In today's article, the editors want to talk about the more common psychological phenomenon of "jealousy" from the perspective of cultural psychology.
"Jealousy" is not only a common psychology in interpersonal communication, but also a social phenomenon, and at the same time has a certain cultural color, leaving a strong mark in literature and history.
First, the original meaning of "jealousy" is related to women
The ancient artificial word is very interesting, you see the word "jealousy", from "female" from "disease" from "household", its original meaning probably originated from the ancient deep house compound of those who worked together as a husband, because others have a stronger appearance and charm than their own and hate the phenomenon.
The ancients said that "beauty is good for jealousy", indeed, under the ancient polygamous social system and family structure, women with delicate hearts are more likely to be jealous, and even because of jealousy, they hate, which has caused many human tragedies.
For example, during the Warring States period, King Huai of Chu's favorite, Zheng Gui, was such a "jealous" snake and scorpion beauty.
She has a brilliant posture, a clever personality, and a favorite harem, but she is jealous and cunning, sinister and vicious, and quite a city government.
Once, in order to please the Chu state, the king of Wei sent a beautiful woman to the king of Chu Huai, and the king of Chu Huai was very fond of Wei Meiren.
Zheng Gui was jealous, but he did not move, and pretended to be good to Wei Meiren, which caused the King of Chu Huai to praise her "virtuous and not jealous".
After seeing the "opponent" let down her guard, she began to implement the plan. Once she pretended to be kind and told Wei Nu, "You look good everywhere, but your nose is not good, and the king said to me privately that he hates your nose." When you see the king later, cover your nose with your sleeve. ”
Wei Nu did not know what the plan was, when she saw the King of Chu Huai, she always covered her nose with her sleeve, and the King of Chu Huai was known for having a fox odor disease, which could have been a bit of a psychological shadow, seeing this situation, coupled with Zheng Gui taking the opportunity to stir up the wind and ignite the fire, in a rage, he actually cut off the nose of this rare beauty.
Zheng Gui's move can really be described as killing people with a knife, harming people invisibly, such a clever means and cruel heart, the initiator of which is that terrible jealousy.
Not only did she compete for favors in the harem, but she also interfered in the affairs of the court out of jealousy, not only harming Qu Yuan, but also destroying the Chu state.
At that time, zhang Yi, a counselor of the Qin state, colluded with Jin Shang, a favorite minister of the State of Chu, and threatened Zheng Gui, saying that if Zhang Yi was not released to marry the Qin state, the king of Qin would marry the most beautiful princess of the qin state to the king of Chu Huai, and would also send many beautiful women with both colors and arts, and then Zheng Gui's favored concubine status would be lost.
Therefore, Zheng Gui, who has a small wisdom but no big pattern, panicked when he heard it. She not only persuaded King Huai of Chu to release Zhang Yi, but also framed Qu Yuan, who advocated lianqi against Qin.
In the end, Qu Yuan sank the river, the Chu state was destroyed, and she herself died.
In the ancient "deep courtyard", such stories can be described as endless: Lady Qi, who can sing and dance, was made into a "human figure" by the fierce Lü Hou; Ban Jieyu, who had both talent and virtue, retired to the deep palace because of Zhao Feiyan, who charmed and deceived the lord; Concubine Mei, who was elegant and weak, was forced to be depressed and injured by the bright and spicy Yang Guifei...
Second, men's "jealousy" is sometimes just as terrible
In fact, jealousy is not only seen in women, men are jealous, and their degree of horror is "no less than that of women", it can be said that this is a universal social psychology: where there are crowds, there is a difference, and where there is a difference, there is jealousy.
The most typical is the story of Sun Zhen and Pang Juan, who were originally the same high disciple of Ghost Guzi, which can be described as having the same window friendship. However, because he was jealous of Sun Bing's intelligence, Pang Juan, who had first gone down the mountain to become a general of the State of Wei, sent Sun Zhi to the State of Wei and designed to frame him for having his feet (that is, to dig out his kneecap). If it weren't for the covetous "Thirteen Chapters of Sun Tzu's Art of War" and his later feigned madness, he might have been killed a long time ago.
Sun Zhen, who eventually escaped to heaven and became a division of the Qi army, in the process of Qi Wei's struggle for hegemony, repeatedly made strange plans and defeated the Wei army several times, and finally in the Battle of Maling, the Wei army was completely destroyed, and Pang Juan also killed himself (it is said that he was shot by a random arrow).
As the saying goes: to learn the three knots of Taoyuan, not to learn Sun Bing and Pang Juan. The friendship of classmates was originally precious, if Pang Juan had been a little more generous and joined hands with Sun Zhen to fight the world in that chaotic world, why worry about not helping the King of Wei achieve a hegemonic career? Why should we be narrow-minded and have a grudge like "born of Yu and born of light"? Isn't there another good story in history that Uncle Bao recommends Guan Zhong?
Third, the story of "jealousy" in the history of foreign cultures
Not only is there so much "jealousy" in China, but also abroad, and even according to Christianity, the first tragedy in human history stemmed from "jealousy."
According to the Old Testament of the Bible, the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, had two sons: Cain and Abel. Abel was shepherd and Cain was a farmer. At the time of the sacrifice, Cain offered the vegetables and grain of the field to the Lord, and Abel offered the first sheep and the fat and oil of the sheep in his flock. As a result, jehovah liked Abel and his offerings, but did not like Cain and his offerings. And Cain, because God did not please his offerings, "greatly angry with God", and became jealous and hateful of his own brothers, so much so that he killed his brothers and sisters, and he himself was punished by God and became the ancestor of all the wicked people in the world.
