😏Nemeses: The rivals we love to hate

The writer Roxane Gay has a nemesis. In fact she has six, [according to the Huffington Post]( including one [with clear skin]( and one who’s [still trash](. She’s far from alone. Humans have been harboring long-standing and petty grudges for millennia and, while Twitter doesn’t change the ability to develop nemeses, it has allowed many to subtweet about their nemeses’ latest sins or victories. This public discussion of nemeses naturally bubbled into an [Atlantic think-piece]( on the subject last month, which argued that nemeses can drive people to achieve more. “They require a particular kind of jealousy, because you compete with them, even if they’re unaware of your existence. They can drive you mad with their achievements. But they can also push you to work harder,” Taylor Lorenz wrote. While some people do indeed make a professional rival their nemesis, this approach dilutes the inexplicable, simple pleasure of nemeses by turning them into a life hack. Nemeses should not necessarily serve a purpose; they’re a strangely enjoyable enemy born of a petty, somewhat silly feud. Usually, the other person has no idea that they’re a nemesis and, crucially, there should be no deep sense of grievous hurt or betrayal, only a slight sense of irritation at the other person’s presence or success. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Obsession] Nemeses April 15, 2019 Doing our best with our worst instincts --------------------------------------------------------------- The writer Roxane Gay has a nemesis. In fact she has six, [according to the Huffington Post]( including one [with clear skin]( and one who’s [still trash](. She’s far from alone. Humans have been harboring long-standing and petty grudges for millennia and, while Twitter doesn’t change the ability to develop nemeses, it has allowed many to subtweet about their nemeses’ latest sins or victories. This public discussion of nemeses naturally bubbled into an [Atlantic think-piece]( on the subject last month, which argued that nemeses can drive people to achieve more. “They require a particular kind of jealousy, because you compete with them, even if they’re unaware of your existence. They can drive you mad with their achievements. But they can also push you to work harder,” Taylor Lorenz wrote. While some people do indeed make a professional rival their nemesis, this approach dilutes the inexplicable, simple pleasure of nemeses by turning them into a life hack. Nemeses should not necessarily serve a purpose; they’re a strangely enjoyable enemy born of a petty, somewhat silly feud. Usually, the other person has no idea that they’re a nemesis and, crucially, there should be no deep sense of grievous hurt or betrayal, only a slight sense of irritation at the other person’s presence or success. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Tax avoidance in America --------------------------------------------------------------- Today is tax day in the US, and that makes it a good moment to look closely at how the US itself has evolved into one of the world’s biggest tax havens. It’s admittedly not intuitive—people generally think of places like the Cayman Islands and Switzerland when they think of tax shelters, but America has become one of the biggest culprits. Get a free trial of Quartz membership, and see how the US has become a terrific—maybe even the best—place to hide money from prying eyes. [Explore our guide to tax havens]( By the digits [268,279:]( Instagram posts hashtagged #nemesis, as of April 15 [3,520,000:]( Sales of the playstation game Resident Evil 3: Nemesis [14:]( Babies named “Nemesis” in 1996 in the US [18:]( Years in which at least five US babies were named Nemesis since 1979 [340:]( Fragments assembled to reconstruct a statue of Nemesis by the great classical Greek sculptor Agorakritos of Paros Sponsored by Accenture The Bottom Line on Trust --------------------------------------------------------------- The Accenture Strategy Competitive Agility Index found that over half (54 percent) of the companies analyzed have experienced a major drop in trust, which conservatively equates to a missed opportunity of $180 billion in potential revenues, based on available data.[Explore how to add value with trust.]( Origin story The original nemesis --------------------------------------------------------------- Nemesis was an ancient Greek goddess, responsible for divine retribution both good and bad. She was particularly vigilant about ensuring that arrogant men who had a bit too much good luck were cut down to size. Many of the original sources about Nemesis are lost and the [existing tales about her are conflicting](. We know she’s the daughter of Nyx, Greek goddess of the night; texts disagree as to whether Erebus, god of darkness, or Zeus is her father, or if she had a father at all. [According to Cypria]( a lost epic poem we know of through descriptions of the text, Nemesis was raped by Zeus while both were in goose form. We do know that Nemesis [played a crucial role in the myth of Narcissus]( She was the one who led the good-looking man to a pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and died gazing upon himself. This was a fitting punishment, in Nemesis’s book, for his unkind treatment of the nymph Echo, who also fell in love with Narcissus upon sight. Reuters/Edgar Su Brief history [6th century BC:]( The poem Cypria, which tells the myth of Nemesis, is written. [575 BC:]( The first cult of Nemesis is established. [322 BC:]( In Rhetoric, Aristotle defines “nemesis” as “a feeling of pain at undeserved good fortune.” [1768:]( Biologist Carl Linnaeus publishes Nemesis Divina, “his attempt to reconcile the suffering and evil of the world with the omnipotence and goodness of God.” [1912:]( Carl Jung publishes Psychology of the Unconscious, detailing his theories about the “shadow,” our own internal nemesis. [1984:]( Scientists hypothesize that a star they name Nemesis orbits our sun. [2017:]( The Nemesis star theory is revised: Our sun likely did have a twin, but it ghosted years ago. Because science! The nemesis within --------------------------------------------------------------- The 20th century Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung developed a