…Ice cold by Anthony Daniels | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The phenomenon of schadenfreude is a fascinating and important one, of course, well worth examination. But since it is usually subtle, undeclared, and often unacknowledged, even by he who experiences it, it requires some finesse to dissect it, which unfortunately the author, Tiffany Watt Smith, does not possess. Even the subtitle of her book is misleading: schadenfreude in its English meaning is surely not the joy, but rather the secret or surreptitious pleasure or satisfaction in another’s misfortune. But the error is a warning that proper distinctions, so necessary to this field, are about not to be made.
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