Pardon me, sir, your schadenfroh is showing!

Asia’s economic crisis is a topic of daily conversation here in the Commonwealth.

And, world-wide, Asia-crisis-mania makes for good news. Some of this coverage is rooted in the sneaky envy that much of the world, including the United States, felt towards industrial Asia’s formerly high-flying fortunes. It wasn’t too long ago that everyone in the Prozac nation was blaming Asia for U.S. unemployment, high U.S. real estate prices, global warming, and lower American corporate profits. America did, in fact, blame Asia for every woe imaginable, with the notable exceptions of cellulite and disco.

And now a lot of Americans seem to be gloating about Asia’s problems. Take this “news” item, for example, posted on CNN’s web site on November 28: “Asia’s economic crisis spurs suicides.”

“As the Asian financial crisis lingers, taking its toll on jobs and savings, more people are cracking under the strain,” says the article. It goes on to pronounce, under a bold heading of “Hara-kiri tradition,” that “coping is that much harder in many Asian societies, where loss of face is taken more seriously than in most Western countries.”

Well, fair enough, because the article is going to cite some Heavy Statistics to back up its point, right? Uh, wrong. In fact, it has no statistics at all on suicide rates. None. It cites increased calls to suicide prevention hotlines, but what’s that got to do with anything? People don’t commit suicide with telephones.

Absent any facts, then, why should we take the premise that Western countries are just so darned mentally superior? Insanity was invented in Europe (Vienna, Austria, to be precise), and America, not Japan, is where the citizens are stoned on Prozac and pop-psychology. And — keep in mind — this is in the context of the booming economy America enjoys. If a lot of Americans can’t even cope with the good times, what will happen in the bad times? Can you imagine, say, three million shrill women in West Los Angeles simultaneously whining about their SELF- ESTEEM? It would probably shatter the mirrors on the Hubble space telescope.

If we find the roots of mental illness in Austria, we only have to look next door to Germany to put a label on America’s mind-set towards industrial Asia. In the tongue of der Fatherland we find the term “schadenfroh.” The word means to “take a mischievous delight in the discomfort of another person.”

The most fundamental emotion in modern America is that green-eyed monster, jealousy. Lurking deep inside the twisted corners of the American psyche is the sneaking fear that somebody, somewhere, is happier, richer, or more fulfilled. This pathetic outlook grew out of puritanical roots grafted with a modern lust for a collectivist system in which nobody (except a ruling elite, of course) should be any happier than the average, miserable, worthless, dull-witted nincompoop. Americans expend more energy trying to screw their neighbors than trying to improve their own circumstances.

Indeed, if industrial Asia was to get richer than the United States, Americans would be whipped into a hate-frenzy that would rock the world. That day isn’t here yet. And, for us in the Commonwealth, we should keep in mind that Uncle Sam’s agenda towards Asia will ultimately be rooted in weirdness, in contrast to the healthy and productive relationship we enjoy with our neighbors to the north.