Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Politics of Epicaricacy

Not many like Rush Limbaugh. Oh they may listen to him, but that's just to see what he's up to. Therefore, his recent comment about hoping Obama fails really didn't mean anything because he doesn't mean anything.

However, I am worried about the day-to-day Republicans. They are refusing to cooperate in any way to bring about a turnabout in the economy. What are they thinking? They actually could cause a worldwide crash. After all, didn't the Democrats support Bush in his stimulus package? And didn't Bush's 8 years create this in the first place? So what's the deal?

I think it's epicaricacy. They are so mad that they are out of power, both in congress and in the presidency, that they are supporting a failure. They'll take great joy in Obama's failure. Yet, can't they see that they will fail too? And their family? And their friends? And the rest of the world?

Perhaps there is a word for taking joy in someone else's misfortune...which ends up to be wrongheaded because it's your misfortune too! What do you think?

1 comment:

Mahendra Singh said...

Renan once said that he never properly understood the concept of infinity until he contemplated the stupidity of the human race.

That may also qualify as a Gallic version of epicaricacy, perhaps? A bit friskier than schadenfreude?

Nice blog!