In Homeric epics and Greek mythology, the famous Trojan War also stemmed from "jealousy."
The famous hero Pereus and the goddess of the sea, Thetis, held a wedding feast and invited many gods, but the goddess of the dispute was not invited, and she was very angry, so she threw a golden apple at the banquet, which read ," "To the most beautiful." Athena, the goddess of wisdom, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Hera the Queen of Heaven, all claimed to receive the golden apple, a symbol of beauty. In the end, they unanimously decided to ask the most beautiful prince of Troy, Paris, to rule.
Each of the three goddesses bribed Paris with her strengths, and in the end, Paris, who was eager for love and beauty, awarded the red apple to the goddess of love because she promised to bring him the most beautiful woman in the world.
Later, Eros did allow him to meet helen, the beautiful Spartan queen, and brought her back to Troy. Later, the other two goddesses in the fire of jealousy and Helen's husband encouraged the heroes of the world and the gods of heaven to participate in the decade-long Trojan War.
It can be seen that the destructive power of jealousy is extremely strong, and at worst it makes people depressed and hurts themselves; at worst, it makes people lose their minds, resulting in discord between husband and wife, quarrels between friends, and even brotherhood; and even more so, the "jealousy" of those who have power may also lead to war.
"Jealousy" is a common theme in literature
It is precisely because of these characteristics of "jealousy" that it has also become one of the common themes in literature, "entangled" with eternal literary motifs such as love, revenge, and war, and jointly shaping and telling one literary typical and lamentable story after another.
For example: the husband in "Othello" who listened to rumors and was burned by jealousy and lost his mind, eventually killed his beloved wife, and he also drew his sword to kill himself; Wang Xifeng, who was fierce in the center of "Dream of the Red Chamber", killed the pregnant Second Sister You because of jealousy, and he was also disgusted by her husband, and fell into a straw mat wrapped in the end; Heathcliff, who did not marry Catherine as desired in "Wuthering Heights", embarked on a crazy road of revenge because of jealousy, and finally lost his life...
V. "Envy, envy and hate", choose to move forward or backward?
So, does the psychology of "jealousy" make sense? Why do philosophers say that "jealousy can both harm and make people"? Then we have to study the development process of "jealousy"
We often say "envy, jealousy, hatred", in fact, it concisely summarizes the three stages of this psychological development.
If you take a step back and control "jealousy" within the scope of "envy", you can completely achieve the effect of turning jealousy into motivation.
The ancients said, "See the wise and think together," and also said, "Although you can't get there, your heart yearns for it." These are positive examples. Seeing that others are better than themselves in some way, they try to learn to be close to him, rather than doing things that harm others and even harm others and harm themselves. Making yourself better because of "envy" should be the meaning of it.
The German philosopher Hegel famously said: The jealous man cannot accomplish a great cause himself, so he tries to underestimate the greatness of others, degrade the greatness of others, and make them equal to himself. In real life, there are also many such people, seeing that others are better than themselves, instead of sincerely blessing each other, or through efforts to get close to each other, but by slandering, hitting and even mutilating and other means to achieve the purpose of overthrowing the other party.
In today's democratic and legal society, this may be successful for a while, but in the end it will harm others and harm oneself.
Like a master's student of the Chinese Academy of Sciences some time ago, because of his own excellence, he caused the crazy jealousy of a former classmate, and as a result, the good words and advice were ridiculed by him, and he vented his unhappiness on the innocent "successful person", and finally did the thing of killing his classmates, and he also embarked on the road of no return in life.
There was also a mother, because her child was frail and sickly, and the neighbor's child was healthy and lovely, and she was jealous and killed the child in a frenzy.
These are bloody real events that happen in real life, and the "evil" inspired by the universal human nature of "jealousy" is sometimes really frightening.
Although jealousy is an understandable common psychology, excessive jealousy is undoubtedly a negative and bad emotion, and being in this mood for a long time will make people restless, hurt themselves, and affect the harmony of interpersonal relationships.
As Sukhomlinsky puts it: jealousy, selfishness, suspiciousness, fear that "others look down on themselves", all these emotions will slowly make people's facial expressions lose their vitality, become sad and sullen.
It is often said that pain is better than coming out. Living in the human world, there are always people who are more beautiful than you, taller than you, richer than you, and stronger than you. But it is very strange that people will not be jealous of the beauty of stars, the wealth of "Ma Yun", and the talents of literary heroes, but they will only compare with the people around them who are similar or have been similar. Suffering arises when there is a gap but is powerless to catch up or unwilling to take action to change.
As an ancient Greek philosopher put it, the jealous man often troubles himself, which is his own enemy. So how do you overcome jealousy?
The British philosopher Bacon once said: "Everyone who buries his head in his own business has no effort to be jealous of others." ”
Similarly, if you focus on living your own life and treat others as those who are far away, or if you are open-minded and psychological, you will not be troubled by this bad emotion.
Finally, let's end the whole article with a few poems from Xin Zhiyi's "Touching the Fish": Jun Mo Dance, Jun Mo Dance, Jun Does Not See The Jade Ring Flying Swallows Are Dusty.
Yes, the jade ring flying swallows are dusty. In the face of death and nature, everyone is ultimately equal, the difference is almost negligible, so why should we be jealous?