Envy

A Competition-free World (the second in a series of articles on each of the seven deadly sins* to be published on each Friday until Labour Day), by Geoff Ryan

“Our envy of others devours us most of all.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Envy begins by asking plausibly: ‘Why should I not enjoy what others enjoy?’ and it ends by demanding ‘Why should others enjoy what I may not?’”
Dorothy Sayers

T

here is a Russian ‘fable’ that goes like this. An Englishman and a Frenchman and a Russian are captured by a cannibal king.Condemned to death on the Monday, they are allowed a free weekend to do whatever they wish. The Frenchman wishes for a weekend in Paris with his mistress, no questions asked, no promises made. The Englishman wishes for a weekend walking in the fields of Oxfordshire with his setter, reciting Wordsworth and Shelley. The Russian wishes that his neighbour’s barn will burn down.This anecdote may seem a bit shocking, particularly to our Western, liberal-democratic sensibilities. Admittedly, it touches on an undercurrent in Asian/Russian culture which relates to alienation and selfishness as essential survival mechanisms. However, I recounted it not to disparage Russians, but because it is a good snapshot of envy. To the condemned captive, the chance that his neighbour, his rival, might get ahead of him or possess something that he doesn’t have – this is the worst thing of all. It speaks of an impulse which goes deeper than simply wanting what someone else has. It involves wanting to possess not only what they achieve, but who they are in their essence. “Envy according to the aspect of its object is contrary to charity (love), whence the soul derives its spiritual life… Charity rejoices in our neighbours good, while envy grieves over it”, wrote Thomas Aquinas

The English word envy derives from the Latin invidere which means “To look at askance” and “to see with malice”. Both these meanings carry malevolent undercurrents that go above and beyond merely wanting what a person has, to wishing ill on them because of it. True envy is not content to simply want and possess but adds injury to insult. “As the concept of sin has weakened, the seriousness of envy has diminished. As a sin it really used to be about a malevolent ill will toward another person, but the focus has shifted from the person to his/her possessions.” Envy and jealousy are commonly used interchangeably but they do differ. Envy is about wanting what someone else has or is. Jealousy is the feeling you get when someone threatens what is yours. Envy is a sin of comparison, representing the darker side of relativism. It is unique among the Seven Deadly Sins in that it is only experienced in relation to other people.

Jealousy is the feeling you get when someone threatens what is yours. Envy is a sin of comparison, representing the darker side of relativism.

I think there is a link between envy and the competition mentality that drives much of our world. Let me explain. In the beginning God saw that it was not good for man to be alone and so he made a helper suitable for him. This relationship was not primarily about sex or even principly a matter of roles. It was about mutual cooperation. This was the way that God constructed the world and arranged the relationships between the living things that he created to inhabit the earth, animals and humans. This was the natural order of paradise, pre-fall.

As soon as the relationship between man and God was ruptured in the Garden - relationships between people broke down (and between people and animals, incidentally, as it seems that according to the Scriptures, pre-fall we were vegetarians - Genesis 1:29,30). Cain flies off the handle not really because of issues with God, but because his brother’s sacrifice was accepted and his was not. Abel’s was better than his. Abel won and Cain lost. This was the first recorded Biblical instance of competition. And it was a competition to the death.

Abel won and Cain lost. This was the first recorded Biblical instance of competition. And it was a competition to the death.

From that time on, the foundation of human society has been based on competition and on people outdoing one another as a main motivating force. Sin entered the world, coming between people and God and one of the ways it has most consistently expressed itself is in competition, which inevitably produces envy as a consequence. After Eden, the primary source of our sense of identity as people quickly became who we are and who we are not - comparatively.

This past summer we witnessed one of the largest and most renowned examples of this - the Olympic Games. A two-week event in which individuals and nations strive with every means at their disposal to do better than each other, to beat each other. Envy can be seen during every medal ceremony, outnumbering triumph and joy on the faces of the athletes. There are always more losers than winners. Competition is king and cooperation is only exercised as a means to victory - victory over someone else be it another nation, another team or simply another person.

There are always more losers than winners.

The way it is now in our world, one can never just be good at something. It is impossible, in fact, simply to excel. The only option is to be better or worse in comparison to others. These are the only standards for judging anything - nothing else counts in the “real world.” This is what we were all taught growing up and it is what we teach our children.

At the school my two youngest children attend, a sports field day is held annually. Last year, my wife volunteered to help with the foot races. At the end of the races, a boy who had come in last stood off to the side all on his own with tears streaming down his face. “What do I tell my Dad?”, he sobbed. “I’m nothing. I’m not the tallest, smartest, fastest - I’m nothing…” In between the tears, envy peered out as he looked sadly at the other boys who were “better” than him. The world he is expected to find a place in is one in which he has no choice but to succumb to envy, if he can’t win all the time (which no one can, of course). So was he sinning in his envy, or was the sin his parents? Or was it simply the fatalistic reality of fallen creatures struggling to keep our heads above water in a fallen world in which some sin is inevitable?

