May the new year bring us respair
December 26, 2021 10:01 AM   Subscribe

The German schadenfreude – pleasure in the misfortunes of others – is now all too familiar. But how many of us know its near opposite in English, “confelicity”, which is joy in another person’s happiness? As we exchange hatred on our screens, how about sharing some “fellowfeeling”, 16th-century speak for kindness and compassion? From lexicographer and etymologist Susie Dent in The Guardian.
posted by Bella Donna (25 comments total) 40 users marked this as a favorite
 
A lovely reminder and nudge to encourage the better angels of our nature. In Buddhism, this is known as mudita, most often translated into English as sympathetic joy.
posted by PhineasGage at 11:06 AM on December 26, 2021 [17 favorites]


There are other examples as well in the post, thus respair.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:07 AM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]


Ooh, I need to remember to work "spleenical" into the conversation the first chance I get! I know it's one of the negative words mentioned in the article so it kind of goes against the theme of this post, but it's such a great word!
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:11 AM on December 26, 2021 [3 favorites]


Moreover, perhaps it isn’t all down to our attitude. Some linguists believe the geography of a language shapes its sounds, and those sounds in turn influence our thoughts

I'm gonna go with 'nah' here. There's no way to measure or correlate the subjective value of random sounds with also subjective emotional states.

"Think pieces" like this are especially annoying in times of negligent social welfare policies. If only we could coin or use more positive words to describe our material realities, that would change our material realities! I'm gonna go again with "nah". I'm in Germany at the moment from the USA, and all I can say is, America is a shithole compared to here, and being here has made me realize that if I could be here permanently, I could also fire my therapist back in the USA. Like, the social policies here build meaningful and less tractioned lives for many more people on a broader scale than back in the USA. One of my first observations is that there seems to be much less social inequality than back in the USA. Everyone seems happier and more pleasant and less stressed. Back home, seeing families with small kids made me feel pity and dread, because the overwhelming stress of being a young family in America, not to mention being childless in America, is so fucking draining and taxing at all damn times. But here... Families seem joyous and comfortable and at ease. Basically, I don't want someone telling me ever again to try to find the silver lining through linguistic manipulation or cognitive tricks or whatever; fuck all that, we need better social policies. People don't simply desire to be unhappy, they just *are* when their lives are designed in every way to work against them.
posted by erattacorrige at 12:03 PM on December 26, 2021 [26 favorites]


Sometime, though, it is helpful to be able to imagine a better future in order to do concrete work towards attaining that future. In practicing joy for ourselves and demanding better for everyone, then, it is helpful to have language to talk about that experience of joy-in-others'-joy. We need a vocabulary of pleasure, of peace, of ecstasy and contentment, in order to imagine and impress into our minds a promise of something better.

More seriously: it is okay to enjoy words for their own sake sometimes, too. The words do not need to be a component of activism to be delightful. We do not need to always focus on sorrow in order to take fleeting, cheap delight in a list of words for appreciation.

My favorite word of this nature, not listed here, is compersion from polyamorous circles, which seems to have independently recreated the same meaning as confelicity. I think I might like confelicity better, though.
posted by sciatrix at 12:20 PM on December 26, 2021 [30 favorites]


Yes yes of course it is totally fine to take joy in words; words are excellent and meant to be appreciated.
I just resist this idea of "think your way to gratitude" when living under oppressive and toxic social conditions. It's just cult-like. It's Norman Vincent Peale with new branding.
posted by erattacorrige at 12:23 PM on December 26, 2021 [5 favorites]


I just want to say that joy is not a zero-sum game. It's something I remind myself of frequently.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:33 PM on December 26, 2021 [13 favorites]


Man, we can't have a single nice post without someone getting spleenical?*

There's a LOT of distance between "here's some words that mean feeling good about other peoples' happiness" and "think your way to gratitude" cultism. Also I wouldn't call it a "think piece"; Dent is a lexicographer and her articles are about words, not social welfare policy.

