El que lo dice, lo es: Envidia, ambivalencia e igualdad

Abstract

A critical analysis of what is called the "objection of envy" is proposed, which is directed against egalitarian political demands, that is, the disqualification of these demands as an disguised expression of reprehensible emotions that seek to undermine the situation of the better-off rather than improve the situation of the worse-off. A series of answers and theoretical approaches are examined to move towards an affirmative interpretation of envy. First, a review the difficulties in which Rawls' theory of justice sinks when addressing the problem of envy and the solutions that some authors propose to solve them, showing the adjustment between the ambivalence of negative feelings such as envy and the ambivalence of the distributive structure in modernity. Second, assuming a gap between emotional states and their discursive manifestation, it is possible to explain the objection as part of a cultural politics of affects, whose contestation requires rethinking envy affirmatively and comprehending its psychic underlying mechanisms. Third, developments from the "mimetic theory" are taken that allows envy to be placed at the core of the constitution of desire and as an affect that is generalized given the fundamental institutional forms of modernity.