What if the world were different? One might as well ask, what if the fall never happened? While we might not be able to turn the clock back pre-fall, we are exhorted as believers to follow Jesus who came to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). We have the privilege of co-labouring with Christ in his redemption of a fallen people and a fallen world. We are Salvationists, after all, tasked to save and salvage. So, what if we engaged the world on this point of envy and competition? Where would one start and what would be the implications?

We are Salvationists, after all, tasked to save and salvage. So, what if we engaged the world on this point of envy and competition? Where would one start and what would be the implications?

Well, for starters, we might re-think watching and participating in sports as our main leisure activity and along with this elevating professional athletes (Christian) as role models for our children; we might start to think hard about our complicit participation in today’s consumer society, the engines of which are stoked by an advertising industry which appeals to envy; we might discover that various church growth models and NCD measurement systems would be left with nothing to measure and no books to write, if we all stopped looking at the “successful” models, envying their obvious success (lets be honest); academic institutions might be left with no honours to bestow, music camps with no awards to give, and primary schools with no crying boys at the end of a foot race in which there could only ever be one winner and a whole bunch of losers.

Where could it all end, except maybe once again walking in a garden with God?

“Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to someone else.” (Galatians 6:4)

Co-Founder and Co-Editor of theRubicon and Co-Ordinator of the 614 Network, Geoff and his wife Sandra minister to Regent Park, a social housing project in Downtown Toronto.

*Originally published in Horizons, November/December 2004

2 Comments to Envy

1. Dear Geoffrey,
   I hate to disagree with a writer with whom I agree so often. But nevertheless, I am not sure that competition is a very good example of envy. The underlying premise of envy is to want what others have. Competition or competitiveness is not the same. (Let me also apologise in advance for the number of times I have used bracketed comments in this reply)

   Sports are artificial constructs that via narrow parameters force people, when pitted against an opponent, to demonstrate certain skills. Their skills are measured by achieving defined, and often silly, goals (e.g. put the hard little white ball in the hole 400 yards away). If you can’t measure it, it’s not sport (sorry all you gymnasts and ice skaters).

   In the main sporting contests are impersonal because the goal is to use one’s skills to transcend the strict parameters (rules) and excel. ‘You cannot go outside the lines, you cannot use your hands, you cannot go past the last defender until the ball is kicked’ etc. Within these defined parameters (handicapped as it were) people’s skills are measured by winning and losing (competition). Of course in football (soccer) it would be much easier to pick the ball up and run it into the net, or start before the ref blew his whistle or run outside the lines but that would defeat the purpose. Sports are designed to make relatively easy tasks as complicated as possible (cricket for example). (By the way, Big Brother is a similar artificial construct except the skills are relational and personality based rather than athletically or skill based.)

   My point young Geoffrey, is that competition (I want to excel at something) and envy (I want what she’s having) are not synonyms. Sport is not supposed to be personal. That is why one shakes hands with one’s opponent after the game, why it is important to be gracious in both victory and defeat. Even though you beat them (or lost to them) it wasn’t personal.

   Envy on the other hand is always personal, as your Dorothy Sayers quote so aptly illustrates. Consumerism is the perfect example of envy gone mad. In Australia there is an epidemic of SUVs (we call them 4WDs). Thousands of mums (moms) driving around to do the shopping and pick up the kids in a vehicle that is expensive, unsafe and difficult to drive. And they only reason they do so is because ‘she has one’ or ‘everyone else has one’. That is envy. ‘I want what she’s having’ is not the same as ‘I wish I was good at something’. The little boy (or the dad) from your example may have a problem but it is not envy. However, bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger TVs? The envy expressed in Western consumerism is a green-eyed monster out of control.

   In fact I would go so far as to say that for those who enjoy athletic endeavour, sport is excellent training in non-envy, precisely because, as you pointed out, there are more losers than winners. Life is difficult. We will fail and we will be disappointed, that is inevitable. (You win some you lose some). Sport teaches us that.

   “If you can meet with triumph and disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same … etc”

   At 46 I still play rugby. And when I am beaten I shake my opponent’s hand and thank him for the game. When I lose I do the same. I teach my son to do the same with not the slightest concern that in teaching him to play well and competitively that I am encouraging envy.
Grant on July 30th, 2006

2. Grant, I like where you went with some of your comments. It is true, that although competition, sports and the like do not always lead to envy, I don’t think everyone is just as happy to shake hands as you’d like to think. I think back a few years to when Canada got the gold for hockey. If you looked at the faces of the US team, sportsmanship and “for-the-sake-of-the-game” were no where to be found. As much as any pick-up game I play is for fun, I admit to being “put out” by not winning. Everybody shakes hands at the end, but God knows how many people actually mean it.
Colin Guthrie on August 1st, 2006

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