Envy: Blind to Your Own Place

Envy, as Gwendolin Kirchhoff describes it, makes you blind to your own place: “you become blind to your own place and suddenly want to have the other person’s place” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Addictive Programming Live”, 3:19:15). Perhaps you know the moment: a colleague succeeds at what you have been working towards, or a friend’s life seems easier than yours, and all at once you feel envious and can only look at their place. This essay follows Gwendolin Kirchhoff’s description of envy, her conversation with Jochen Kirchhoff about ressentiment, and three voices from the tradition: Baruch de Spinoza, Max Scheler and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

#What is envy?

Envy in the ordinary sense of the word arises, according to the philosopher Max Scheler (1874–1928), from the feeling of being powerless to obtain a good that someone else possesses (cf. Scheler, 1915, p. 61). This tension between striving and powerlessness only becomes envy where it discharges itself in an act of hatred or in a hostile attitude towards the owner (cf. ibid.). The other person and their possession are then, through an illusion, experienced as the cause of one’s own lack of it (cf. ibid., pp. 61 f.). Scheler distinguishes envy from mere displeasure: “Mere displeasure that another possesses the good I strive for is not ‘envy’” (ibid., p. 62). Such displeasure, he says, is just as much a motive to acquire the good, or one like it, in some way, for example by work or by purchase (cf. ibid.). Only where this attempt fails and the awareness of powerlessness sets in does envy arise, according to Scheler (cf. ibid.). That is why he considers it a complete error to present envy as a driving force in the development of civilisation: “Envy does not tense the will to acquire; it slackens it.” (ibid.)

Spinoza’s definition is older. In the German edition of his Ethics quoted here, the definition uses the word Mißgunst: “Mißgunst is hatred insofar as it so affects a person that they are saddened by the good fortune of another and, on the other hand, rejoice at the misfortune of another.” (Spinoza, 1677, Ethik III, Definitions of the Affects XXIII; Leipzig 1975 edition, p. 240)

#How does Gwendolin Kirchhoff describe envy?

Gwendolin Kirchhoff describes envy as an emotion that makes you blind to your own place. In the livestream “Addictive Programming” with Aron Morhoff in April 2026 she took up the question of where envy comes from and answered: “envy is a very interesting form of emotion, because it is so inauthentic” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Addictive Programming Live”, 3:18:59). There are shadow gates, she says, through which the soul can pass and by which it is bound in a form, and envy is one of them (cf. ibid., 3:19:08–3:19:15). Then comes her sentence about place: whoever envies becomes blind to their own place and suddenly wants the other person’s (cf. ibid., 3:19:15–3:19:19).

She sets a different reality against this: “But in the deeper reality it is like this: everyone has their place, literally” (ibid., 3:19:20). In this place, she says, each person fulfils a task that no one else can replace (cf. ibid., 3:19:24–3:19:34). Then she speaks about herself, expressly without false arrogance: envy has never been an issue for her; pride has at times been an issue, but not envy, and not greed either (cf. ibid., 3:19:35–3:19:56). She traces this back to the fact that she assumes she has and is something of her own, and focuses on bringing this own thing into the world (cf. ibid., 3:19:54–3:20:09). “And then the comparison with everyone else becomes unnecessary.” (ibid., 3:20:09) She adds: “So I suspect it also has to do with that” (ibid., 3:20:12).

#What does envy think?

Envy thinks, in Gwendolin Kirchhoff’s words: “if I cannot have something, the other person may not have it either” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Addictive Programming Live”, 3:22:13). She is speaking of truly serious envy, and she states: “bad things have happened out of envy” (ibid., 3:22:20). She calls it a darkening, a gateway (cf. ibid., 3:22:23–3:22:26). Others may perhaps take a more relaxed view of the matter, she says; she personally does not, because it frightens her very much (cf. ibid., 3:22:28–3:22:35). She points to the kinds of dynamics in which people can be used and played off against each other, in the corresponding regimes, by appealing to their envy: “you can have that from the other person you envy it for, if you do this and that for us” (ibid., 3:22:45; cf. 3:22:35–3:22:49). That is a very good way to corrupt people, she says (cf. ibid., 3:22:52–3:22:57).

