A Hurricane, a Tweet, and Schadenfreude

“I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar-a-Lago!” tweeted Kim Campbell, former Canadian Prime Minister, when Dorian was still a developing hurricane. Her anticipated schadenfreude at the prospect of the hurricane hitting President Trump's resort in Palm Beach, Florida was thoughtless and insensitive. It prompted a spate of scolding reactions, causing Campbell to apologize and remove the tweet, putting it down to “sarcasm—not a serious wish of harm.”

Schadenfreude occupies a conflicted space among social emotions. Although we are shamed when we express it, the emotion is commonly felt nonetheless, often camouflaged by its opposite, crocodile tears.

One reason we feel schadenfreude is that we often benefit from misfortunes happening to others, and pleasure is a natural result. However, the pleasure might come mixed with empathy. Campbell has passionate concerns about climate change. The hurricane was going to hit somewhere. Perhaps having Mar-a-Lago be that place would cause President Trump, a climate change skeptic, to stop denying the obvious. Campbell’s concerns are shared by virtually all climate scientists and the increasing majority of people. In this sense, her anticipated pleasure, unseemly at it was, had a collective, unselfish shade to it.

We enjoy the suffering of people we dislike, and Campbell clearly dislikes President Trump. The basis for anyone's likes and dislikes can be questioned, but in this case, she has plenty of company. Deservingness enters the equation here too.

Campbell was insensitive in her tweet. Mar-a-Lago getting hit would bring misfortune to many innocent people, a devastation she wouldn’t wish on anyone. Yet Campbell’s anticipation of some thin slice of focused schadenfreude in a throwaway tweet was understandable enough.

Our emotions are not only things we feel but also things we express. On one track are the emotions we should feel, and on the other track are the emotions we are actually feeling. There is one realm of activity that encourages these two tracks to diverge, creating strain in what we should feel and what we do feel, and that is the tribal. Generally, we are supposed to feel bad if others suffer, but rival group members are less likely to receive our empathy when they suffer than ingroup members. This is easy to demonstrate. In a recent study, diehard Boston Red Sox and Yankee fans were placed in a brain scanner as they watched simulated baseball plays in which their team either played against their rival or a neutral team. Not only was pain-linked activation a result of their team losing, but pleasure-linked activation (schadenfreude) resulted from the rival losing.

Another study comparing Democrat or Republican reactions to bad economic news showed that this bad news can produce schadenfreude in either group if the news hurts the rival party’s election prospects.

In these and other studies, it seems that the schadenfreude is most keen as identification with one's team or party increases. This is where the disconnect between what people should feel and what they actually feel separates—depending so much on whose ox is being gored.

The trouble is that we naturally form into groups and are inclined to separate the world into us versus them. There is a deep, primal process involved, probably because we benefit so much from our group memberships. Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to act for the group’s benefit without feeling the taint of selfish guilt? I know firsthand the self-esteem boost I get when my teams win, even though I’ve never played a role in the successes of the teams I root for. And, by the way, my team is more moral than yours, even though my allegiance is an accident of geography. Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel? Did something change?

Unfortunately, President Trump's style of governing, together with general trends, seems to exacerbate the tribal in us. Even climate change, a problem that one might think we all could rally around regardless of group identity and march in unison toward a workable solution, is a lost opportunity.