There are certain actions that have a short-term gain but a long-term loss such actions are attractive but deadly. When a person commits a sin he usually does it to attain a short-term pleasure, but all sins have a long-term pain and that’s what makes them sins.
Social sins are not the sum of people’s sins, they are sins on the social scale and not the individual scale, of course all social phenomena must manifest themselves on the individual scale, each individual participates in every social phenomena.
The time scale for social phenomena is not the scale of the individual, usually actions that are committed by one generation have results that manifest themselves in the next generation, so that social sins might not function as a sin for a single individual who enjoys the pleasure and leaves the pain for others; those who live too long will view their age as a curse when they suffer for the deeds of their youth.
If we would rise from the individual level to the social level and view society not as the sum of all its individuals but rather as a living organism with a life of its own, then we can view the actions taken by society, as a whole, and the consequences of these actions on society and its well-being. When the actions of society have a short-term pleasure and long-term pain then we can call them social sins.
Here are the seven deadly sins of society:
I) Tyranny: everyone agrees that tyranny is bad, but some might dispute that it is a social sin. Tyranny cannot be just the result of conspiracy or the acts of an evil tyrant, tyranny will only develop if a sizeable minority aides it and the majority shrinks its civil duty and takes no action against it.
Tyranny could manifest itself in a tyrant, but it can exist without one; sometimes a tyrant comes and goes and tyranny stays. Tyranny is usually accompanied by oppression of a section of society, whether an ethnic minority or social class, it also builds a parasitic class dependent for their livelihood on the tyranny, this could be in the form of a bureaucracy or monks or an idle class of warriors, priests or collage professors.
Tyranny is a cancer that eats at the heart of society, usually it is a terminal case but sometimes the body rejects and then ejects this tyranny in a violent upheaval ushering a new period of social development.
When tyranny is terminal it destroys everything, it weakens the state, it corrupts the youth, it segments society, it undermines the economic foundations. Without an external shock tyranny will cause society to decline in all aspects: morally, economically, physically, etc. and when the decay is widespread it will start to fall apart like a cadaver rotting from the inside out.
In most cases a foreign influence will take advantage of the weakened state of society and take over. Like the successive Chinese dynasties, each starting by taking over the decayed state only itself to decay and be taken over.
[The word tyranny, here, is not a synonymous for autocracy or absolute rule, rather it signifies misrule or rule without law; Henry the fifth was not a tyrant but Henry the eighth was one.]
II) False Ideology: a fish rots from the head and so does society; what is of importance here is not the ideologies that develop within a society but rather society’s main ideology, its philosophical foundation, that all competing outlooks rests on; the dogmas that are not even named as dogmas because they are just the truths.
When this is not correct when such deep foundation is at odds with nature and history then all observations will be incorrectly observed, all analysis will be incorrectly done and all conclusions will be incorrectly determined. Then sins will become decent choices, right will be wrong and bad will be good.
Although most individuals will not even dispute or argue the validity of these truths, there are always ‘crazy’ groups on the fringe who would. Sometimes basic ideologies change, when there is still a movement in society, still some energy for development but society’s main outlook, the ideas of the majority are solid, when they refuse to even consider or discusses their ideas that has proven to be wrong then it becomes a sin, a social sin.
Then the errors start multiplying, like a ship with a broken compass slowly drifting away from the right course. First it’s the observations that start to be coloured by the false ideology, then the thinking process (the analysis) starts to malfunction resulting in a wrong conclusion, when this conclusion is then taken as the starting point the errors start to compound.
When we read history we might laugh at the absurdity of those who in the face of disaster start dancing or while a volcano is exploding sacrifice their children to the gods, we might wonder what they were thinking or how could they believe such things, we would be wise if instead we thought which of our follies future generations will laugh at-the recent craze about global warming will be the subject for a very humours work of literature, a craze that has been used to advance bio-fuel and nuclear reactors, to distract people from chemical pollution of the environment and argue for de-industrialization; follies of the mind turn quickly into human disasters.
