Self-obsessed egoism is not, Zizek argues ( Violence: Six Sideways Reflections ), the essence of evil, and the “true opposite of egotist self-love is not altruism, a concern for the common good, but envy, ressentiment , which makes me act against my own interest.” The true evil is (citing Freud) the death-drive, our “self-sabotage” (87).

He goes on to unravel some of the complications of envy. According to Lacan, human desire always includes an element of envy since it is “always ‘desire of the Other’ in all the senses of that term: desire for the Other, desire to be desired by the Other, and especially desire for what the Other desires” (87).

Zizek draws on Augustine’s observation about an infant envying his sibling nursing at his mother’s breast.

The envy here is directed not at the sibling’s possession but rather at his ability to enjoy his mother’s breast: “His true aim is to destroy the Other’s ability/capacity to enjoy the object.” Envy thus proliferates in three directions: the envious who wants to keep the other from enjoyment; the miser who possesses what he desires but refuses to use or consume it, since it will retain its desirability only so long as it’s not consumed; and the melancholic, who “has free access to all he wants, but finds no satisfaction in it” (90-1).

Alluding to Rousseau distinction between amour-de-soi (natural self-love) and amour-propre (preference for onself over others, possible only in society), Zizek concludes: “An evil person is . . . not an egotist, ‘thinking only about his own interests.’ A true egotist is too busy taking care of his own good to have time to cause misfortune to others. The primary vice of a bad person is precisely that he is more preoccupied with others than with himself” (92).

Evil is not opposed to the spirit of sacrifice, as the opposition of egotism/altruism might suggest, but instead is “the very spirit of sacrifice” because the envious person is ready to sacrifice even his own well being so long as “I can deprive the Other of his enjoyment ” (92).