Hands in the air
It’s tempting when looking at the state of the world at the moment to simply throw your hands in the air and declare that ‘the worlds gone mad’. However, since throwing your hands in the air is apparently not an acceptable scientific method of measuring whats going on, we should look at things in finer detail. The first question is, how do we measure a good world to live in, versus a bad world?
If we’re going to measure whether living in the West is heavenly or hellish, we can achieve that by checking whether our daily experience is closer to the Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Virtues made most famous from Dante’s Inferno (and of course the movie Se7en).
Pride vs Humility
It doesn’t take much time to decide if life in the West is more aligned with Pride or Humility at the moment. The very word ‘pride’ has been co-opted so that anyone with a fetish, perversion or non-standard sexual preference can simply declare that they are proud. We even had a flag for Pride these days and I’m pretty sure we don’t have one for humility.
Everywhere you look, people advertise their self love, from people who are hugely overweight (Healthy at any size! Big is beautiful!) to parents declaring their pride in their children for declaring their sexual preference in public. Does anyone remember actually asking for this information? I honestly couldn’t care what you choose to do with your bits and pieces behind closed doors, but when did it become a source of pride exactly?
It’s not just the rainbow people who exhibit this declarative self love either, virtue signalling has become ubiquitous since social media became a thing. What are you really saying when you post that you ‘support Ukraine’? Isn’t it just another form of pride, to post your virtue and essentially declare yourself a good person for agreeing with the current thing?
I’m not even sure its possible to declare your humility on social media but its not a virtue that seems to be in vogue at the moment. Pride on the other hand, seems to be everywhere.
Hell 1: Heaven 0
Envy vs Kindness
Envy is defined as ‘a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck’. Before I start on the - frankly huge - list of examples of Envy, when was the last time you witnessed genuine Kindness? When was the last time an officious bureaucrat simply waived away the rules and sent you on your way? When was the last time someone offered you their place in the line at the supermarket, because your basket was emptier than theirs? Even when we see acts of kindness on the internet in the ‘Hobo bursts into tears as I give him $30,000’ type videos it’s fake. If you really want to be kind, don’t film it and put it on youtube for attention. Kindness is almost nowhere in our daily lives as we rush from place to place with no concern for others. Envy on the other hand is everywhere, from politicians arguing that we must take a ‘fair share from the fat cats who earn the most’, to the guy on Instagram with 30 followers wondering how his friend got 3000 followers.
There used to be a well known difference between the English attitude to wealth and the American. It was said that an Englishman seeing someone driving a Rolls Royce would assume that the owner was ‘clearly born into money and was a lucky sod’. The American on the other hand would declare that ‘if I work hard, one day I’ll buy one of those’. These days I’m not sure the American attitude still stands.
Hell 2: Heaven 0
Gluttony vs Abstinence
I’m sorry to pick on the Americans here, but this is a tap in.
More than one-third of adults in the United States have obesity. In the United States, 36.5 percent of adults have obesity. Another 32.5 percent of American adults are overweight. In all, more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or have obesity. Source
The statistics are not great for the rest of the West but anyone who has been to the US will know that there are some truly epically huge people there. Yet instead of people working to improve their health, it’s much easier to just get a gastric band fitted. If you can’t do that, simply declare that you are ‘healthy at any size’ and carry on eating those donuts.
Hell 3: Heaven 0
Chastity vs Lust
Another tap in for Hell. The internet has brought us the ability to find any sexual fetish, 24 hours a day, straight to our phones. Not only that, but you can simply install an App, flick your wrist (so to speak) and find a one night stand to satisfy your needs without even a second thought.
Since the start of the 21st century, the U.S. marriage rate has declined from more than eight marriages per 1,000 down to six marriages per 1,000 population in 2019. That marriage rate is the lowest level since the U.S. government began keeping marriage records for the country in 1867. Source
Meanwhile the average age for losing your virginity has dropped from Gen X (18.1 years) through Millennials (17.4 years) to Gen Z (16.2 years), for those keeping count thats adult to barely legal in two generations. What can we expect two generations hence?
Hell 4: Heaven 0
Patience vs Wrath
I’ll admit this seems like curious opposition but the definition of Wrath is vengeful anger, retributory punishment for an offence or crime. How often do we see the wrath of the mob inflicted on some poor sap who said the wrong word at the wrong time, had incorrect thoughts or decided not to endure an unnecessary medical procedure enforced by an overbearing state?
Only recently Jerry Sadowitz has been cancelled from the Edinburgh fringe because the venue he was booked for decided that his act no longer aligns with their values after a complaint. This despite booking him based on nearly 40 years of doing exactly the same type of controversial act and then adding trigger warnings for anyone booking tickets. The list of cancelled scientists, comedians and public figures grows ever longer with social media mobs of leftists waiting for a way to take offence and then howling until the victim is removed from sight.
Where is the patience? Where is turning the other cheek? We have been led down a path where the least tolerant of us decide what is acceptable to the masses.
Hell 5: Heaven 0
Greed vs Liberality (aka Charity)
The last 10 years have shown us that the safest place to be during a riot is a book store and the most dangerous place is anywhere that sells TV’s or iPads. The 1980’s was defined as the ‘greed is good’ decade but at least it was a consumerist greed for something you had earned yourself. The greed of the 21st century is an entitlement, it’s ‘I deserve this because somebody wronged me’ or ‘I deserve this because other people have it’. It’s a greed born of jealousy and lack of belief in ones ability to succeed, not the competitive greed of the yuppie era.
What of charity? Reliable numbers on this are hard to find but it’s clear that as wages get squeezed, inflation increases and the cost of living gets higher that charitable giving will decrease. Even small acts of kindness and charity have become ways of virtue signalling online, as ‘pay it forward’ at the coffee shop becomes a way to show the staff member that you are a good person as you pay for the next middle class yoga mom in the queue at Starbucks to claim her free Soy Latte. For years the big charity cheque photo acted as a way to advertise that you, your group of friends or your company did a good thing, is that really what charity is? Do we need to receive praise if we really want to help people?
Hell 6: Heaven 0
Sloth vs Diligence
It’s an obvious meme, but I think it’s a great indication of the way most companies and organisations now work. When was the last time you received exceptional service from a business with more than 100 employees? When was the last time you felt valued as a customer, rather than just feeling like you’ve had your money taken under false pretences and are left with a bitter taste in your mouth?
There can be no one left in the West who has not had the experience of waiting on the phone for 40 minutes for some uninterested, uninformed call centre employee to answer, only to be put back on hold, transferred to another equally uninterested department, then cut off without an answer or any call back. In fairness there are small companies out there that survive by offering great customer service, but our daily experiences are mostly shaped by big banks, coffee chains and big box franchise stores.
Hell 7: Heaven 0
Welcome to Hell
As you can see by the scoreboard, it’s no surprise that we spend our days stressed and frustrated thinking that the world has gone mad. We are literally living in a hellish culture of unhealthy, greedy, angry, jealous, prideful, lazy sex maniacs. Before you throw your hands in the air, strip naked, download Grindr and start looking for comedians to cancel, there is a better way.
If we all just try to be show more humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, charity and diligence in our daily lives we will surely attract people who will appreciate these virtues and can hopefully stay away from Brad Pitt’s Mystery Box.
Note: I am entirely aware that the list of Sins vs Virtues is from Prudentius poem Psychomachia and not from Dante’s list. Prudentius had better defined opposites of sin vs virtue but Dante is better known.
Thanks for reading
~Z