Culture and Envy

Culture and Envy

Charles Lindholm

Department of Anthropology

Boston University

Introduction: Disciplinary Approaches to Envy

Closely related academic disciplines, like other

competitive collectives, tend to cultivate their

distinctiveness and jealously guard their intellectual turf

from rivals. Such is the case with anthropology and its

sister discipline of psychology, which have managed to

maintain a wary truce by a studied devotion to mutually

exclusive methodologies. The general rule is that the

majority of academic psychologists formulate hypotheses

which can be tested experimentally. Within this framework,

variables are limited, control groups utilized, causal

arrows drawn, results replicated and verified. Ideally, the

results of such research can be rigorously evaluated and

replicated according to scientific standards of reliability

Lindholm Anthropology

and predictability, and new hypotheses generated and tested

by ever more elegant and precise means.

In contrast, most anthropologists spend their careers

in distant and exotic environments, confronted by people

whose language, customs, institutions and rituals are

unfamiliar and hard to decipher. So many variables enter in

at so many different levels that clear, testable hypotheses

are rarely possible or attempted. Nor can anthropologists

detach themselves completely from their experimental

subjects. Instead, they live among the people they study,

following the method of participant observation, which

requires immersion of the ethnographer within the disorderly

clamor of daily life. And while the psychologist seeks

context-free, experimentally verifiable results,

anthropologists are usually satisfied with what Clifford

Geertz famously called `thick description': a rich narrative

that `makes sense' of seemingly inexplicable cultural

beliefs and practices by placing them within a coherent and

consistent, but unique, meaning system. Furthermore,

anthropologists usually assume that culture is sui generis -

2


self-generated - with its own rules and goals that stand

quite outside the realm of psychology.

Until very recently, if emotions were discussed at all,

it was to demonstrate they were culturally constructed (for

reviews of the literature, see Lutz and White 1986; Jenkins

1994; Rorty 1980). Earlier writers of the ‘culture and

personality’ school, such as Margaret Mead (1935) and Ruth

Benedict (1934), did concede the existence of some kind of

natural "arc" of human emotional potential that was wider in

range than any particular social configuration allowed.

Those whose innate propensities did not fit the cultural

framework were destined to be deviants. However, it was

never stated what the range of variation actually was, or

what the basic emotions might be. The vague acceptance of

the relative autonomy and force of emotional states was not

to last. During the sixties, the rise of interpretive

anthropology in the United States led to a radical cultural

constructivist understanding of emotion. Clifford Geertz

(1965) argued quite seriously that the Balinese have no

feelings at all, except for stage-fright, and Jean Briggs

3


(1970) stated that the co-operative Inuit did not experience

anger (for a refutation of Geertz, see Wikan 1990, and for

Briggs’ more nuanced later formulation see her 1987

article).

In the seventies and eighties, interpretive cultural

constructivism was greatly influenced by the historical

archeology of power proposed by Michel Foucault and by the

practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu. Anthropologists

inspired by these theorists argued that emotions were best

seen as mental constructs in which the cultural system of

power is embedded (or resisted). From this viewpoint,

emotions lost their autonomy, power, and structure; there

were no universal drives, no repression, no conflicts

between internal desire and external constraint, not even

any ‘emotional arc.’ From this point of view, feelings

serve as the physical expression of cultural authority (or

protest against authority). Of late, there has been a

reaction against this excessively cultural and instrumental

perspective, but it remains, I believe, dominant (see

Rosaldo 1984, Lutz 1988, Kapferer 1995 for examples,

4


Lindholm 2005 for a review). In light of the gap in

methodology and intellectual orientation, psychologists –

with notable exceptions – have been leery of entering into

dialogue with anthropologists about emotions. The worry is

that the anthropologists will see the psychologists’

carefully controlled test results as ‘culture bound,’ and

‘scientistic’ and their findings, far from being universal,

as applicable only within a constricted range (if that), and

as contradicted by ethnographic exceptions. And indeed that

has been the usual discourse of anthropologists when they do

engage with psychologists.

However, I will not follow this pathway. Instead, I

will try to show that envy is indeed pervasive among the

people where I did my fieldwork, and is expressed in a

manner that is generally compatible with the analyses put

forward by other authors in this volume. However, there are

some significant differences that reflect the social

structure and value system of the region. In the next few

pages, I will briefly and far too simply outline the pattern

of envy in my fieldwork site, making comparisons with other

5


envy-prone cultures. I will then outline some of the

problems and possibilities of studying envy cross-

culturally.

Envy in Swat, Northern Pakistan

My original ethnographic fieldwork was done among the

Pukhtun tribal people who live in a remote but densely

populated mountain valley of Swat, situated in the Northwest

Frontier Province of Pakistan. They are the cousins of the

so-called Pathans who resisted Soviet domination in

Afghanistan, and who have since been the mainstay of the

Taliban. In Pakistan, the Pukhtun are famous for their

ethic of independence, their code of honor, and their

warrior mentality. Swat was (and still is) an agricultural

society inhabited by closely related patrilineal tribal

groups which stand in shifting relationships of enmity and

amity to one another, according to circumstances (the

technical term for their form of social organization is an

acephalous segmentary lineage system). Although there was,

at the time of my fieldwork in 1977, a centralized kingship,

in the area where I lived external authority rested very

6


lightly indeed, and men had to be ready to defend themselves

against the aggressive encroachments of their near

neighbors. In this enclosed and antagonistic universe,

lineage loyalty, blood feud and self-help remain the main

instruments for maintaining order; rational bureaucracy is

at a minimum, as the traditional values of Pukhtunwali - the

Pukhtun code of honor - hospitality, refuge and revenge -

continue to motivate people's actions and beliefs (for

standard studies of Swat and the Pukhtun in general see

Caroe 1965, Barth 1965, M. T. Ahmad 1962, Akbar Ahmad 1976,

Lindholm 1982).

