The Seven Deadly Sins

1. Pride

Surely there must be some mistake. I admit at once that my name is there with the other six, but, after all, if you look at what I am and what I do, as you should not only for my sake but your own, and examine in however perfunctory a fashion before passing judgment, you will realize that I have about me a certain dignity, even a moral weight, and that my contribution over the generations has been by no means negligible. Only call me self-respect, or, avoiding false modesty, honor, and where are we then? In what way are my promptings sinful? Pride gives men a reason for doing the right thing even when the world has gone mad. Without any self-regard I suggest that a man is helpless, very likely depressed, and could at any moment go native. In this light you must concede that I am one of the bulwarks of decency: I embody not only ethical norms but also standards of good taste in dress and deportment in art and music as well without which civilization would long ago have toppled. A sin? No, I’m a virtue and have my pride.

2. Anger

This is, to say the very least, annoying, but, as you see, I am calm, I am in control. I should like to point out, however, that the capacity for anger is morally neutral, and even, sometimes, a good thing. Does injustice make you angry? Do cruelty and suffering not engage your emotions? Intellectual disapproval is never enough. What you want is your blood to boil, to seethe with fury at the outrageousness of what you cannot tolerate and mankind ought not to permit. Anger, or call it instead righteous wrath, is an aspect of the divine, and if we partake to any degree in that perfection, then we also feel rage at what goes on around us. For me to be classed as one of the seven deadly sins is enough to make anyone angry, but what’s wrong with that, as long as I maintain proper decorum? The mental state, the mere idea of anger, cannot be sinful. Any random thought that crosses your mind . . . Are you held accountable for that? Then you are all eternally damned—that is if you still believe in damnation and those scary Italian pictures of the last judgment with the shrieking souls falling on one side of the canvas, and, on the other, beatific wimps ascending, smiling, full of the gas of gentle piety. Do you want to be one of those? Do you? I ask you. Grow up, accept who you are, and accept me.

3. Avarice

I know what you’re about to say: radixmalorum est cupiditas. I admit that, in Latin, it has a nice ring to it, but let us be frank with each other and try to imagine a world in which there wasn’t at least some degree of cupiditas. The industrial revolution is erased, the capitalist system in which mankind is better off, at least in a material way, than it ever has been since man rooted about for acorns. Ambition? The desire for betterment, for one’s self and family too, the eagerness for respect the society shows, it cannot be denied, in financial terms, is the only language universally understood . . . You want to chuck all that? What are you, some kind of left-wing dreamer? Greed can get out of hand (but then what can’t?) and be carried sometimes to grotesque excess. And if that is the case, then greed isn’t the sin but excess—which oddly does not appear on the list. A roof over your head, a decent bed, a nice house, or maybe even a little more than that? A car that’s fun to drive and you’re on the road to hell? Does that make sense? Who’s left? You want to go and live on a commune? Or maybe some simple place in the third world? Well, maybe you do, but only because it’s cheaper, you can...