Andrew Shaffer's The Joy Of Watching Others Suffer

In the article, “The Joy of Watching Others Suffer”, author Andrew Shaffer discusses the horrible trait, schadenfreude, we humans often experience. Schadenfreude is a German word meaning the enjoyment of watching others suffer. The people in the Capitol thrive on watching others fight to the death, suffer in horrific conditions, and watch as friends become enemies – for it is every man for himself. In this article, Shaffer discusses how much society enjoys watching others fail, how propaganda is used to dehumanize the tributes, and that we humans . Although we do enjoy seeing people succeed, there is something in our human nature that often enjoys the failure of others more. “In this view, by taking someone down a notch, we feel better about ourselves and elevate our own social standing” (Shaffer 79). He uses the German word “schadenfreude”, meaning enjoyment obtained from the suffering of others, to describe the emotion we feel. Even though we don’t sit around rooting for the members of our society to kill others, like they do in the Hunger Games, we still often have the tendency to feel better about

“I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself” (Shaffer 85). She believes that because so many people find schadenfreude through the Games, that hope for society and humanity is lost. We should be focused on lifting each other up and congratulating each other on successes rather than putting each other down for our failures. Although we talk about making the world a better place and spending our time lifting each other up, it is often easier to just indulge in schadenfreude… even when we think it is justified. Shaffer states, “Whether the triggering event is seemingly trivial (such as someone slipping and falling on an icy sidewalk) or profound (a tribute brutally murdered in the arena), schadenfreude is always devilish”