Swat seems very far indeed from the United States, but

the two places share some crucial characteristics that

relate to the way envy is experienced and expressed in each

society. In particular, in the USA and in Swat persons are

assumed to be active agents separately responsible for their

fates and endowed with a God-given potential for free choice

and agency. Moreover, in both societies the individual is

believed to be motivated by a competitive desire for self-

aggrandizement. A further similarity between the value

7


system of the United States and that of the Pukhtun is the

shared faith that ‘all men 1 are created equal.’ Thus,

despite differences in wealth and status, every Pukhtun can

make a claim to be worthy of respect by all other tribesmen

due to his membership in the collective, sharing fundamental

values and a common cultural heritage with his countrymen.

Consequentially, in Swat , as in the United States, the poor

and the rich, the landless and the landowner, may eat side

by side, speak among themselves with an absence of abasement

or insolence, look one another directly in the eye, and

shake hands in greeting. This style of self-presentation is

in radical contrast to more hierarchical and deferential

social formations such as India or Japan, where inferiors

avert their eyes, speak obsequiously in a special register,

and bow down to their superiors. In sum, the Pukhtun man,

like the citizen of the United States, envisions himself as

a ‘possessive individual' that is, as a free and separate

agent, striving to maximize his benefits in competition with1 Swat is a sexually segregated society which practices female seclusion, so in this paper I will refer only to men who dominate the public world, although women are equally proud, competitive, and envious, albeit in private.

8


relatively similar co-equals (McPherson 1962). According to

the theories of envy summarized by Smith (2007), a social

formation of this type would incite considerable envy among

those who lose in the struggle. This is because, given the

notion that everyone could and should succeed, there is no

refuge for those who are not successful – no convincing way

to say that ‘my inferiority is justified.’ Envy is a

predictable emotional reaction to such a blow to the ego.

The problem of failure and accompanying envy is

mitigated in the complex society of the United States by the

multiple ways success can be claimed. While wealth is the

usual measure of status, nonetheless the poor artist can

feel superior to the vulgarian bourgeoisie; the impoverished

intellectual can despise the narrow-minded banker; the

working-class mechanic can look down on soft-handed

suburbanites. These escapes are not so easy in the

monochromatic Swati world, where alternative life styles are

unavailable. Simultaneously, the equality and similarity of

all is much closer to objective reality there than it is in

the United States. There are no multi-millionaires or titans

9


of industry in Swat, no huge estates, no castles, no stars,

no haughty elite or effete snobs. To an outsider, most of

the valley dwellers look, dress and act remarkably alike and

interact with characteristic simplicity and directness. The

vast majority strongly believe that respect is only to be

found in living up to the cultural ideal of the courageous,

generous warrior. 2 As another proverb states: “The Pukhtun

are like rain-sown wheat. They all came up at the same

time. They are all alike.”

Yet, in this apparently simple and undifferentiated

society invidious distinctions do exist, both natural and

social. For example, although a large proportion of people

are born into the landowning khan clans, a substantial

number are landless, low status barbers, carpenters,

herdsmen, serfs and other helots. But unlike a caste

society where hierarchy is sacralized (Dumont 1970), in Swat

the lower orders do not accept their lot with equanimity.

Rather, within the mythical charter of equality, similarity,

2 The only respected alternative is the pathway of the holy man, who is in many ways the symbolic opposite to the Pukhtun warrior. For more see Barth 1965, Lindholm 1992.

10


and autonomy, even the poorest men have a hope, however

faint, of someday raising their status. As a landless

laborer once told me, "the landlord sit upon the necks of

the poor. God grant that I may become a landlord!" And

occasionally that hope has been realized, either because the

client was granted land as a reward for heroism in battle

or, more recently, has became rich from working in Dubai or

elsewhere in the Gulf.

The passive acceptance of authority as sacred and

innate is foreign not only to local cultural ideals, but

also to the Muslim creed which opposes distinctions and

emphasizes the moral equivalence of all members of the

faith. It is also alien to the proclaimed values of the

democratic Pakistani state, which asserts the formal parity

of all its citizens as voters, and so provides “a strong

inducement to expect a comparable equality across the board”

(Walcot 1978: 64). As the egalitarian ideals of reformist

Islam have been carried into the Valley by missionaries, and

as the state has penetrated more deeply into village life,

the equalizing premises of the local ideology have been

11


correspondingly amplified. The belief that subordination is

not divinely ordained and eternal, but man made and

changeable, furthers the sense that the superiority of

others is illegitimate. In consequence, it has become more

and more difficult for Swatis relegated to inferiority to

rationalize their positions, and some have begun to take

violent action to overturn the dominance of the khans (see

Lindholm 1999 for more).

Invidious distinctions not only separate the landless

from the landlords. Among the elite too there are

differences. Some khans are naturally more forceful, more

intelligent, more generous and hospitable, more ambitious

and more courageous than their putative co-equals. These

men are lauded as ‘real Pukhtun’ who can live up to the

cultural ideals of manhood. Of course, there are also pre-

existing social divisions among the elite: some are

wealthier, some have better political alliances, others have

more illustrious lineages. But no matter how many social

advantages a man have, if he is not a ‘real Pukhtun’ he

cannot gain predominance over his less well-off, but equally

12


ambitious, neighbors. The ‘real Pukhtun’ landlord presiding

in his guest house over supplicants and surrounded by armed

guards is a culture hero for his fellow tribesmen, both rich

and poor. There is no need for such a big man to seek any

further legitimation of his authority beyond his own

character, strength and charisma. As Fredrik Barth has

observed, among the Pukhtun "it is the fact of effective

control and ascendancy - not its formal confirmation or

justification - that is consistently pursued" (Barth 1985:

175). 3

To reiterate: both Swat and the United States are

egalitarian in ideology and do not accept distinctions as

sacred or legitimate, both also assume persons are

responsible for themselves and both societies are highly

competitive. These characteristics make envy a common

reaction to the loss of self-esteem that results from

failure. But in Swat there are very few alternatives routes

to success and the perceived similarity of all members of

3 The traditional ‘big man’ system has been muted of late byincreased intervention from the state and by the new authority of formerly low caste religious figures.

