Malice in Wonderland - Mick Burton

Malice in Wonderland - Mick Burton, 19th May 2007

Mick began by distinguishing between three types of envy: Emulative/benign envy, jealousy and what he calls malign envy. This latter type is what we might consider to be 'proper' envy. It is not simply the envy of another’s possession that matters here. It is not the thing itself but rather the fact that they have got it that is the subject of our envy. I only want it because you have got it!

This was a very wider ranging talk which encompassed the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lev Vygotsky but particularly the ideas of the French literary theorist and philosopher, René Girard. Girard looked at the relationship between desire and envy and argued that we acquire a sense of what is desirable for us by means of looking at others, a process he called mimesis. We look at what others have got, note they are obviously enjoying having it and so decide that we would like it too. Mick made comparisons here with the work of Andrew Meltzoff and his discovery of "mirror neurons". This is the discovery that from very early in life we learn by imitation and that this process of imitative learning is somehow hard-wired into the brain. Mick's point is that our desire to imitate others, to have what others have, is part of our physical make up.

Mick went on to look at the defences we use to deny our own envy. For us, as counsellors and psychotherapists, the most relevant of these is what he termed the ethical defence, essentially adopting a mature identification that acknowledges gratification over time, but denies itself the immediate pleasure of the here and now. We as therapists can see ourselves as mature yet obligated individuals. Yet this version of ourselves only serves to deny our envy of those who are free to seek less mature, more immediate, pleasures. For us this maturity is a consolation, but it is also a defence.

Our escape from this? For Mick there is no real escape from envy. We can only acknowledge its presence in our lives and see that for all of us understanding our envy and learning to live with it is the only solution.

Rob Abbott
May, 2007