Gwendolin Kirchhoff also speaks of envy in her lecture on Laozi, Confucius and Mencius. About what one reads in the stories from ancient China, and the problems people considered there, she says: “the main problem I see is envy” (Kirchhoff, G., 2025, “Lao-Tsu, Konfuzius & Menzius”, 53:34). In these stories, she says, people act out of their envy with absolutely no restraint, and without shame (cf. ibid., 53:40–53:47). A typical story: a young, gifted scholar comes to a court and wants to take service there. The ministers who are already there think that if he comes to court they will all be fired, because he will then dismiss them, and that he can do everything better anyway. Then they see to it that he ends up in prison (cf. ibid., 53:49–54:11). There are stories like this one after another, she says; she calls it human corruption (cf. ibid., 54:13–54:20).

#Whom do we envy?

According to Spinoza, we envy only those we take to be our equals: “A person envies only their equal for an advantage.” (Spinoza, 1677, Ethik III, Proposition 55, corollary; Leipzig 1975 edition, p. 222) Spinoza gives this reason: a person desires to do nothing except what can follow from their given nature; they do not desire a virtue that is peculiar to the nature of another and foreign to their own, and they cannot envy someone who is not their equal for it, but they can envy their equal, in whom they presuppose a nature like their own (cf. ibid., p. 223). Where we admire and hold someone in esteem for their prudence or courage, we imagine, according to Spinoza, that these virtues are peculiar to them and not common properties of human nature:

In the same context Spinoza describes comparison with others. Whoever imagines that their actions are weaker in comparison with the actions of others feels displeasure; they try to free themselves of it by misinterpreting the actions of their fellow human beings or by playing up their own as much as they can (cf. ibid., p. 222). From this Spinoza concludes that human beings are by nature inclined to hatred and ill will (Mißgunst), and adds that this inclination is further encouraged by upbringing, because parents tend to spur their children on to virtue only by the goad of ambition and envy (cf. ibid.).

#What is existential envy?

Existential envy, in Max Scheler’s term, is the envy directed at the individual nature and being of another person; he takes it to trigger the strongest formation of ressentiment (cf. Scheler, 1915, p. 63). For Scheler, envy leads to ressentiment only there, and all the more, where the values and goods at stake cannot by their nature be acquired and yet lie in the sphere in which we compare ourselves with others (cf. ibid., pp. 62 f.). “The most powerless envy is at the same time the most terrible.” (ibid., p. 63) Scheler lets existential envy speak for itself:

This envy whispers, as it were, continually: “I can forgive you everything; only not that you are, and are the being that you are; only not that I am not what you are; indeed, that ‘I’ am not ‘you’.” (Scheler, 1915, p. 63)

This envy, according to Scheler, strips the other person from the outset of their mere existence, which as such is felt as pressure, as reproach, as a terrible measure of one’s own person (cf. ibid.). Scheler goes on: in the lives of great people there are always critical times in which the intention to love and envy towards others, whom they must esteem for their great advantages, still flood through them in turn, until slowly the one or the other becomes fixed; such times are what Goethe has in mind (cf. ibid.). Scheler quotes Goethe’s sentence in a different wording. In Elective Affinities, among the entries from Ottilie’s diary, it reads:

#Is ressentiment a form of envy?

Jochen Kirchhoff calls ressentiment a peculiar form of envy. In the conversation about Nietzsche, “Nietzsche und die Große Gesundheit”, he takes up the word Gwendolin Kirchhoff had used just before (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Nietzsche und die Große Gesundheit”, 23:16–23:20; 23:29): “Ressentiment is envy,” he says, “a peculiar form of envy” (ibid., 23:40; 23:43). He goes on: that one looks good, “he is powerful, so he has to come down, he has to go, because we are ugly and small” (ibid., 24:04; cf. 24:02–24:10). Gwendolin Kirchhoff carries the thought further: those who are at the very bottom “are suddenly the good ones through being at the very bottom”, because they are not the evil ones (ibid., 24:13; cf. 24:11–24:17). One can take this in many ways and in part also criticise Nietzsche for it, she says; but it is in any case very interesting what he says about it and what he means to clear away (cf. ibid., 24:17–24:28).