III) Military Imperialism: first I must state that pacifism is an immoral stance, further than that it is foolish; militarism is not better either. Warfare must be avoided even when a society has the military advantage; to apply this advantage is to abuse it.
When a society abuses its military might, when it sees the solution for all problems as a military one, when it starts wars intentionally and for reasons that have nothing to do with war then it will be committing a social sin. One might argue that despite the awfulness of war if one can gain from than it should be pursued as any path of economic gain, but there is a difference between productive economic gain and destructive military gain.
While history rewards the impoverished who have nothing but their sinews and will and use warfare to cut a piece of this world and call it their own, it will also punish those have everything and yet pushed by their greed use their might to take from those who have less; might does not make right and history’s punishment is severe and right, a society that forgets this will be committing a social sin.
A good example of this is Trajan’s war on Dacia, a war that was launched to replenish the empty coffers of the state; the war was successful the state monetary problems were solved and a new province was added to the empire. The war also destroyed a buffer state that kept the empire safe from invading tribes, the new province became a gateway from which entered the destroyers of the empire, the sons paid dearly for the sins of the fathers.
Regrettably men learnt little in eighteen centauries of human development, let us review the sad case of another empire: The US. In 1960 the US was a creditor nation with a strong industrial base, a gold-backed currency and a vibrant middle class, then it started the Vietnam war; after twelve years of deficit spending-entirely due to the war-president Nixon took the US off the gold standard, which meant that instead of paying off its debts with gold the US was going to pay them off with paper.
This development brought about a unique situation that enabled the economy to grow tremendously in the subsequent thirty years, but this growth was brought about at the expense of the foundation of the economy. The industrial base started a terminal decline that has left it a mere shadow of itself; the middle class has been turned into a decaying and decadent mess that is incapable of playing any social role, unable anymore to produce the professionals needed to run society, hence the need to import a whole professional strata from outside the US. The US’s position as a creditor nation slowly eroded then turned into the opposite, the US became a debtor nation, the sin of military imperialism exacted a heavy price from the US, but that didn’t stop it committing the same sin again: thirty-one years after Nixon dropped the gold standard Bush started another unnecessary war.
This second war has doubled the public debt, pushed the middle class onto the track of decline, halved the value of the dollar and showed the whole world that the US’s military might is finite. All this has happened in only five years of warfare, one wonder what will happen after twelve years of unnecessary war. The result of this war will be the decimation of the middle class, the bankruptcy of the dollar and a military defeat on the battlefield for the US army; cue the invading hordes.
IV) Waste: every society has waste, every generation has its rich who waste money on luxuries, and every economy wastes an abundant resource. When waste becomes a hallmark of society, when waste becomes pervasive, when it becomes a social attitude then it becomes a social sin.
A resource is only wasted if it is abundant, if it is scarce waste become squandering, the question is then asked why not waste what is abundant? To waste is to take the position that abundance in permanent, while in reality all abundance is transitory, even the sun could hold back some of its abundant light (as it did in the three consecutive summers of 1315-17, causing a famine of staggering proportions).
To waste in times of abundance is to invite disaster when abundance turns into scarcity, wisdom teaches us to build a reserve in times of plenty so that when the years of plenty turn into years of want we will not dine on regrets and blame. Society needs a margin of safety and should not build its fundamental structures on abundance, because that will never last, a society that does not prepare for scarcity is committing a social sin, the sin of waste.
Waste in one area also encourages waste in all other areas; when no care is taken when using the fundamental resources of society why conserve the marginal resources. When society is engaging in waste on a social scale why then should individual engage in conservation on their own scale, hence the futility of asking consumers to consume less when the whole of society’s functioning is built on waste of kind of another.
