths of rivalry and enmity and destruction.
This hydra has many heads. From scratching the paint of new cars and
flattening their tyres, to spreading vicious gossip, to media-hyped
arrests of successful and rich businessmen, to wars against
advantaged neighbours. The stifling, condensed vapours of envy
cannot be dispersed. They invade their victims and snatch their
rageful eyes, their calculating souls, they guide their hands in
evil doings and dip their tongues in vitriol. This is the day to day
existence in places as far apart as Moscow and the Balkans. A
constant hiss, a tangible malice, the piercing of a thousand eyes.
The imminence and immanence of violence. The poisoned joy of
depriving the other of that which you don't or cannot have.

There are those who idealize the successful and the rich and the
lucky. They attribute to them super-human, almost divine, qualities.
They think of serendipity as earned, of work as bestowed, of success
as deserved and reserved to the deserving. In an effort to justify
the agonizing disparities between themselves and others, they humble
themselves as they elevate the others. They reduce and diminish
their own gifts, they disparage their own achievements, they degrade
their own possessions and look with disdain and contempt upon their
nearest and dearest, who are unable to discern their fundamental
shortcomings. They feel worthy only of abasement and punishment.
Besieged by guilt and remorse, voided of self-esteem, self-hating
and self-deprecating - this is by far the more dangerous species.
For he who derives contentment from his own humiliation cannot but
derive happiness from the downfall of others. Indeed, most of them
end up driving the objects of their own devotion and adulation to
destruction and decrepitude.

But the most common reaction is the good old cognitive dissonance.
In Central and Eastern Europe, entire societies are in its grip. It
is to prefer the belief that the grapes are sour to the admission of
their desirability. These people devalue the source of their
frustration and envy. They find faults, unattractive features, high
costs to pay, immorality in everything they really most desire and
aspire to and in everyone who has attained that which they so often
can't. They walk around critical and self-righteous, inflated with a
justice of their making and secure in the wisdom of being what they
are rather than what they could have been and really wish to be.
They make a virtue of abstention, of wishful constipation, of
judgmental neutrality, this oxymoron, the favourite of the disabled.

Topped by a thin layer of coagulated fat, a bubble of enraged and
maddened envy is boiling underneath - from Murmansk to Athens and
from Prague to Dresden. Will it burst and spill over or will it only
noisily release its steam is anybody's guess. It is a force to
reckon with. The tide of capitalism has lifted few yachts and no one
else's boats. People feel cheated. They feel used and abused. They
feel conned out of their dignity and their possessions and their
future. They look around and see island castles surrounded by oceans
of physical and moral filth. This is no decadence because it has no
aesthetic values to ameliorate it. It is as ugly as the survival of
the thiefest. As Central and Eastern Europe engages, for the first
time, in serious restructuring - the social costs will mount
dramatically and so will inequality. The process can be reversed
only by the redistribution of wealth. But that it will be achieved
through progressive taxation rather than through a bloodbath is not
a foregone conclusion.


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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com