There is no equivalent in English for schadenfreude, the German term for taking joy in another's downfall—a fact that Victorian pundits pointed to as an argument for British moral superiority. However, so great was the English speaker's need for such a word (since its effect is a daily and very human phenomenon), we simply stole it for our own. A research fellow at Britain's QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions, Tiffany Watt Smith illuminates schadenfreude as a hidden response to a complex social structure. She makes the case for rethinking the role this much-maligned emotion plays in our lives, and perhaps even embracing it.