Against delectatio morosa

Killing Mr. Potter will only build a crueler Pottersville

The callous murder of United Health CEO Brian Thompson, allegedly at the hands of a privileged and worldly Ivy Leaguer, has revealed an anastomosing stream in our national current, a form of schadenfreude understood well by classical thinkers and described best by St. Thomas Aquinas as delectatio morosa: the pleasure taken in a sinful thought or imagination even without desiring it.

Sadly, I think a lot of young people DO desire murder or misfortune upon corporate leaders and enterprising citizens of all kinds. Some of the ones that did not previously desire it perhaps now do given the lionization of Thompson’s assassin. This morbid affliction is not new to the human condition.

In his Ethics, Aristotle described delectatio morosa (and its limiting extremes) with more desiccation:

Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite, and these states are concerned with the pain and pleasure that are felt at the fortunes of our neighbours; the man who is characterized by righteous indignation is pained at undeserved good fortune, the envious man, going beyond him, is pained at all good fortune, and the spiteful man falls so far short of being pained that he even rejoices.

Many secular thinkers such as the dreary Schopenhauer considered delectatio morosa, or schadenfreude, as the greatest of sins:

“… the worst trait in human nature is Schadenfreude… As Schadenfreude is simply theoretical cruelty, so cruelty is simply practical Schadenfreude.’

Should we worry then that our youth seems invested in a sin so common, so old and so pleasurable? We should.

We should worry because such sentiments, if sufficiently widespread, will provoke some citizens into providing aid and succor to miscreants and killers and, if the anarchic stars align, even a new ideology may arise, a Jacobin one. I think this is happening now among our much-maligned Gen Z.

Please listen to the latest folk song by Jesse Welles called, United Health. He is a talented folk musician and writer. The song is making the rounds on social media. It’s catchy, snarky and names names.

Did you listen? That is Gen Z talking; we must prepare ourselves. Welles is certainly no Bob Dylan, but he doesn’t have to be. What matters is that the killing of a CEO inspired Welles to write his song. His thinking was: there is injustice out there that triggered this murder, and, although I don’t desire murder, I should sing about what caused it. We should note that Welles did NOT write his song before the killing, only after.

Welles’ music and alleged killer Luigi Mangione’s face are quite popular among our youth, it seems. I do not want to overstate the matter, but I also know the Port Huron Statement was understated in its time. Gen Z may never have its “statement” but Mangione did write one of his own. Someone will certainly write another.

The notion among our young citizens that there must be a reckoning, that justice be done always, that every malady be met with remedy, is a product of our long national devotion to litigation and the performance activism nurtured by our educational system.

Click the picture:

We have now arrived at a point where the on-deck generation has no immunity or tolerance for any perceived injustice. Over these last years, our youth have not merely demanded their villains be punished, they wanted them utterly destroyed, denied employment, reputations erased, and their families threatened. They wanted them made “non persons.”

But injustices abound in this fallen world, don’t they? When I was a kid, I don’t remember any bully “getting his” on the playground from a teacher. It was his word against ours. There was nothing to do but take it, fight back or hide. Pol Pot never faced justice. Idi Amin died in comfort.

Ah, but we do enjoy seeing the obnoxious driver crash, don’t we? Or the vain, scantily clad woman slip in a puddle of vomit, or the Vice President misspell “potatoe.” [sic]* We call it instant karma, or poetic justice, comeuppance, or just-desserts, and it populates all mediums, but particularly TicTok and X. Gen Z sucks this stuff down like Red Bull. Heck, I am a border-line junkie myself. I need to stop it immediately. Those misfortunes are not “justice,” however self-inflicted and funny they may be.

At the end of the iconic Christmas film, “It’s a Wonderful Life” director Frank Capra, a Catholic, denies the audience their delectatio morosa. In the film, the evil Mr. Potter keeps the $8,000 Uncle Billy accidentally gave him and gets away with his attempt to ruin George Bailey and his family. His only punishment is a joyful “Merry Christmas” from an ecstatic George. George then returns home to find his friends and neighbors have collected $8,000 to save him from arrest. If the film were made today, I expect those neighbors would storm Potter’s bank, drag him from his wheel chair and stomp him until he gave up the $8,000 and admitted all. Gleeful we would be that justice was done. What would Zuzu’s petals mean then to us if we had to later watch a crippled old man bleeding in the snow? He had it coming, we would tell ourselves. Of course he did, but grace intervened.

If this current vein of delectatio morosa metastasizes into something bigger, such as an ideological movement or widespread anarchic mayhem, then we will have troubles indeed and only ourselves to blame. Gen Z didn’t invent the “instant karma” video. If the Mr. Potter’s of the land become their targets, we, their elders, have a duty to stay their hands. So please pray for these young people, that Christ will enter their hearts and the Holy Spirit will chill whatever fevers are to come. And be careful not to show glee at misfortune in front of your kids. “He had it coming,” are not words that inspire virtue. Let us not unwittingly build our own Pottersville because we lack moral clarity.

Merry Christmas, my friends.

*From Wikipedia: On June 15, 1992, Quayle altered 12-year-old student William Figueroa's correct spelling of "potato" to "potatoe" at the Muñoz Rivera Elementary School spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey.[37][38] He was the subject of widespread ridicule for his error. According to The New York Times[39] and Quayle's memoirs, he was relying on cards provided by the school, which Quayle says included the misspelling. Quayle said he was uncomfortable with the version he gave, but did so because he decided to trust the school's incorrect written materials instead of his own judgment.