LISTS OF SEVEN

The season for hifalutin’ sentiments is upon us. Since one of those is recyclin’, here are the seven deadly sins one more time, this version being presented by Jimmie Carter at Hubert Humphrey’s funeral, quoted from Mahatma Ghandi.

Wealth without work

Pleasure without conscience

Knowledge without character

Commerce without morality

Science without humanity

Worship without sacrifice

Politics without principle

So far so good. Most people would agree that “wealth, pleasure, knowledge, commerce, science worship and politics” are overwhelmingly the substance of human life. But they would also agree that these massive concepts are all in need of amelioration in order to keep from going badly sinful: those safeguards are named as “work, conscience, character, morality, humanity, sacrifice and principle.” So, tinkering along with these terms, we see that the big stuff needs to include a kind of spine that governs what is done. I also notice that these are very English virtues. I propose that Gandhi was essentially English, in spite of his Indian-ness which was defined in Africa. That is, he learned the English from the rough side or from what a black female boss I had called “the underbelly of the whites” by which she meant what the whites call “the dark side.” In short, the treatment of the “other” and therefore the “beneath,” the oppressible.

But in this context, “work, conscience, character, morality, humanity, sacrifice, and principle” are meant to be internalized (probably in a Protestant sort of internalized conscience) to PROTECT the oppressible. They are meant to govern the colonizers. In today’s American “success class” -- those who HAVE “wealth, pleasure, knowledge, commerce, science, worship and political clout” -- often the conservative, right-wing, Republican, “religious” folks -- claim to have and defend “work, conscience, character, morality, humanity, sacrifice and principle” which they take as license to oppress those who don’t, regardless of class or political party. On the other hand, the liberals and the defenders of individual rights do not claim either of these lists. It’s not that they defend “wealth, pleasure, knowledge, commerce, science, worship and political clout” but that they look to “poverty, pain, ignorance, nonparticipation, nonquestioning, atheism, and political absentia” as somehow saving them by chastening them. Strangely, these three categories would be easy to assign to religious institutions, denominations, faith traditions, etc., depending on how one classifies the worship styles of the power brokers, the dissenters, or the powerless.

When a huge monolithic overwhelming category is created in the collection mind -- say, “religion” -- then it almost immediately evokes a lesser and opposite concept, let’s say “secularism.” These two forces operating on each other create a third concept (they call it a dialectic). So my list of the opposition to colonial values, the things that the power brokers will not tolerate in themselves but are willing to see as social evils “poverty, pain, ignorance, nonparticipation, nonquestioning and political absentia,” can be slightly “spun” (to use a Gandhian meaning for a modern PR term) into “simplicity, acceptance, mysticism, independence, faith, and endurance.” It is this dialectic that interests me and for which I give thanks.

But should I? Is this based on conscientious morality or is it just about rationalizing my situation: old, broke, isolated, preoccupied, surrounded by books, connected to the world by a computer and the internet, accompanied by two big fat cats, visited by Blackfeet Indians.

When I got my MA in Religious Studies from the U of Chicago, Hannah Gray said, “I welcome you to the company of scholars.” That was a big deal for me and now it gives me license to wade into the fray on the H-lists or to spend a morning fooling around with the Seven Deadly Sins according to Gandhi as reported by Jimmie Carter at the funeral of Hubert Humphrey -- the sins according to the underdog. But, having read and internalized my Fritz Perls a long time ago, I know that the underdog always wins, if only morally. (We used to have a Scottie dog who was a menace in battles with big dogs because he ran under them and bit them in their, well, soft underbelly. This is not a theoretical concept, this underdog thing.)

So now (fanfare) let’s bring in the seven deadly sins, which, thanks to the Internet and Wikipedia, I have at my fingertips. (Back in the old U of C days, I’d have had to riffle through a library. Was that better or worse?)

Listed in the same order used by both Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th Century AD, and later by Dante Alighieri in his epic poem The Divine Comedy, the seven deadly sins are as follows: Luxuria (extravagance, later lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath, more commonly known as anger), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride). Each of the seven deadly sins has an opposite among the corresponding seven holy virtues (sometimes also referred to as the contrary virtues). In parallel order to the sins they oppose, the seven holy virtues are chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.

So -- Ghandi’s list again: “wealth, pleasure, knowledge, commerce, science, worship and political clout” IF they are without “work, conscience, character, morality, humanity, sacrifice and principle” and my spun list: “simplicity, acceptance, mysticism, withdrawal, faith, and endurance.” Not TOO different from the seven holy virtues of the early Christian church: “chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.”

But compare “wealth, pleasure, knowledge, commerce, science, worship and political clout” with “extravagance (lust), gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.” They don’t match. They are lists of different kinds of categories. No one would say that “wealth, pleasure, knowledge, commerce, science, worship and political clout” are automatically bad, even without the list of mitigations --“work, conscience, character, morality, humanity, sacrifice and principle” -- which are not necessarily virtues. But we automatically assume that “extravagance (lust), gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride” are bad and ought to be opposed at the first sign of their hoary heads. The novels, movie-scripts, sermons, paintings and testimonies derived from this effort are multitudinous and sometimes demonstrate what they are supposed to be merely discussing (Oh, pride sneaks into everything!)

Now, of course, we have abandoned free will and situation ethics, in favor of a genomic explanation, a kind of determinism. It is not YOU that craves chocolate and can’t get going in the morning -- it is your genes. The cards are dealt to you. The game goes on.