Plato and Schadenfreude

 Victoria Sabatino

January 30th 


Reflection 

I want to focus this reflection on the quote by Plato that says, “And yet the malicious man is somehow pleased with his neighbor’s misfortunes.” While I think that Plato otherwise has a very grim and not fun view of humor, he does get this right. To my understanding, the word that comes to mind for this quote is “schadenfreude” a German word that means “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.” And the word and its meaning are true, this is a type of humor, and I will admit, it is funny. 

Plato’s quote made me think of schadenfreude because there is a song in one of my favorite musicals Avenue Q that is simply titled ‘schadenfreude’ and it is all about this type of humor. It pokes fun at how we laugh at people’s misfortunes even if they are not funny. In the song, the two characters talk about this concept because they are both down on their luck, and are finding themselves victims to this type of humor. However, they explore many other misfortunes that they are glad they do not have, such as waitresses falling with a tray of glasses, ex’s getting STDs, ice skaters falling, tourists struggling to read maps, and several other ‘joys’. The song is funny because you find yourself relating to it, but not in a way that makes you feel like a bad person, it is just funny because sometimes you need to laugh at someone else’s struggles. So I think Plato is right, except by calling the man malicious. I think this is wrong because every single person has been the malicious man, so Plato is making it seem like there is a divide when there is not one.

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