In past ages, when people had a well-founded moral frame, to waste was considered immoral regardless of abundance or scarcity. Mass production and the consumer society has turned waste into a way of life, where all resources are wasted until they are used up completely, nothing is left behind but scorched earth, ruthless warfare is being waged against future generations who will pay dearly for the sins of their fathers.
Indoor skiing ramps and indoor tropical resorts are social waste, artificial snow on ski resorts is social waste, building glass skyscrapers in the desert is a social waste, and floodlights in stadiums is a social waste.
The whole suburban lifestyle is a wasteful life style, the large houses, the large cars, the long commute; it is all very wasteful. When the suburbs are built in the desert the waste is compounded, when people move from temperate zones to hot zones where they subsequently build the same type of houses they had in the temperate zones with the same kind of materials then confine themselves most of the time to their air-conditioned houses, air-conditioned cars and air-conditioned workplaces then they are surly guilty of waste, social waste.
V) Moral Decadence: each society has a moral frame; no society exists without one. There is a good reason why all societies have morality, why in the history of mankind there has never been a society without moral judgment. Morality is a necessary thing for society, it functions like the cement that holds a brick wall together without it society will start to break apart, sometimes it is held together by custom or the weight of the state from above but sooner or later a hard wind hits and all comes crumbling down.
Moral decadences start at the top: the king has a mistress, so the nobles get mistresses too; the nobles have mistress so the clergy get mistresses too and the clergy have mistresses so the monks get mistresses too. If it were only about keeping warm at night it wouldn’t be so bad, but soon all are running around in vicious circles breaking every moral code to get money or get a favour or to please this one or stratify that one, not long after the whole of society is corrupt and no one lives by the moral code that are broken day and night by all; the young accuse the old of hypocrisy and reject their false morality and seek their own.
The young generation of the sixties accused their elders of hypocrisy and they were mostly correct, the daily lives of people in the fifties were very removed from the Puritan and Calvinist morality they had inherited and still proclaimed as right. They then rejected this hypocrisy and embraced a new kind of morality: amorality, unfortunately this was not morality but the absence of morality; a void cannot be a substitute for space. This absence of morality has wrecked havoc on society; it has turned it into a horde of people sharing a common space instead of a functioning society.
The generation that rejected the hypocrisy of their parents, paid the price for that hypocrisy but they also failed to impose on themselves any morality enjoying instead this absence of morality but there is a price to be paid and this price will be paid by the next generation, the one that has been brought up by amoral parents who are not even decent enough to be hypocrites.
VI) Economic Imperialism: economic competition is good; it is good within society as well as between societies. Traders from an efficient economy will benefit from this advantage, this is not a social sin, because the disadvantage societies will soon adopt the new efficient methods and they might even improve them further.
When a nation uses its monopoly-of a vital resources or a strategic position-to enrich itself on the expense of others it redirects its energies, its innovations and all its developments from the correct path of social development into an obsession of monopoly preservation. If it should suddenly lose this monopoly then it will lose all its investment in one stroke and be left with nothing. Growing rich at the expense of others will also result in a regiment of social maladies that will weaken the social structure, it also concentrates the hatred of all competitors and invites those with nothing to lose to take all in one stroke.
Let us review one such development in history: Britain was the first to industrialize but it was soon followed by all western Europe and then central Europe and at the end even Russia industrialized. Britain enjoyed an advantage, being the first, but that only made it the more necessary for the other nations of Europe to adapt.
On the other hand the Europeans as a whole used their industrial advantage to prevent other nations from adapting this new form of production, here they committed a heinous sin, a social sin. They proceeded quite ruthlessly to divide the world between them and when they were done they had to pay the price of their sins. When the whole world had been gobbled up they turned their teeth on each other, two devastating wars later their advantage was but a memory.
Regrettably, little was learnt from that sad experience, today the world is in the vice of a vicious unequal, unfair, imperialistic economic structure, in which rich countries dump their products on the poor while erecting trade barriers, in which some export all of their resources for paper printed by the those with the advantage, in which trade has enriched the rich and further deprived the poor. When this system breaks up, and cracks are already visible, then the economic realities will turn upside down in matter of years; the wheel of history will turn and those above will find themselves below, paying dearly for their sins.
