The German word schadenfreude means taking joy in another's misfortune. Usually when anyone mentions it, they have to make a joke about how only the Germans would need such a word. I like to point out that the English language apparently needs such a word too, which is apparent since we adopted the German word. And at least the Germans didn't try to avoid responsibility by co-opting someone else's word.
Anyway, there's now a word defined in Urban Dictionary, schadenforde. It's deriving pleasure from the misfortune of Toronto mayor Rob Ford. Of course, there's been plenty of opportunity to do exactly that in recent months.
But I find myself having a sort of second-order schadenforde, in which I take pleasure in watching others experience misfortune as they realize they have a racist, lying, multi-addicted, irresponsible bully as mayor, and a lot of the city wants it that way. No, this isn't an I-hate-Toronto situation: as I said a few months back, I've made some amount of peace with the city. Besides, part of my guilty pleasure comes from the fact that really, Rob Ford could have happened anywhere.
All it takes is a large number of people who don't normally follow politics and have an unfocused anger. That describes a lot of cities. We've known for a while that there are a lot of voters who don't really follow the news, feel highly persecuted in spite of living a comfortable life, and feel very little connection with other people in their community. It's a big problem, but we've always looked the other way. Finally we have a more accurate picture of our society and the people in it.
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