Helmut Schoeck

Helmut Schoeck (Graz, 3 July 1922 – 2 February 1993) was an Austrian-German sociologist and writer,
best known for his work Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour (Der Neid: Eine Theorie der Gesellschaft).

Contents
Life
Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour
Works (Selected)
References

Life
Schoeck, born in Graz, spent his early years in Baden-Württemberg, finishing high school in Ludwigsburg.
He then studied medicine, philosophy and psychology at the universities of Munich and Tübingen. With a
dissertation on Karl Mannheim, Schoeck would obtain his doctorate under Eduard Spranger.

For fifteen years, starting in 1950, Schoeck would work as a professor at various U.S. universities. In 1953,
he taught philosophy at Fairmont State College, followed by a two-year stint at Yale. At Emory University
he was awarded a full professorship in sociology. During the 1950s, Schoeck published some works in
German, and translated Joachim Wach's Sociology of Religion into German.

In 1965, Schoeck returned to Germany, where he obtained a chair in sociology at the Johannes Gutenberg
University in Mainz, which he would occupy until his retirement in 1990.

Schoeck, who was also a columnist of the Welt am Sonntag for twenty years, died of cancer in 1993.

Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour

Schoeck gained international fame with his book Der Neid: Eine Theorie der Gesellschaft (Envy: A Theory
of Social Behaviour), which was published in 1966, with the first English translation appearing in 1969.
Written without a great deal of technical jargon, the book would receive widespread appreciation, even
outside the academic community. The book became something of a best-seller, and was translated into more
than ten languages.

Paul Dumouchel said in the book Schoeck speaks about "the origin of envy,...its cause and function within
society" and also "documents the importance of envy in literature, philosophy, and in many social sciences".
He went on to say that Shoeck puts forward two propositions - first, that envy has played a large part in
forming human society, and that, secondly, the role of envy often remains hidden.[1]

Shoeck also argued that as envy was a natural part of human evolution and could not be suppressed, it was
important to channel the emotion. He also suggested that socialism and democracy were put forward as
ideas by members of society who were not able "to deal with their own envy",[2] and Karl Marx's idea of
communism was "entirely mistaken".[3]
A polemicist against the New Left movements of the 1960s, Schoeck criticized their ideas from a
conservative-liberal viewpoint. The egalitarian and anti-capitalist mentality of the leftish generation was the
particular target of Schoeck's attacks.

Works (Selected)
Karl Mannheim als Wissenssoziologe, Dissertation, 1948
Nietzsches Philosophie des „Menschlich-Allzumenschlichen“. Kritische Darstellung der
Aphorismen-Welt der mittleren Schaffenszeit als Versuch einer Neuorientierung des
Gesamtbildes, 1948
Soziologie. Geschichte ihrer Probleme. 1952. 2., wesentlich überarbeitete und erweiterte
Auflage unter dem Titel Die Soziologie und die Gesellschaften. Problemsicht und
Problemlösung von Beginn bis zur Gegenwart. 1964. Orbis academicus Band I/3. Verlag Karl
Alber, Freiburg / München
USA. Motive und Strukturen, 1958
Was heißt politisch unmöglich?, 1959
Scientism and Values, 1960
Relativism and the Study of Man, 1961
Financing Medical Care, 1962
Psychiatry and Responsibility, 1962
Der Neid. Eine Theorie der Gesellschaft. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg/München 1966, 2. Auflage
1968 (späterer Titel: Der Neid und die Gesellschaft)
Kleines soziologisches Wörterbuch, 1969 (ab 1971: Soziologisches Wörterbuch)
Ist Leistung unanständig?, 1971 (mehrmals erweitert)
Vorsicht Schreibtischtäter. Politik und Presse in der Bundesrepublik, 1972
Entwicklungshilfe. Politische Humanität, 1972
Die Lust am schlechten Gewissen, 1973
Das Geschäft mit dem Pessimismus, 1975
Schülermanipulation, 1976
Das Recht auf Ungleichheit, 1979
Der Arzt zwischen Politik und Patient, 1983
Die zwölf Irrtümer unseres Jahrhunderts, 1985
Kinderverstörung. Die mißbrauchte Kindheit - Umschulung auf eine andere Republik, 1989

References
1. Dumouchel, Paul (2014). The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=MoycBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT132&dq=Helmut%20Schoeck&pg=PT133#v=onepa
ge&q=Helmut%20Schoeck&f=false). MSU Press. ISBN 9781628950007.
2. Fernandez de la Mora, Gonzalo (2000). Egalitarian Envy (https://books.google.com/books?id=
YAFWUOc3z7AC&lpg=PA59&dq=Helmut%20Schoeck&pg=PA59#v=onepage&q=Helmut%20
Schoeck&f=false). iUniverse. ISBN 9780595002610.
3. Back Choi, Young (April 1990). "Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior by Helmut Schoeck".
Southern Economic Journal. 56 (4): 1140–1142. doi:10.2307/1059904 (https://doi.org/10.230
7%2F1059904). JSTOR 1059904 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1059904).

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Helmut_Schoeck&oldid=906676073"

This page was last edited on 17 July 2019, at 13:02 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.