*see what I did there
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:05 PM on December 26, 2021 [32 favorites]


I do like ultracrepiderian.
posted by Foosnark at 1:10 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


I feel sympathetic joy for the pleasure and contentment erattacorrige is finding in Germany right now.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:23 PM on December 26, 2021 [10 favorites]


Thanks, Bella Donna. That was lovely.
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:26 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


The antidote!!
posted by firstdaffodils at 1:41 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


USA … America … USA … USA … USA … America … America

I was sure there was something else in this reply to a post from Sweden about an article written by an English person, but I somehow missed it.
posted by ambrosen at 1:47 PM on December 26, 2021 [15 favorites]


I've heard a lot of repair language in climate crisis circles. Respair might fit in well.
posted by doctornemo at 2:06 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Also, gigil deserves global usage.
posted by doctornemo at 2:07 PM on December 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


A longtime friend of mine — now a professional comedian, cartoonist, and relentlessly upbeat fellow — back when we were in high school coined the word prospiracy. He explains it as being the reverse of a conspiracy: a prospiracy is when people get together in secret to effect a positive outcome, like planning a surprise party for someone.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:43 PM on December 26, 2021 [19 favorites]


There's no way to measure or correlate the subjective value of random sounds with also subjective emotional states.

What about bouba/kiki?
posted by juv3nal at 8:42 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]


confelicity”, which is joy in another person’s happiness?

it feels weird that we need a word for this. Happiness is contagious. I want as much of it as I can get it my neighbourhood. How does this not get just filed in the "common sense" pile?
posted by philip-random at 10:56 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Confelicity -- n. when you're angered by a co-worker called Felicity and just need to exclaim "that confelicity!"

>There's no way to measure or correlate the subjective value of random sounds with also subjective emotional states.
I'm onamapoie-ptimistic, that natural sounds might have correlation with positive moods. Then I realise that the same events can be retold in a "victim" stance or a "survivor" stance with vastly different emotional engagement to telling your own story. I don't think this detracts from positive words helping us hope for better in 2022.
posted by k3ninho at 2:07 AM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


Our brains are wired to give negative things more weight. I'm not sure when, exactly, I became aware of the idea of taking joy in another person's happiness but it was not something I grew up with, so I would not call the concept of confelicity common sense. To be sure, happiness is contagious. Alas, so is sadness.

As humans, we construct meaning using language. Words are not just labels that we attach to concepts and ideas that are manipulated and combined at a deeper cognitive level. Words construct meaning and allow us to form, combine and elaborate complex thoughts that would otherwise be impossible to handle.

The language we use and the words we know shape our thinking. In my humble opinion, we need all the words in all the languages. More words, please!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:11 AM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]


I've been familiar with the concept of shared/sympathetic joy for a while thanks to the polyam community, where "compersion" is a generally understood concept (at least in my little segment of it). It's useful in polyam contexts when you want to describe the feeling of seeing someone you care about with someone else, or sharing the pleasure of sending your partner off on a date that you won't necessarily enjoy yourself, but you like seeing them getting to experience that. I usually compare it to the feeling of being a child and sharing a beloved toy with a friend -- you're excited and happy to see them happy and finding the same joy in it that you did, and you know that if you had kept it to yourself it wouldn't be as fun.

It's interesting to me that, at least among the people I know, it's also become useful outside of a relationship setting. I can have compersion over a friend getting excited by their hobby that I'm not personally interested in. I experience compersion when my partner describes a book they're into that I would find boring, but I find pleasure in their pleasure. I think the English language could use more words like that.
posted by fight or flight at 6:09 AM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]


We must not allow a Gemeinschaft gap!
posted by Ultracrepidarian at 9:14 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


Coming out the relationship category is the term Compersion which IIRC, was coined in the last 20 years or so. Generally applied to non-monagamy relationships, but suitable for every type of relationship.

Compersion is feeling happiness or joy because of the happiness and/or joy of another person.
posted by Oh_Bobloblaw at 9:17 AM on December 27, 2021


Cacklefart. Had never heard it before and I love it. That is all.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:35 AM on December 28, 2021


The recombobulation area!!
posted by brainwane at 10:31 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


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