When Bad Things Happen to Other People
When Bad Things Happen to Other People
"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies", Gore Vidal once observed. It's funny, it's terrible, and it's true. What is it in human nature that makes us derive pleasure from others' -- even friends' -- suffering? John Portmann explor...
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"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies", Gore Vidal once observed. It's funny, it's terrible, and it's true. What is it in human nature that makes us derive pleasure from others' -- even friends' -- suffering? John Portmann explores this all-too-human foible -- what the Germans call Schadenfreude -- in the first book ever written about this universal emotion.
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