AVARICE
Sin: I think we can all benefit from thinking about sin, even if we don't believe in a supreme being, even if we don't accept notions of divine punishment, of heaven and hell. The concept of sin is usually thought to be a religious concept, the deliberate violation of the will of God. I want to think of sin without religious references, with regard to a broader definition. I want to examine sin in the sense of personal failure, of the harm we can do to ourselves. In this sense, sin will still include violation of rules but not necessarily rules imposed by religion. I want to examine sin as violation of rules of good conduct, violation of rules which are designed to make our lives better. Of course sin will often include harm to others but I urge that the harm we do to others by our conduct is usually exceeded by the harm we do to ourselves.
I recently revisited some books about the seven deadly sins, especially Henry Fairlie's The Seven Deadly Sins Today. We all know the seven deadly sins: If not religious, we know the popular songs or pop groups referring to the deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are pride, avarice, luxury, envy, appetite, anger and sloth. The list of seven deadly sins is a good list of things to avoid if we want to be happier and lead better lives. We don't need to be religious to see the value in not hurting ourselves and others. So I've decided occasionally to write about these sins and also, in contrast, about the classic virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, faith, hope and love.
Avarice is the insatiable demand for riches, or, more broadly, the inordinate desire for something. Fairlie teaches us that avarice is different from the love of money, the love of possessions, it is the love of possessing. That is, avarice is unseemly not because it causes us to seek money or something else for our use, it's because the goal is having the money or other desired object. The desire for something for our use may be wrong in some other way, but it isn't avarice. The image of the miser, running his fingers through gold pieces, is an apt image of avarice: The miser would be horrified at spending the gold pieces to improve his life or the lives of others, his object is having the gold pieces.*
The worst effect of avarice is that the love of wealth becomes all-consuming. Avarice makes us ignore the use of our possessions, makes us ignore our friends, neighbors and loved ones, makes us deal only with the possessions. Avarice causes us to mistrust, for fear someone may rob us of our possessions. Avarice soon makes us lock up our possessions in vaults, rather than enjoy them. Avarice hardens us, as possessions offer cold comfort, rather than opening us up to pleasure. Avarice is inconsistent with virtue, because it causes us to subordinate virtue to the need for possessions. Avarice renders charity impossible, because we can't bear to part with our possessions for any reason.
The remedy for avarice is clear: Live a generous and healthy life. If you think first of virtuous ends, with money only one of several possible means, you will avoid the sin of avarice. 3-5-01
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*Stalker's The Seven Deadly Sins reminds us that extravagance is the opposite of avarice and can also be viewed as sinful. I'll write about extravagance at a later date.
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