13


the society is remarkable. Because a man in Swat gains

respect mainly by his personal ability to live up a cultural

ideal of manhood shared by all, those who lose out must come

to the conclusion that they are deficient in character. If

it is true, as Miceli and Castelfranchi argue, that “the

deserving advantaged make our demerits appear more salient,

distressing and threatening for our self-esteem.” (2007:

463), then it would seem that envy would be stronger in Swat

than in the United States where there are many routes to

success and divergent values can be invoked to validate

one’s social position. Furthermore, in the United States is

easy to say that those who succeed in the mainstream are

corrupt or unhappy, and so not to be envied, but rather

despised or pitied. But these mechanisms for muting envy do

not exist in Swat, where a big man is simply the one who

best embodies Pukhtun virtues.

We can therefore infer that Swati culture is likely to

have a high prevalence of envy. Empirical evidence for this

inference can be found in the realm of politics. Authority

has always been hard to maintain for long in the Valley,

14


since a man who becomes too powerful not only automatically

stimulates increased resistance by opponents but also risks

betrayal by his colleagues and close relatives (Barth 1959).

The constant threat of treachery is a direct consequence of

pervasive envy generated by the local culture of competitive

individualism, wherein each man struggles for recognition as

primus inter pares. As the perceptive local author Ghani Khan

puts it, "a true democrat, the Pukhtun thinks he is as good

as anyone and his father rolled into one" (1958: 47).

Wanting to believe in his own superior qualities, the

tribesman is not inclined to obey any leader who he thinks

is no different from himself. As Montstuart Elphinstone

wrote in 1815. “Their independence and pretensions to

equality make them view the elevation of their neighbors

with jealousy, and communicate a deep touch of envy to their

disposition. The idea that they are neglected or passed

over, while their equals are attended to, will lead them to

renounce a friendship of long standing, or a party to which

they have been zealously attached.” (Elphinstone 1815: 1:

329).

15


The willingness to shift alliances out of envy is

particularly notable in the case of close patrilateral

relatives. 4 According to Ghani Khan: “The Pukhtun have not

succeeded in being a great nation because there is an

autocrat in each home who would rather burn his own house

than see his brother rule it” (1958: 46). This is not an

exaggeration. The life histories of Swati big men are full

of tales of patrilateral cousins warring with one another,

brothers fighting with brothers, and sons turning against

their fathers. Opposing one’s closest male relatives may

dangerously weaken the protective patrilineage, but also has

the desired effect of diminishing one’s own nearest rival.

Historically, the pattern of vengeful envy against

close enemies has had a paradoxical political result. I

mentioned previously that when I did fieldwork Swat did

indeed have a central ruler – a non-tribal religious figure

entitled the Wali (the ‘friend’ of God) whose ancestors had

4 Ties with matrilateral relatives are notably more amicable. This is because they have no adjacent land to compete over, since inheritance is strictly in the male line.

16


been ceded authority by Swati khans who recruited them to

lead their struggles against British encroachment into the

Valley. 5 The use of a member of a saintly lineage to

inspire and co-ordinate defense against external threats was

common in this region and in similar social formations.

This strategy was a reflection of the reluctance of khans to

obey other khans. As outsiders to the game of rivalry, and

as claimants to a higher, spiritual authority, saints could

be followed in battle without any dishonor. After the

struggle was over, these temporary leaders then could

usually be relegated to their usual subordinate positions as

mediators and judges in local disputes.

But after the British threat had passed the Wali’s

family managed to retain political authority in the Valley

largely because the Pukhtun were unable to join together to

resist them effectively. Various oppositional movements did

appear among strong lineage groups, but their revolts were

broken up by the hubris of rival khans, who had their own

5 The Wali was deposed when Swat was integrated within the Pakistani State in 1977, but his family has remained politically powerful.

17


ambitions, resented the claims of their co-equals, and

therefore refused to unite or agree on a strategy of

resistance. Antagonists also were willing to mortgage their

own liberty in order persuade the ruler to intervene against

their personal opponents. The ruler astutely played upon

these local enmities, allying with weaker factions and

opposing the stronger, thereby keeping potential challengers

feeble (Barth 1985, Wadud 1962). Envy, endemic both

institutionally and culturally, has therefore been a central

factor in the Swati political system, serving to maintain

relative equality among the Pukhtun, but also making it

difficult for them to resist authority when it appeared

among them. As I have argued elsewhere, domination through

the manipulation of envious rival factions was quite typical

in the premodern Middle East and in other societies which

are commonly but wrongly thought of as absolutist tyrannies

(Lindholm 1992). In sum, the historical pattern of Swati

politics bears out the postulate of a high degree of envy in

the society.

Envy, Land, and Honor

18


Another indirect way to measure the degree of envy in a

society is to consider who is envied, and for what. In Swat,

as I have mentioned, envy is directed primarily at one’s

close neighbors and patrilateral relatives. This would seem

to bear out Hesiod’s famous remarks that the “potter is

furious with potter and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar

is envious (phthoneei) of beggar and singer of singer”

(quoted in Walcot 1978: 9). Socrates too stated that, “by a

universal and infallible law the nearer any two things

resemble each other, the fuller do they become of envy,

strife and hatred” (quoted in Walcot 1978: 29). The

reasoning is that people who are similar in station and

status compete in a zero sum game for access to

“insufficient quantities of the good things in life” (Foster

1972a:169). Because gain for one will necessarily entail

loss for the rest, “envy, strife and hatred” prevail among

equivalent combatants. The problem with this formulation is

that envy varies according to the nature of the values

rivals seek to maximize. The potter, the craftsman, the

beggar and the singer are alike in that they compete with

19


their co-equals for the scarce good of clients who will

purchase what they have to offer. 6 In Swat competition is

over quite different scarce goods: land and honor, neither

of which can be purchased. To understand the intensity and

trajectory of envy in Swat, we need to understand the ways

the Pukhtun conceptualize these intertwined values,

beginning with land.

