Schadenfreude

 

This is from Psychos in the C-Suite. I was discussing this article, specifically the highlighted portion with a friend.

Friend: This is interesting. According to this, having a conscience can still lead to wrong judgements. I thought having a conscience makes you do the right things. I equated conscience with righteousness until now. Clearly not. Following on from this, did Krishna have a conscience when he persuaded the Pandavas to wage war against the Kauravas? Furthermore, he played a lot of tricks to help the Pandavas win the war against evil.This would suggest Krishna had a "lesser conscience". The article says we have to form a conscience from "God's" values. But if Lord Krishna himself had a "different or lesser conscience", what do we do?All rather complicated I'm afraid. Is schadenfreude wrong or a bad thing if it is purely because someone else is paying for the wrongdoings he or she has done? I would say schadenfreude is neither good or bad. Just that evil people have to reap the consequences of their actions.

Me: Well I don't disagree with you. Sorry for the double negative. Schadenfreude has 2 different aspects

1. To enjoy seeing someone suffer. This sounds awful

2. To enjoy seeing someone reaping what they sowed. This might seem more positive.

While I love to think that the two are distinctly different, I am not sure the distinction between the two is entirely unambiguous