Tuesday 29 May 2012

freude oder schadenfreude

Though not everything in the world is being influenced by the state of financial affairs and cultural mores and norms are not always so neatly packaged, a study commissioned by a consulting firm and a liquor distributor is showing that the typical German is having difficulty expressing his or her genetic make-up for joy—something is defective in the bio-chemistry preventing, as it were, the DNA replicating and passing along a capacity for fun and leisure to its messenger RNA. There are stereotypes of the exacting and gloomy German, which might be drawn into sharper focus in the current economic climate where two factions have emerged, like the industrious ant and the lazy grasshopper.  This survey, for what it’s worth, really provided some interesting insights about a growing imbalance between work and play. The lens of parable is an apt analogy, with the Germans are weathering the financial crisis with patrician discipline but also too burdened to enjoy how good they have it—collectively and individually, it seems.

They are victims of their own success in another way (not just as beneficiaries of the chaos) too, being spoiled for choice, and the obligation to take up any one of a number of pleasurable pursuits is ringing hollow as a weird and funny (uncomfortably accurate observations, some) sort jealousy comes into effect: jealous of the Joneses, one’s neighbours, as etiquette and appearances dictate, but also being unable to embrace the stylings of Club Med. This is not universally true, of course, and there are plenty of exceptions and recent moments of pride and of joy, suggesting that we’ve simply gotten to be forgetful and misguided and hopefully not naturally dour, but it is worth noting how people rate (and whether they considered their grumpiness—or happiness unique or abnormal beforehand) themselves and how they look from another perspective.