Inheritance of land in Swat is patrilineal, so that

one’s neighbors are necessarily close kinsmen – brothers,

half-brothers, and patrilateral cousins. All these

relations are tense, but the relationship with the

patrilateral first cousin (father’s brother’s son) is

particularly fraught – so much so that the term of reference

for him (tarbur) means ‘enemy.’ This enmity is a result of

the limited productivity of land which, unlike capitalized

commodity or craft production, or investment in livestock,

cannot expand beyond a certain point. Even increased labor

does not lead to substantially increased yield in the Swati 6 For the sake of space, I am leaving aside discussion of caste-like or feudal social formations where production is distributed through hierarchical relations of reciprocal obligation.

20


farm economy. And, while a potter can look for buyers out

of town, change the style of his product, and cut costs or

aim for a luxury market, and a beggar can move to a

different area, try a new pitch, and pray for a wealthy

donor, the Swati farmer can never move away from his

competitors, never change his methods of farming, never

increase production without directly appropriating a

neighbor’s property. This already tense situation is

exacerbated in Swat because population is rising although

there is no more land to be had. The imperative to produce

more sons in order to defend one’s holdings leads inexorably

to the stark reality of an increasingly divided patrimony.

As plots become smaller and smaller, it is no wonder the

sons of brothers become bitter enemies. The final factor is

the cultural rule that land cannot be sold to the highest

bidder. Instead, according to tradition, each plot must

remain within the patrilineal clan, and if sold the buyer

must be a close relative. An outsider would have his fields

burned. Within this highly pressured context, access to the

strictly limited quantities of land is jealously guarded.

21


At the same time, in the absence of any police or central

authority, men make every effort to appropriate neighboring

gardens, pushing their neighbors/close relatives back by

increments. Fights, murders, and exile can and do result

when one man tries to widen a pathway a few inches into his

neighbor’s field.

The fear and envy of neighbors in Swat seems parallel

to the potters’ rage against rival potters and the beggars’

envy of rival beggars. But envy, ire and anxiety are even

greater in the Swati land-based lineage society, for the

reasons stated: among these competitive egalitarian

individualists social and spatial mobility is highly

restricted, innovation and hard work are irrelevant, and the

productive base both absolutely limited and continually

divided. Any success in this environment leads immediately

to worries that the fragile balance of power will be upset,

with dire consequences.

There is yet another reason for believing that envy is

especially prevalent in Swat. As I mentioned, like other

small scale localized lineage-based social formations in the

22


circum-Mediterranean area where social and spatial mobility

are minimal and resources are scarce, the Pukhtun value

personal honor above all. And, according to Aristotle, “men

who love honour are more envious than those who do not love

honour.” (quoted in Walcot 1978: 18). Of course, a

competitive quest for honor could be interpreted merely as a

symbolic and secondary extension of the primary rivalry over

land. Foster makes this argument in his influential

articles on ‘limited good’ in a Mexican village (Foster

1965, 1972b), where he asserts that the notion of limited

good, derived from land scarcity, is a pervasive ‘cognitive

orientation’ for the peasants, providing them with a road

map for all behavior, not just behavior in the economic

realm. Thus, the Mexican villagers believe there is a

strictly limited quantity of parental love, friendship,

luck, blood, and of many other things which are elsewhere

seen as inexhaustible or renewable. A Serbian saying puts

this value orientation starkly: “The sun has to set for

someone so it can rise for someone else.”

23


Within societies exhibiting ‘limited good’ mentalities,

common interpersonal interactions such as asking favors,

offering compliments, expressing gratitude, or admitting

reliance on another person are unheard of, since they are

understood as an admission of the superiority of others. In

this type of social formation, according to Foster, envy is

pervasive, since anyone’s gain – in anything - is understood

to inflict loss on his neighbors. To a degree, a ‘fiesta

complex’ levels difference by obliging those who are thought

to have surplus to redistribute their wealth. Nonetheless,

a smile is an insult that must be answered. As a result of

this attitude, Foster says, peasant families carefully hide

their emotions, eat behind high walls, and avoid standing

out in any way for fear of exciting the dangerous envy of

their compatriots. Honor is reckoned to be a limited good,

competed for by co-equal antagonists, each of whom strives

to humiliate the other.

Foster’s model seems to hold remarkably well in Swat,

where people also refuse to believe that their blood will

regenerate, and do not donate to hospital blood banks except

24


for very near relatives – and not always then. Nor do they

believe that friendships can be extended to include many

people. Rather, as in Mexico, in Swat the fantasy is to

have only one true friend – who is absolutely generous, yet

always suspected of treachery. Parents’ love is also

limited: mothers and fathers in Swat say openly that they

love some of their children better than the others. Fortune

is limited as well in both societies, and the success of

anyone arouses envy, anxiety, and anger, even though the

achievement is in a venture completely outside the village

boundaries. Like the Mexican peasants, Swatis never give

compliments or express gratitude for gifts. Instead, any

gift, no matter what it is, is always deprecated. Nor will

the Pukhtun ever ask for favors or show reliance on anyone.

As a local saying goes: “the Pukhtun would rather steal than

beg.” It is also indicative that in Swat the words for

‘please,’ ‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’ are unknown – or at

least unused. Instead, most sentences are in the

imperative. Nor do men show emotions: a stoic face is de

rigueur. As in Mexico, the first thing constructed in a

25


Swati house are the walls, so what goes on inside is

completely hidden. And, while there is no fiesta complex in

Swat, an equivalent leveling mechanism was a periodic

redistribution of land (called wesh) between lineage

segments that negated any possibility for centralization or

surplus accumulation. All these aspects fit with Foster’s

description of an envy-prone peasant culture based on the

cognitive model of limited good.

