As of late, I have felt like confronting the emotion (if you can call it that) of shadenfreude, that is, the feeling of joy at the pain and suffering of others, who at least in one’s own mind, deserve it. What brings one shadenfreude is a window into their morality, and it might not be what they think it is; in fact, one risks becoming just as bad if not worse than their enemies, depending on what gives them this feeling of satisfaction at the suffering of others. But at the same time, I feel that the other extreme can lead to a complete acceptance of oppression and injustice.
I could go into recent news that gave me feelings of shadenfreude, but lets have some examples of people who are more universally condemned getting their comeuppance. Now, my grandfather was arrested and placed in various Soviet gulag camps in the 1930s over the course of five years under Joseph Stalin, for being part of an underground Armenian nationalist group that one of its members ratted out to the authorities. My grandfather ended up escaping into the Siberian tundra during a storm and making his way back to the Armenian SSR, but he suffered for five long years before seizing his one chance to escape. 20 million other people were not so lucky, and died in the gulag system. He wrote about many of the terrible things he witnessed in his memoir. Now, when I hear about how Stalin died, having a stroke and spending almost an entire a day locked in his bedroom, laying in a puddle of his own urine, because his servants were too terrified to check up on him, I crack a smile. He created this situation with his own actions. He was a completely despicable person, who I feel that in some ways deserved an even worse death. But I do take some satisfaction in the way he died. It was better than the death of Нitlеr, now he deserved much worse than he got. And Mussolini, I feel satisfaction that he was hung on meathooks upon his death while people bashed his body like a piñata, but unfortunately he wasn’t alive by that point. Too bad.
Another example, the plight of my people, the Armenians. The Armenian genocide is best described as an ongoing process rather than just something that happened in 1915 and then stopped. There was never any justice for the 1915 killing phase of the genocide, besides perhaps the assassinations of the Turkish leaders who engineered it. Is it wrong to feel joy at the death of Talaat Pasha at the hands of Soghomon Tehlirian? Even a jury refused to condemn his actions. My only complaint is that the death was too quick and painless.
Fast forward to 2020 for a more recent chapter of the Armenian genocide, Azerbaijan commits a genocide against the Armenians of Artsakh while the world completely ignores it. I visited Artsakh in 2015, so it hit very close to home for me. My distant cousin who fought in the war was burned alive by illegal white phosphorus in this war. Then the Azeris go on to starve out the remainder of the Armenians in Artsakh for nearly a year before deporting them. Again, no one cared. They want the rest of Armenia next, and they’ll stop at nothing until Armenia is wiped off the map. Sometimes I think about what I would do, if I were locked in a room with the dictator of Azerbaijan, with him tied to a chair, and me with a knife.
So you see, does this make me a bad person, wishing extreme suffering and torment on people who caused millions of deaths? Am I “just as bad” as they are? And what if these feelings extend to the ones who supported these evil monsters? Is it wrong to feel satisfaction when they suffer? If some natural disaster wiped the capital of Azerbaijan off the map, killing thousands, I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t be just a little bit pleased. Maybe it’s wrong. I know there must be some good people mixed in there with all the trash. But what has taking the high road gotten Armenia? Most of these people want us all dead and forgotten, nothing else. You can’t reason with someone who wants you dead.
Perhaps this world has corrupted me. If it did, it was long ago. In my nearly four decades on this planet, I have witnessed or heard about an uncountable number injustices and atrocities, and most of the time I have been completely powerless to do anything about them. The only thing I feel like I have the power to do, is laugh at the misfortunes of the oppressors.
Taking it back to the modern US. If these fascist bigots feel emboldened to be even bigger assholes just because the president that like is in power, why can’t I be emboldened to be an asshole too, because someone I hate is in power? Why am I expected to just sit there and turn the other cheek while they try to build a fascist dictatorship? And mourn when one of them gets shot while advocating for gun violence or denying healthcare to people for their own profit? These people are my enemies. They want me and many of my friends and family members dead. The war they keep threatening us with has already begun, and in fact began decades, maybe even centuries ago, but they don’t want us fighting back.
I laugh because it’s the only weapon I have. If that makes me a monster, well then fine, I’m a monster. Do you really want to fuck with a monster?