VII) Ancestor Worship: this is not the religious worship of the individual of his own ancestors but rather the social reverence of practices, institutions and traditions inherited from the past. When something has to be done because it has always been done, then society is guilty of ancestor worship.
Ancestor worship puts blinds around the mind, stops one from evaluating what is useful for his own times his own needs and what is not. In its acute form it becomes the end of history, the end of innovation, the end of creation, the end of development; such outlook heralds the end of society.
Leipzig declared absolute monarchy as the end of history; Hegel declared constitutional monarchy as the end of history and an intellectual non-entity declared liberal democracy as the end of history, each age presenting its best and brightest as its champion, history took no notice and kept on going.
A recent article in a scientific magazine is titled: ‘The End of Cosmology?’ (note the cowardly question mark); scientists have become miners, mining long discovered veins for a nugget of gold, in the last generation no new scientific theory has been developed, all science has become applied science, this inability to produce new science, new theories, is viewed as the result of the end of history for science.
Modern scientists lament the fact they came in an age when “everything” has been discovered that “all” the basic theories has been achieved and only the complicated and secondary results are left for them. We shall put aside the fact that simple and basic theories are harder to develop than secondary complicated results and let us imagine Newton instead of developing calculus had sat around lamenting the fact that he lived in an age when all the major theories of geometry has been achieved and nothing left for him to do; would we hold him in such high regard if he had done such a thing?
If most scientists lived in past ages they would struggle to go past the level of elementary pig herding. Instead of claiming that they would have achieved what the ancestors done they should develop new theories and new science for their own age, we can only say to them: hic Rhodus, hic salta.
Modern architecture is condemned and calls to return to the classical is made, modern painting is condemned and calls to return to the classical is made, modern music is condemned and the same repertoire is preformed again for another year.
Two hundred years ago people enjoyed a new work my Mozart, Vivaldi, etc. now we can only look forward for a new performance of two hundred years old works, something is wrong. With the decline in the quality of performers and the digital re-mastering of old recording people soon will buy tickets to attend not a live performance but a recorded one, then we would have gone from the composer to the conductor and finally arrived at the sound engineer.
Societies has to adapt has to renew itself, change is sometimes necessary. Change can be superficial but sometimes it has to be radical, if society shrinks from performing this duty, when individuals are unwilling to sacrifice, to lead, to break with the past, then society is guilty of a social sin.
External pressure sometimes spurs society into action, it presents a simple option change or die, but sometimes a strong position-due to past innovation-will mean that external pressure can be effectively resisted, but this resistance lead to further solidification within society itself preventing necessary change.
A perfect example of this reverence, bordering on the religious worship, is the reverence in the US for the constitution. Now this document is a total mess, it was a compromise from the start, was inadequate for its times and within a generation it became unworkable, the whole legitimacy of the constitution was nullified by the civil war, which itself was hundred and sixty years ago, since then the country has changed in leaps and bounds and yet the best people can suggest after all this degradation is to return to the constitution and shed tears on past times when the president “respected” the constitution, while in truth presidents have been manipulating the constitution since the first administration took office.
Those who demand a “return” to the constitution are guilty of the worst kind of ancestor worship, they recognize that there is a problem and want to turn around time and go back to when there was none, one might as well go back to the womb at the first sign of crises! They would be better off if they imitated the ancients and came up with new solutions for the pressing needs of their times.
Ancestor worship holds society in a trance while accumulating pressure on it, when it finally gives way the result is a seismic shift that could range from a little upheaval to a devastating earthquake that might leave nothing but ruins. Society is advised to break this trance and look for new solutions to its new problems before it pays dearly for committing a social sin.
I leave to the reader, as an exercise, to count how many sins our current societies is guilty of.