Furthermore, both Mexican peasants and Pukhtun

tribesmen share a strong concept of shame and honor,

particularly in relation to their women. The macho Mexican

peasant will fight to redeem any real or imagined affront to

his manhood – especially a sexual offense. The Pukhtun too

adhere to the honor code of badal – revenge – for any

perceived sexual insult. Playing the game of honor in both

societies relies on one-upmanship. “The Pukhtun will always

return a slap for a pinch.” Slight insults are likely to

lead to escalating violence, and finally to blood feud, as

each man seeks to impugn the honor of the other and thereby

to raise his own. Honor in both societies is therefore

26


conceptualized as a scarce good in which one’s gain is the

other’s loss. In this narrow sense, it resembles the scarce

pennies fought over by beggars. If this is actually the

case, then Aristotle’s observation is incorrect, since the

beggar, by definition, has no honor to maintain, and yet is

deeply concerned with protecting the limited good of his

donations. So he would be as prone to envy and resentment

as the Pukhtun or Mexican peasant.

But this would miss the crucial relationship of honor

to personal identity and recognition. Within honor-shame

societies, broadly conceptualized, the pursuit of respect is

the highest ideal, while the loss of honor is a fate worse

than death. For self-proclaimed warriors like the Pukhtun,

and equally for the macho Mexican peasant, dishonor is not

equivalent to the beggar’s loss of access to donors: it is a

withdrawal of recognition that destroys identity itself.

Put another way, a beggar who is given no alms is indeed

impoverished, as is the potter who cannot sell his wares, or

the capitalist who is bankrupt, but in Swat and in Mexico a

man without honor is contemptible – not a man at all.

27


Therefore, even the slightest insults must be punished, or

else dishonor must be publicly admitted, with all the

humiliation and isolation that entails. 7 The fear of

shaming is the root cause of the high value placed on

revenge, and explains the prevalence of self-destructive

acts of violence in both societies.

Because the domain at stake is so important (more

important than life itself), and because an increase in the

honor of one is seen to diminish the honor of others, envy

and resentment of those who are honored is likely to be

especially virulent. This simple equation is made more

complex by the lineage structure of Swat. In Mexico, honor

is a purely personal matter, in Swat men gain honor from the

deeds of their ancestors, and also from their close

patrilateral kin. Conversely, one man’s dishonorable

behavior shames his whole lineage. So, while one may wish

ill to one’s tarbur, his disgrace would taint one’s own

reputation as well. As a result, the Pukhtun is left in an 7 There are many complex permutations in the honor code. For example, insults from an inferior should be shrugged off, as a man’s honor is judged by the quality of his enemies.

28


awkward position, beset by galling envy of relatives more

successful in the game of honor, while also sharing at least

partially in their gains. Pukhtun men are therefore

especially keen to demonstrate their own bravery in order to

compete with their close kin in bringing honor to themselves

and their lineage. This may partially account for their

famous willingness to enter into militaristic forays against

external enemies, where glory can be won at the expense of

outsiders, transcending the zero-sum rivalry among

themselves. The Pukhtun have provided the main manpower for

continued warfare in Kashmir and have been the most loyal

soldiers for the Taliban. The pursuit of glory, not Islamic

virtue, may well be the driving motivation for the young

Pukhtun recruited into these struggles.

The importance of honor in the cultural economy of envy

might seem to imply that in Swat the lower orders of serfs,

carpenters and the like do not feel as much envy and

resentment as do the khans, since they are not, by

definition, honorable. But within the local worldview, they

could be honorable, if they could only gain land (the

29


minimal requirement for recognition as a man of honor) and

enough wealth to provide hospitality and refuge, and to

maintain the purdah (seclusion) of their womenfolk. And,

although these are unlikely possibilities, nonetheless the

egalitarian ideology of the Valley – abetted by Muslim faith

and democratic rhetoric - does not preclude them entirely.

From this perspective, the recent rebellions in Swat are not

simply a demand for more equity in resources; much more

seriously, they are an assertion of the right to be

identified as men of honor, since it is honor, above all,

that is valued by all persons living in this social

formation, whether they presently have honor or not. 8

So, in many ways Swat does meet the criteria Foster

(1972a) provided for the development of a social formation

favorable to envy. They live in a closed world of

competitive co-equal individuals struggling to better one

8 According to the Pukhtun code, a man who loses his land isbegherata – without honor. So is a man whose wife is unfaithful or whose daughter is not a virgin. Purdah – the protection of women – is a crucial sign of honor. Therefore, those who cannot afford to keep their women in purdah or who are landless are ipso facto without honor.

30


another in an environment where the good things of life are

very scarce indeed, and where the success of one is

understood to entail the failure of the others. Foster

argues forcefully that the material scarcity of ‘the good

things of life’ provides a ‘cognitive orientation for the

world as a whole that is at the root of pervasive envy. But

this tells us very little about what types of societies are

actually most prone to envy, and, equally important, which

are not. Scarcity alone could lead – as Foster himself

admits – to a more communal social order where envy is

minimized rather than exaggerated. The latter was the road

taken in ancient Sparta, where a conscious policy of

collectivism obliged citizens to share women and land, eat

communally, and make their children wards of the state,

eliminating all forms of distinction, rivalry, and any

potential for envy – at least ideally. Other utopian

communities have followed similar regimes, aiming to level

out invidious differences entirely. In a sense, they are

attempting to turn the clock backwards, emulating simple

hunting and gathering societies where invidious differences

31


are minor, sharing is normal, and where, one might

conjecture, envy is minimal or even absent (see Woodburn

1998 for a comparative study of sharing in such societies).

To make a more nuanced argument we need to look at the

details that make for significant variation in the cultural

economy of envy. Foster studied a peasant community in

Mexico dominated by dangerous and arbitrary external forces:

landlords, government officials, police, military, and

others. In this context, the villagers maintain a closed,

inwardly-turned ethos, trying to avoid appearing superior

for fear of calling attention to themselves. Lineages do

not exist, families are nuclear, animosities are personal,

not structural, and loyalties are to the household alone.

