ABSTRACT

INDEED, THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT NIETZSCHE, THE RELENTLESS YES-SAYER, maintains: Schopenhauer’s prize comes at too high a cost. Without the personal separateness which Schadenfreude presupposes, there would be precious little personality at risk of being bruised by laughter — not so much because we are immune to pain, but because there is no particularly distinctive personality left to harm. Nietzsche holds that Schadenfreude is not something that should alarm us, even as he acknowledges that being the object of Schadenfreude can be unpleasant. Being laughed at, either silently or overtly, bothers Nietzsche quite a bit less than it does Schopenhauer.