THE word comes from old German meaning “pleasure derived from the misery of others”—schaden denotes harm, freude, joy. Surely, this is a universal human predilection, providing over human history reason for
literature of the ennobling or of the pedestrian sort to thrive. As human beings we may not always derive pleasure from seeing others wince in pain because we are also prone to pity, commiseration with or even deep empathy for those who are suffering.
But if sales of gossip magazines, or the enduring appeal of teleseryes or soap operas or sundry news about lives of the rich, famous or infamous are anything to go by, we all invariably take an interest in the foibles and follies of others. It is little wonder that that the known highest readership in broadsheets are not as much the op-ed pages as the showbiz or human interest sections.
Perhaps it is the drudgery of quotidian existence that make many of us curious about the lives of those we place on pedestals of celebrity or the leaders in politics and society who make decisions that affect so many in ways large and small. When we learn of their own frailties, we are reminded of their being mere mortals, underscoring for us their being imperfect human beings too. This may be where a schadenfreude of sorts plays out—in seeing the mighty, wealthy and famous battle their own demons or struggle to get their acts together, we note that here is an equalizing element in all this.
It makes us wonder how much schadenfreude there is as the country is fed—for days now—with a daily dose of the saga of the Revillas and a murder most foul involving siblings and bitter family feuds. Headlines scream out gory details of crime, treachery, betrayal, greed, even flight—now interlaced with a long family history of local and national politics and show biz influence. It is the telenovela writ large and real, shown on national news, dissected and written about by columnists and commentators. The nation is hooked.
But one hopes that the country is hooked not just in the riveting unfolding of a real-life drama that scriptwriters would be hard-put to match for television or the movies. The nitty-gritty of testimony and eye-witness accounts of so gruesome a turn of events make for compelling evening news fare, radio commentary or online blogging, but there should be opportunity here to learn more than a thing or two about ourselves and our families—and provide us with a mirror with which to see ourselves again as individuals, parents and children, who have clear responsibilities to one another.
A sociologist reminds us that there is a darker underside to the fact that ours is in many ways a machismo culture, where several families or sets of children are supported by a lone patriarch. Children may be adequately provided for but there is the proverbial lack of steady parental guidance and care. There may be a copious supply of material goods and comfort but these hardly compensate for the yearning to have the constancy of fatherly or parental affection and love. This highlights the fact that for many men—especially those in positions of power and wealth—who maintain several families, children and mistresses or partners are seen as chattel, over which they exercise some proprietary control.
This lack of family anchors may not be much different from the widespread reality of OFW families and the attendant social costs to families having a parent or both parents employed abroad. Studies show how some children of migrant workers encounter various social problems arising from the dysfunctions of a family life: drugs, vagrancy, memberships in wayward gangs, alienation. The steady stream of balikbayan boxes filled with sundry gifts and gizmos from overseas does not quite fill in the vacuum of feeble family life.
This is not to denigrate in any way the noble sacrifice a great majority of our more than ten million OFWs take to make ends meet and the kind of difficulties they face to keep their families fed and secure—and, yes, to keep the national economy afloat. But a cause célèbre like the Revilla saga, while not arising from a situation of migrant labor, tells us in any case that we need to take a close, hard look at how our children are raised and under what conditions. The fact that the siblings involved—the murdered eldest brother was 23, the two younger siblings implicated in the murder are 21 and 18—are all young, or at the prime of their lives makes this all the more tragic.
A family’s future, it is said, is foretold by the way its children behave or comport themselves with the kind of values they are imbued or brought up with. Our country’s future, likewise, is foretold by the kind of families we are able to keep grounded in the values of hardwork, honesty, responsibility and love. That is one freude, joy, we can all share—and work hard at—as parents and families.
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