Hospitality is meager and social interaction is minimal.

The formula for living is basically ‘mind your own

business.’ Not surprisingly, the Mexican villager avoids

all forms of leadership. His hope is to hide, and not to

assert himself. Men only stand out momentarily when they

are obliged to redistribute their wealth by sponsoring a

fiesta for the community.

32


In contrast, the Pukhtun are tribal people with a

functioning lineage system. They do not accept the

authority of any external power, and the way envy expresses

itself among them is correspondingly different from the way

it is expressed among Foster’s Mexican peasants. As

mentioned, they arduously seek glory for themselves and

their lineages, and, unlike the Mexican villagers,

continually strive to be recognized as leaders. Instead of

providing collective fiestas for the entire village, men in

Swat spend whatever surplus they accumulate on lavish

hospitality for allies and guests, and on feeding and

clothing an armed retinue (often made up of refugees from

feuds and other outlaws) who will fight alongside them,

gaining honor for themselves by offering their support of an

ambitious big man.

In other words, while Mexican peasants seek to avoid

the inevitable envy of their neighbors, the Pukhtun hope to

excite their neighbors’ envy, following a warrior ethic in a

tribal world where autonomy and aggressive self-presentation

is the rule. This is because the Mexican lives in a world

33


where his power is minimal except within his own family.

Outsiders – policemen, politicians, landlords – can and do

intervene to disrupt and destroy his life. The Pukhtun, in

contrast, is an independent actor within an overarching

tribal structure that provides him with ordered

relationships of enmity and alliance. Valuing his autonomy,

but reliant on his lineage mates, he despises the clients of

landlords and the servants of the state. Were the Mexican

peasants nearby, he would despise them as well.

To sum up, in the competitive agrarian environment of

Swat, where land is scarce, where alternative modes of

achievement are absent, where social hierarchies are not

sacralized, where honor is sought as the highest personal

value, and where success is reckoned to be due to an

individual’s character, envy and resentment arise naturally

and swiftly when there is a threat to one’s status. The

only other choice is to blame oneself for inferiority– an

unacceptable option in a world where apparent confidence,

aggressive self-assertion, and pride are necessary for

survival.

34


Studying Envy Across Cultures

Although I have argued that Pukhtun society is

permeated with envy, when I asked a Pukhtun friend who is

fluent in English what the Pukhtun word for envy is, he was

at a loss. At first, he mentioned hasad, a Persian loan,

but then decided its meaning was closer to jealousy than

envy. The Urdu and Persian word rashk was another

candidate, as was swazedal which literally means burning.

After consulting some local experts, he concluded that the

closest word is paskhaidal. 9 However, this term is rare, and

does not appear in Pukhtu dictionaries. Nor does it seem to

exactly replicate the meaning of the English word. Does the

absence, vagueness, or rarity of a vocabulary for envy mean

that the emotion itself is absent, vague, or rare? 10 In

thinking about the relationship between terminology and

experience, it is well to recall that Americans too are not

very sure what envy is, or how it might be distinguished

from jealousy. Nor, apparently, are Americans willing to

9 Thanks to Dr. Sher M. Khan for this information.10 For a discussion of ‘hypercognized’ and ‘hypocognized’ emotions, see Levy 1984.

35


confess to being envious themselves, since that would entail

both an admission of inferiority and of a despicable

character.

But if respondents will not admit to envy, and have

trouble even defining it, how can an outside observer

confidently claim that it exists, much less make claims

about its intensity? Psychological tests, such as those

described in other articles in this volume, are notoriously

difficult to administer cross-culturally. Instead,

anthropologists resort to more indirect measures, inferring

envy from the observation social and cultural facts, such as

those I have described for Swat. This inference is

strengthened when confirmed both by statements from other

outside observers, and by local understandings. For

example, the presence of envy in Swat is remarked upon by

many earlier ethnographic and colonial reports, and also by

a plethora of Pukhtu sayings (mataluna) and writings, some

of which I have quoted already.

As further evidence, I have looked for significant

parallels between societies recognized as envious and the

36


society I studied, and have noted crucial structural and

behavioral similarities between Swat and the envy-ridden

peasant village in Mexico, as reported by Foster. While

being cautious about assuming that superficial likenesses

necessarily indicate a shared causality, it is suggestive,

to say the least, that in both societies people studiously

avoid putting themselves into debt or showing gratitude to

anyone, never give compliments, secretively hide behind

walls, avoid any revealing emotional displays, and affirm

the ideal of equality. Both are also highly competitive,

egalitarian, individualistic ‘limited good’ societies where

scarce resources in land mean benefits for one are

necessarily debits for his neighbors. And they are both

societies where honor is crucial for identity.

Another persuasive indirect indication of the presence

of envy in both societies (and others) is a belief in the

evil eye, called mal ojo by Foster’s Mexicans and nazar by the

Pukhtun. The evil eye is a remarkably wide-spread cultural

trait, more or less replicated in many peasant and tribal

societies throughout the circum-Mediterranean world,

37


including Greece (Walcot 1978), where the word baskainein

(evil eye) is derived directly from the word for envy

(baskania). It exists as well in North Africa, the Middle

East, Northern India, across Europe and elsewhere (Roberts

1976). Belief in the evil eye is very ancient. There are

references to it in Sumerian written records dating from

4000 BC (Langdon 1981). Where it exists, the evil eye is

generally understood to be a destructive power emanating,

usually involuntarily, from the look of an envious person.

Characteristically, compliments are signs of the evil eye,

since praise is an expression of admiration, which shades

into the poison of envy. Spitting and invoking the name of

God avert this danger, but the best strategy is to avoid

praise altogether – as is the case in Mexico and Swat.

Boasting also is dangerous, as God or gods envy those who

are too prosperous, too successful, so it is always best to

attribute all good fortune to a higher power. This too is

characteristic of Swat and Mexico.