Max Scheler counts envy among a second starting point for the formation of ressentiment (cf. Scheler, 1915, p. 61). He sees the most important starting point in the impulse of revenge (cf. ibid., p. 49).

#How do you overcome envy?

To overcome this theme of envy, you need practice and contact: Gwendolin Kirchhoff says this after giving an example, the Kogi, who by her account have such a practice (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, “Addictive Programming Live”, 3:20:18–3:22:08). Whoever builds a community somewhere, she says, will meet envy at some point, and it can take very destructive forms; what is exciting, she says, is how cultures deal with it (cf. ibid., 3:20:25–3:20:36). Among the Kogi, she says, this happens in a form that does not shame (cf. ibid., 3:20:40–3:20:45). The Kogi, she relates, assign the sources of thoughts to primordial spirits, and there are also some that produce envy (cf. ibid., 3:20:45–3:21:31). Every two weeks, she says, the Kogi hold an open discussion in which everyone says what they think; thoughts of envy are returned in their own form of rituals to places of origin (cf. ibid., 3:21:32–3:21:49). “That is how they deal with it. And that is how they keep envy out of their communities.” (ibid., 3:21:51) That is a practice, she says (cf. ibid., 3:21:59–3:22:01).

Gwendolin Kirchhoff also speaks of envy in her introduction to constellation work. What she personally takes from this work for the ethics it teaches begins with the sentence: “from constellation work you learn respect, because everyone belongs and deserves appropriate recognition” (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, “Systemisches Familienstellen”, 44:17). You learn, she says, to look lovingly at all emotions, by the way even at something like envy, and for that there is the resolving sentence: “Please look kindly on me, even if I am better off than you” (ibid., 44:36; cf. 44:28–44:42). A few sentences later she says of everything that lives that it has a fundamental equality before life and “has its rightful place, has its right and also its right to recognition” (ibid., 45:29). What recognition means in family and relationship systems is described in the entry Recognition; how a constellation unfolds is described on the page on family constellation.

Whether overcoming envy works this way is not something any text can decide. But it can turn a question towards where Gwendolin Kirchhoff asks it: away from the other person’s place, towards your own. What self-respect means is followed in the entry Self-respect. And if you would like to look more closely at the envy that is occupying you right now, in a conversation, this is a question one can begin with in philosophical accompaniment: which place is yours, and what is the thing of your own that no one else brings into the world? And what happens when you grant the other person their place?

#Sources

• Goethe, J. W. von (1809). Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities). Part Two, Chapter Five (“Aus Ottiliens Tagebuche”). Text: Project Gutenberg; English translation ours.
• Kirchhoff, G. (2024). “Systemisches Familienstellen (nach Bert Hellinger), eine Einführung – SYMPOSIUM” [Video]. YouTube, 28 August 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwd1x1RzNoE (44:17–45:35).
• Kirchhoff, G. (2024). “Nietzsche und die Große Gesundheit – Ein Gespräch mit Jochen Kirchhoff – SYMPOSIUM” [Video]. YouTube, 19 October 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS8vCl4BkvI (23:16–24:28; in conversation with Jochen Kirchhoff).
• Kirchhoff, G. (2025). “Lao-Tsu, Konfuzius & Menzius – Politische Weisheit in der Chinesischen Philosophie” [Video]. YouTube, 11 February 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRhjoVeim_8 (53:34–54:20).
• Kirchhoff, G. (2026). “Addictive Programming Live mit Gwendolin Kirchhoff am 19. April 2026” [Video]. Livestream with Aron Morhoff on 19 April 2026, republished on the YouTube channel Curcuma – Chris, 16 May 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2RJpbS2SZA (3:18:56–3:22:57).
• Scheler, M. (1915). “Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen”. In: Abhandlungen und Aufsätze, vol. 1. Leipzig: Verlag der Weißen Bücher, pp. 39–274. Digitised: https://archive.org/details/abhandlungenunda01sche (pp. 61–63); English translation ours.
• Spinoza, B. de (1677). Ethik (Ethics). Quoted from the Leipzig 1975 edition (text: zeno.org), Part III, Proposition 55 with scholium and corollary (pp. 221–223) and Definitions of the Affects XXIII (p. 240); English translation ours.