An observation from the Dead Tree edition of this week's National Review that I thought was worth re-posting here just to kick up a little introspection in you readers...(yes, I still suspect there may be readers..)
The Seven Deadly Sins are Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Lust, Avarice, and Gluttony, traditionally remembered with the aid of the acronym PEWSLAG. Well, goodbye PEWSLAG, hello CABDHGS. A polling organization in Britain asked a thousand citizens to modernize the list. The new deadlies are, in descending order of sinfulness: Cruelty, Adultery, Bigotry, Dishonesty, Hypocrisy, Greed, and Selfishness. Note the interesting shift of emphasis visible here. Formerly the essence of sin lay in offending God by failing to curb one’s lower nature. Nowadays sin means causing pain or mental distress to other people. To put it another way, virtue used to consist in moral cultivation of the self; now it consists in being nice. Something has been lost here, surely.Posted by dan at February 24, 2005 01:36 AM
Shalom Dan,
I have two observations about the change: first, the shift indicates that more people are embracing the central tenet of Liberty which is what I do is permissible as long as it does not restrict another’s exercise of Liberty. Second, the list reflects a societal paradigm that rejects oppression as a function of power.
In a Post-Modern world the greater sin lies with those who are less susceptible to its pain.
Yes. Something has been lost—perhaps the free reign of the powerful to oppress the powerless—but something has been gained as well: the continuing spread of Freedom and Liberty in a world sorely in need of both.
I browsed your blog this afternoon and enjoyed your writing. I’m looking forward to more.
B’shalom,
Jeff Hess
Posted by: Jeff Hess at February 24, 2005 06:20 PMJeff, I first want to thank you for stopping and commenting. I'm not sure about the first point you make. It seems to me that outside of adultery and cruelty, that new list contains behaviors that don't even necessarily have "victims" outside of oneself, much less function to restrict the liberties of someone else. They do strike me as largely learned behaviors though, as opposed to those parts of "our lower nature" in the original Big Seven. Any one on either list would be debatable, I suppose. I thought the author's point was rather the "secularization" of sin. God is made incidental when "sin" is redefined as being cruel to another person, for example.
I browsed your blog as well, and will be back. You've been blogrolled. Thanks again.
Posted by: dan at February 24, 2005 10:28 PM