theory that’s particularly pertinent to nemeses. Jung thought that every person contains a shadow: a repressed area of the subconscious typically filled with negative characteristics. According to Jungian theory, people often project their subconscious shadows onto their chosen nemesis; we hate someone because they’re rude or mean, and tell ourselves that these features are not part of our own psyche. But Jung believed that every person had to reckon with their own shadow. “The hero’s main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness over the unconscious,” [he wrote in The Psychology of the Child Archetype]( published in 1940. And so the biggest nemesis, Jung would say, is the nemesis within each of us. You don’t have to read Jung to get an example of this theory: Just watch any superhero or Star Wars movie. Every great hero has both an external and internal nemesis. Have a friend who would enjoy our Obsession with Nemeses? [ [Forward link to a friend](mailto:?subject=Thought you'd enjoy.&body=Read this Quartz Obsession email – to the email – DC Comics/Warner Bros. Quiz The word "nemesis" is derived from the Greek "nemein," meaning: "Dark shadow""Worthwhile contender""Give what is due" Correct. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Million-dollar question Is having a nemesis actually good for you? --------------------------------------------------------------- If you go to a party and a nemesis is there, there’s no need to flee. In fact, seeing a nemesis can add to the enjoyment. “The extent of my nemesis relationships is thinking (occasionally muttering) dramatically to myself ‘You are my nemesis’ when I see the person in question do/say something irritating. That feeling alone brings a lot of satisfaction and I’m not sure why,” says Quartz reporter Corinne Purtill. “It feels like a glamorous thing, having a nemesis.” This is not an unusual quirk. Psychology research has established that [nemeses are extremely common]( One study [found that 70% of people report]( (pdf) having had an enemy at some point in their lives. Janice McCabe, a sociology professor at Dartmouth College who studies friendships among young adults aged roughly 18 to 27, says she’s repeatedly noticed the concept crop up in interviews. Picking someone to hate can heighten a sense of identity, she says, in defining ourselves in opposition to someone else. “Sometimes a petty feud can strengthen our sense of who we are,” she says. Several people I talked to said a key factor they consider in choosing a nemesis is punching up: Picking someone who’s confident and powerful, and maybe a little mean to those beneath them, as a way of showing they reject such characteristics. One said it took her a while to recognize her nemeses for what she was: An unkind person she didn’t like. “It was a wonderful moment where I realized that you do not have to be friends with everyone, and if I’m having a hard time being friends with her it’s her fault,” she said. McCabe agrees that women in particular can feel social pressure to like everyone. Calling someone a nemesis can be “a safe way to admit to ourselves” that we don’t like someone, she says. Having a nemesis feels “outside of everyday life,” she adds, and so can feel easier to discuss. Fun fact! Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and the Nobel Prize, wrote a “raunchy, anti-capitalist” play called Nemesis that was published in the last year of his life; his family destroyed almost every copy of it after he died. Nobel was “not a very good playwright,” a theater director—whose institution staged the sole performance in 2005—[told The Guardian]( adding that “in a way [Nemesis] is a comedy because it’s so weird.” The show’s director told the paper that it is “a lurid parade of torture, rape and incest that features a drug-induced vision of the Virgin Mary, a conversation with Satan and ends in a 40-minute torture scene.” Giphy Factcheck! This is not a millennial trend --------------------------------------------------------------- Though nemeses are clearly popular today, this craze long pre-dates avocado toast. In [August 1999]( scooping the current nemeses fixation by two decades, the Observer detailed the glory of having a nemesis. “Jennifer is trying to find what she thinks is lacking in her life: an Office Nemesis. A workplace archenemy. A reason to get up in the morning,” reported the Observer. Jennifer was particular about what she wanted in a nemesis. “I’m looking for someone with serious character flaws,” she said. “I don’t think just body odor would inspire hate. I think it has to be more than that. I’m not that superficial.” Twenty years on, we still can’t get enough. “Declaring the proper nemesis is key. Ideally you’ll find someone just slightly more successful than you are,” wrote Lorenz in The Atlantic last month. Quotable “How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one’s nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right.” —Erica Jong, [How to Save Your Own Life]( Department of jargon Say it in yiddish --------------------------------------------------------------- If “nemesis” sounds too harsh for you, there are plenty of other languages and cultural concepts that express this idea. The Jewish community, for example, is a fan of “broigus.” Though not quite the same as nemeses, it matches the sentiment nicely. “Broigus is an untranslatable Yiddish word signifying smoldering disgruntlement where one feels slighted and offended by somebody’s words or actions, usually years ago. And what makes matters worse is that they don’t even know about it,” [writes]( Dinesh Bhugra in Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. (My father likes to talk of “Jewish Alzheimer’s,” where you forget everything except the broigus.) Meanwhile, Quartz’s Tony Lin says the Chinese idiom, “棋逢对手” which means “the joy that comes from being an equally good chess player,” is also reminiscent of nemeses. And geopolitics reporter Annalisa Merelli reports that in her grandmother’s hometown of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi, in southern Italy, that instead of a word they have a gesture: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Poll Do you have a nemesis? 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