Cross-culturally, powerful men are often accused of

having the evil eye. For example, in my village one well-

38


connected khan was famous (as well as despised and feared)

for his ability to destroy anything he admired. He was even

reputed to have inadvertently killed his own son by his

admiring glance. For the psychologically inclined, it is

usual to assume attribution of the evil eye to superiors is

a form of projection: the envious imagine those whom they

envy are even more envious. But the evil eye is also very

often credited to outcastes, strangers, lonely old women,

poor people, and wondering mendicants – in other words, to

anyone who differs from the norm, and quite often to people

who have every right to be envious. Furthermore, ordinary

people may well have the evil eye without knowing it,

discovering their power only when a catastrophe occurs to

someone whom they envy. This may not necessarily be a cause

for sorrow. Indeed, it can be an occasion for secret

rejoicing – one has brought down one’s enemy with merely a

glance, and at no cost to oneself!

Belief in the evil eye therefore symbolically

recognizes envy as a potent and dangerous force, while at

the same time the belief serves as a balancing mechanism.

39


On the one hand, anxiety about attracting the evil eye leads

the powerful to be modest, avoid ostentatious displays,

offer alms, feed the poor, and support other services to the

community. On the other hand, the possibility of possessing

the evil eye gives the weak the hope of avenging slights and

bringing down the mighty with a mere look, thereby

alleviating the “painful feelings of helplessness and

hopelessness” (Miceli and Castelfranchi 2007: 456 see also

Smith and Kim 2007) that make envy rankle so badly. What the

psychic consequences of this illusion of power might be

needs to be explored, but I postulate that where the evil

eye is at work, inferiors are less inclined toward

depression than they are where no revenge against the envied

is possible.

But if the evil eye is one of the best indicators of an

envy prone social formations, then what are we to make of

the fact that the evil eye is unknown in East Asia or the

Pacific, and does not exist in aboriginal societies in

America, Australia, or sub-Saharan Africa? Nor does it

remain salient in the modern industrialized world except

40


among the lower classes and recent immigrants. Why this

should be so has been brilliantly analyzed by Garrison and

Arensberg (1976) who argue that the evil eye does not appear

in simple hunting and gathering societies where sharing is

obligatory, possessions are few, and where, one might

conjecture, envy is negligible. Instead, it is

characteristic of intermediate stratified ‘part-societies’

where the reach of the state is weak and bureaucratic

control unstable, so that people must rely on their personal

ties with strong individuals for protection against

aggression. 11 Belief in the evil eye and fear of pervasive

envy fades away when the social formation becomes more

complex, bureaucracy becomes more efficient, the legal

system becomes more rationalized, redistribution becomes

impersonal, and the economy expands. As this occurs, many

of the other attitudes associated with the evil eye also

recede.

11 The evil eye complex is a triadic relationship between the envied (the gazee), the envier (the gazer), and an external (often supernatural) protector. This is in contrastto the usual formulation for envy as dyadic, while jealousy is triadic (Smith and Kim 2007).

41


This is what has happened in the United States. As

Schoeck writes: “only our contemporary American standard

culture has developed enough indifference to evil eyes to

make it obligatory for the guest to admire freely the host’s

good fortune and conspicuous consumption, whereupon the host

will simply say ‘Thank you,’ instead of enumerating all his

invisible misfortunes” (Schoeck 1969: 199-200). Rather than

hiding our possessions behind walls, open lawns and picture

windows expose our living quarters for all to see. Instead

of stoic concealment, emotional expressivity is highly

valued. Leveling mechanisms, such as progressive taxes,

limits on earnings, laws regulating the inheritance of

wealth, are regarded as anathema not only by the rich, but

by the vast majority, including the poor, who hope

themselves to someday climb the ladder of success. We

assume the existence of a god-given opportunity to change,

to find ourselves, to explore and move on in search of a

better life. We do not know what it means to die of shame,

nor to live for the pursuit of honor and glory. The primary

motivating forces in our culture are the ‘calm passion’ of

42


greed (Hirschman 1977) and the search for personal

authenticity (Lindholm 2007). We optimistically assume

that, despite setbacks, the economy will expand, progress

will continue, problems will be solved, justice will be

done. One person’s success is to be celebrated as part of

the general march forward (Hall and Lindholm 1999). In this

hopeful and affluent setting, malicious envy is not much

feared. Instead, upward striving Americans consume luxury

goods, build huge houses and buy enormous cars to

demonstrate that they are worthy of being envied (Belk, this

volume). In fact, the stimulation of envy might be said to

drive our economy.

To summarize, societies prone to malicious envy are

likely to be social formations that subscribe to an ideal

of equality and an ethos of competitive individualism. Envy

is characteristic (and better expressed by symbolic means)

in ‘part-societies’ which are outside of, or peripheral to,

highly centralized, rationalized, bureaucratic state

systems. Also required for the accentuation of envy is an

absence of multiple pathways to success, a ‘limited good’

43


mentality, an agrarian mode of production, and a code of

honor. Under these conditions, the onus of defeat and

inferiority rest solely on the individual, whose humiliation

contributes to feelings of spiteful envy against the

successful. This pattern stands in contrast to collectivist

hierarchical traditional social formations such as existed

in Japan, India or China, where envy was offset by a

sacralization of difference and self-abnegation within the

collective. It also contrasts with very simple hunting and

gathering societies where sharing is required and

differences are minimal. And, it contrast with modern

capitalist states, where opportunity appears unlimited.

From this short and sketchy exploration, it is clear, I

hope, that envy takes different trajectories and assumes

different intensities in a complex dialectical relationship

to variations in social structure and local culture. The

question remains as to whether envy is indeed a universal

emotion, varying only in the degree and manner it is

emphasized or denied. Or is a social construct, absent in

complex societies where hierarchy is sacralized and in

44


simple societies where collective unity and redistribution

of goods are the highest values? In any case, it does seem

that envy, and especially the fear of envy, is not

particularly characteristic of the stable, wealthy, and

self-confident capitalist culture of the United States.

