Another post from What We Saw Today.
Jealousy and Envy
I have just returned from a short trip to France. Good weather, good food, new friends. Lots of shoots but also lots of leisure time. Monday night in Paris I met for dinner a friend who is a psychoanalyst. Over oysters and Chablis at the wonderful historic "Closerie des Lilas" in Montparnasse, famously frequented by the surrealists in the 1930s, we discussed the destructive power of jealousy and envy.
Jealousy and envy, in English as also in other languages, are terms often used interchangeably - the conflation is evident in idioms such as "green eyed monster" (jealousy) and "green with envy". Yet they are not exactly the same: whereas jealousy would seem to expose fear of loss, envy hinges on feelings of inferiority. Historically jealousy has been associated with sexuality and to some extent it was seen as condonable, especially in the case of men being jealous of THEIR women, whereas envy has always been viewed as a positively anti-social drive.
The Greek myths demonstrate the negative power of both jealousy and envy: deities such as Eris, Nemesis, Megaera come to mind - they are all, incidentally, female deities, which to me is quite telling and indicative of a patriarchal order.
In literature, jealousy and envy have been given unparalleled treatment, as fundamental human emotions, sins (especially envy) in the Judeo-Christian Weltaunschaang. Dante for example defined envy as "love of one's own good perverted to a desire to deprive other men of theirs" and punishes it in the Inferno of his Divina Comedia , together with greed and avarice. In Shakespeare's tragedy Othello we see both jealousy and envy unfold through the actions of Othello and Iago, both consumed and destroyed by it, and in Goethe's Faust Mephistopheles IS envy. More recently in Peter Schaffer's Amadeus later turned into a successful film by Milos Forman in 1995, we see the composer Salieri being jealous of Mozart but envious of God, who has not granted him the same talent.
An understanding of jealousy and envy as primary forces are at the core of psychoanalytic theory, the study of neurosis and psychotherapy practice . From Freud's penis envy (the realization of the little girl that she does not have a penis would engender in her a feeling of anxiety) to Melanie Klein's theorization of envy as "an oral-sadistic and anal-sadistic expression of destructive impulses, operative from the beginning of life” concretising at the time of breast feeding, with the infant wanting to swallow the breast, jealousy and envy seem to be defining the basic intra and inter sex interaction. Their theorization comes with a slant on justifying a male view of the world (yes, even in Melanie Klein, although there is some radicalism and a strong dissent with Freud in her construction of envy as a visceral rage).
Feminism has changed all this. Even before the explosion of feminist psychoanalysis brought about by Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, all of whom were out of French post 1968 poststructuralism, Karen Horney, a German psychoanalyst and psychiatrist re-theorized penis envy as womb envy. In her words this is "the unexpressed anxiety felt by men, naturally envying pregnancy, nursing, and motherhood — of woman’s primary role in creating and sustaining life — that leads them to dominate women and drive themselves to succeed in order for their names to live on". Let me make it clear: Horney is talking about a psycho-social tendency, rather than a quality inherent in men (so did Freud).
Feminist psychoanalysis has changed the cultural landscape of the past 30 to 40 years, deconstructing the phallic hypotheses of patriarchy - the phallocentrism or phallogocentrism of society i.e. the privileging of the phallus (the masculine) in the construction of meaning.
What are we to make of jealousy and envy then? Jealousy and envy remain, fundamentally, mechanisms to control women . Let me restate this. It does not mean that men are not jealous and envious of one another. They are, and they aggressively attempt to control and antagonise each other. But it is in their interaction with women that the full impact of jealousy and envy are seen.
I am clearly generalising, but I would say that women often respond to situations in which they are made to feel insecure (trapped and inadequate, divested of their identity) by their partners with feelings of jealousy, directed at other women - Nancy Friday has written about this in her best-seller Jealousy. Men often react to their sense of inferiority vis à vis their more successful, stronger female partner by feeling rage and envy, an irrational and unconscious drive to destroy their object of desire. It is what, according to Susan Forward, leads to domestic violence. Abuse (of any type, from verbal to physical) feeds on this Kleinian envy or indeed, the womb envy theorized by Horney.
How can we overcome such destructive and self- destructive tendencies? I can only think of self awareness, self confidence and grounding. And last, but not least, compassion.
(All photos modelled by Alex B.)
Jealousy and Envy
"Champagne" by Mol Smith
I have just returned from a short trip to France. Good weather, good food, new friends. Lots of shoots but also lots of leisure time. Monday night in Paris I met for dinner a friend who is a psychoanalyst. Over oysters and Chablis at the wonderful historic "Closerie des Lilas" in Montparnasse, famously frequented by the surrealists in the 1930s, we discussed the destructive power of jealousy and envy.
Jealousy and envy, in English as also in other languages, are terms often used interchangeably - the conflation is evident in idioms such as "green eyed monster" (jealousy) and "green with envy". Yet they are not exactly the same: whereas jealousy would seem to expose fear of loss, envy hinges on feelings of inferiority. Historically jealousy has been associated with sexuality and to some extent it was seen as condonable, especially in the case of men being jealous of THEIR women, whereas envy has always been viewed as a positively anti-social drive.
In literature, jealousy and envy have been given unparalleled treatment, as fundamental human emotions, sins (especially envy) in the Judeo-Christian Weltaunschaang. Dante for example defined envy as "love of one's own good perverted to a desire to deprive other men of theirs" and punishes it in the Inferno of his Divina Comedia , together with greed and avarice. In Shakespeare's tragedy Othello we see both jealousy and envy unfold through the actions of Othello and Iago, both consumed and destroyed by it, and in Goethe's Faust Mephistopheles IS envy. More recently in Peter Schaffer's Amadeus later turned into a successful film by Milos Forman in 1995, we see the composer Salieri being jealous of Mozart but envious of God, who has not granted him the same talent.
Photographer: Gadras
Feminism has changed all this. Even before the explosion of feminist psychoanalysis brought about by Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, all of whom were out of French post 1968 poststructuralism, Karen Horney, a German psychoanalyst and psychiatrist re-theorized penis envy as womb envy. In her words this is "the unexpressed anxiety felt by men, naturally envying pregnancy, nursing, and motherhood — of woman’s primary role in creating and sustaining life — that leads them to dominate women and drive themselves to succeed in order for their names to live on". Let me make it clear: Horney is talking about a psycho-social tendency, rather than a quality inherent in men (so did Freud).
Photographer: Korrigan
What are we to make of jealousy and envy then? Jealousy and envy remain, fundamentally, mechanisms to control women . Let me restate this. It does not mean that men are not jealous and envious of one another. They are, and they aggressively attempt to control and antagonise each other. But it is in their interaction with women that the full impact of jealousy and envy are seen.
I am clearly generalising, but I would say that women often respond to situations in which they are made to feel insecure (trapped and inadequate, divested of their identity) by their partners with feelings of jealousy, directed at other women - Nancy Friday has written about this in her best-seller Jealousy. Men often react to their sense of inferiority vis à vis their more successful, stronger female partner by feeling rage and envy, an irrational and unconscious drive to destroy their object of desire. It is what, according to Susan Forward, leads to domestic violence. Abuse (of any type, from verbal to physical) feeds on this Kleinian envy or indeed, the womb envy theorized by Horney.
Photographer: Marcello Pozzetti
(All photos modelled by Alex B.)
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