Schadenfreude
It’s an imperfect measure, since the use of the word “puts
you right on the border of Pretentia” — and amongst the enemies of those there “Conservative / Right” are the “fancy pants liberal elites”, “fancy pants liberal elites” I suppose being more prone to use the word “schadenfreude” than the “plain-pants conservative populists”.
Still… it does, in a limited way, guage a zeitgist… any drip into the sewer represents a greater flood elsewhere. A handful of blogs have used the word “schadenfreude” as an attack on “liberal-left” reaction to the prison abuses in Iraq. (A useful protective stance and a wistful redirection, I suppose… today, fed into by remarks from Senator James Inhofe.)
There is a reason I have that term tracked. And this is it.
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Note: There are 3 blogs linked. Only one is from the “conservative / right”. One is mocking the “psuedo – liberal / left” from a position of Marxist purity — and I’m almost prone to — more out of half-hearted hope than anything else — call it “satiric in nature”. The “long story short pier” entry has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and was included in a moment of haste.
May 11th, 2004 at 7:18 pm
Just a quick note: I was using “schadenfreude” to attack John Fowles’s adolescent self, or perhaps his decision to allow said self to hang in the breeze for all to see. (Context being key to these key word searches.)
I’d never attack the liberal-left reaction to what has happened in Abu Ghraib. Well. I might say, what, you expected better? From this crowd? But only when I’m in a bleak mood. –Which I am all too much these days.
When I’m not in a bleak mood, I do my best to egg us all on: Louder! Louder! Drown them out with howls of outrage! Pelt the reactionaries with rocks and garbage! Shame them forever and all time! Never again, motherfuckers!
May 11th, 2004 at 8:28 pm
Actually, I bungled somewhat. Only one of the three is from the “conservative / right”. The marxist one is from the left, dissing the “psuedo-liberal/left”. The page referred to above deserves a correction in the main entry.