However, it is important to recall that the American

experience is hardly universal, and that envy is not limited

to individuals, but occurs between groups as well, including

nations, ethnicities, regions and religions. When Americans

immodestly assert their superiority in the international

arena, they may well arouse the same sort of reaction as

occurs in Swat: envy, resentment and betrayal.

8,015 words

References:

Ahmad, Akbar (1976), Millennium and Charisma Among Pathans,

Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Ahmad, M. T. (1962), Social Organization of Yusufzai Swat, Lahore:

Punjab University Press

45


Barth, Fredrik (1959), “Segmentary Opposition and the

Theory of Games: A Study of Pathan Organization,”

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 89, 5-21.

Barth, Fredrik (1965), Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans,

London: Athalone.

Barth, Fredrik (1985), The Last Wali of Swat, New York:

Columbia University Press.

Belk, Russell (2007), “Marketing and Envy” This Volume.

Benedict, Ruth (1934), Patterns of Culture, Boston: Houghton

Mifflin.

Briggs, Jean (1970), Never in Anger: Portrait of An Eskimo Family,

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Briggs, Jean (1987), "In Search of Emotional Meaning,"

Ethos, 15, 8-15.

Caroe, Olaf (1965), The Pathans, London: MacMillan.

Dumont, Louis (1970), Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste

System,

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Elphinstone, Montstuart (1815), An Account of the Kingdom of

Caubul, 2 vols. London: Longman.

46


Foster, George (1965), “Peasant Society and the Image of

Limited Good,” American Anthropologist, 67, 293-315.

Foster, George (1972a), “The Anatomy of Envy: A Study in

Symbolic Behavior,” Current Anthropology, 13, 165-201.

Foster, George (1972b), “A Second Look at Limited Good,”

Anthropological Quarterly, 45, 57-64.

Garrison, Vivian and Conrad Arensberg (1976), “The Evil Eye:

Envy or Risk of Seizure? Paranoia or Patronal

Dependency?’ in Clarence Maloney, ed., The Evil Eye, New

York: Columbia University Press.

Geertz, Clifford (1965), Person, Time and Conduct in Bali: An Essay in

Cultural Analysis, New Haven: Yale University Southeast

Asia Studies.

Hall, John A and Charles Lindholm (1999), Is America Breaking

Apart? Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hirschman, Albert (1977), The Passions and the Interests: Political

Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph, Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

47


Jenkins, Janis (1994), "The Psychocultural Study of Emotion

and Mental Disorder," in Phillip Bock, ed., Psychological

Anthropology, Westport: Praeger.

Kapferer, Bruce (1995), "From the Edge of Death: Sorcery and

the Motion of Consciousness," in Anthony P. Cohen and

Nigel Rapport, eds., Questions of Consciousness, London:

Routledge.

Khan, Ghani (1958), The Pathans: A Sketch, Peshawar:

University Book Agency.

Langdon, Stephen (1981), “An Incantation in the ‘House of

Light’ Against the Evil Eye,” in Alan Dundes, ed., The

Evil Eye: A Folklore Casebook, New York: Garland Publishing.

Levy, Robert L. (1984), "Emotion, Knowing, and Culture," in

Richard Shweder and Robert Levine, eds., Culture Theory:

Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Lindholm, Charles (1982), Generosity and Jealousy: The Swat Pukhtun

of Northern Pakistan, New York: Columbia University Press.

Lindholm, Charles (1992), “Quandaries of Command in

Egalitarian Societies: Examples from Swat and

48


Morocco,” In Juan Cole, ed., Comparing Muslim Societies,

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Lindholm, Charles (1999), “Justice and Tyranny: Law and the

State in the Middle East,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Third Series, 9, 375-88.

Lindholm, Charles (2005), “An Anthropology of Emotion,” in

Conerly Casey and Robert Edgerton, eds., A Companion to

Psychological Anthropology: Modernity and Psychocultural Change,

Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Lindholm, Charles (2007), Culture and Authenticity, Oxford: Basil

Blackwell.

Lutz, Catherine (1988), Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a

Micronesian Atoll and their Challenge to Western Theory, Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Lutz, Catherine and Geoffrey White (1986), "The

Anthropology of Emotions," Annual Review of Anthropology,

15, 405-36.

MacPherson, Charles (1962), The Political Theory of Possessive

Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

49


Mead, Margaret (1935), Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive

Societies, London: Routledge.

Miceli, Maria and Christiano Castelfranchi (2007), Cognition

and Emotion, 21, 449-79.

Roberts, John M. (1976), “Belief in the Evil Eye in World

Perspective.” in Clarence Maloney, ed., The Evil Eye, New

York: Columbia University Press.

Rosaldo, Michelle (1984), "Toward an Anthropology of Self

and Feeling," in Richard Shweder and Robert LeVine,

eds., Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Rorty, Amélie (1980), "Explaining Emotions," in Amélie

Rorty, ed., Explaining Emotions, Berkeley: University of

California Press.

Schoeck, Helmut (1969), Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior, Michael

Glenn and Betty Ross, trans., Berlin: Walter de

Gruyter.

Smith, Richard H. and Sung Hee Kim (2007), “Comprehending

Envy,” Psychological Bulletin, 133, 46-84.

50


Wadud, Abdul (1962), The Story of Swat as Told by the Founder, Ashruf

Husain, trans., Peshawar: Ferozsons.

Walcot. Peter (1978), Envy and the Greeks: A Study of Human Behavior,

Warminster: Aris and Philllips Ltd.

Wikan, Unni (1990), Managing Turbulent Hearts: A Balinese Formula for

Living, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Woodburn, James (1998), “’Sharing is Not a Form of

Exchange’: An Analysis of

Property-Sharing in Immediate-Return Hunter-Gather

Societies,” in C. M. Hann,

ed., Property Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition,

Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

51

Culture and Envy

Documents