Seven Deadly Sins Today

I read this book some years back and thought it was a good read, I am neither pro-religion or anti-religion, but as a social scientist and an armchair philosopher I can only say that Mr. Fairley has merely re-iterated the ages old question of vanity and materialism verses humility and spirituality. Whether it is Dante, Chauser, or Mr. Fairley, whether you are devoutly religious or irrefutably atheist, no matter what religion or culture, the issues addressed by all is simply a dissection of the dark side of human behaviour. It begs the question - Have we evolved in this area of our perception of ourselves? The real answer is, we evidently have not. You don't have to belong to one side or another to identify behaviour that is common to all human beings, good or bad. And its plain to anyone that in our extant society we are driven to accept rabid materialism as it is the fuel of the world economy and the key to our own prosperity. I agree with Mr. Fairley when he states " What we complain about today in the increased tempo of life is its harassment, and it is caused in part by the Avarice that is naturally in ourselves, but also the incitement to Avarice that our societies employ at every hour". I think that is a damn good observation. And what will we all collectively do about it? Nothing.

Whatever happened to sin? as another book's title has it. Despite our best efforts to discard or "outgrow" the idea, sin remains a woven-in part of the human tapestry. We have not made ourselves into exceptions to human nature, and we are very like other people. Such is the thesis of the late British expatriate journalist Henry Fairlie, who also used to write for The New Republic. His style is very grave, like a less colorful G. K. Chesterton, or an even more disaffected Allan Bloom. He describes himself very aptly as "a reluctant unbeliever". Yet, while he cannot accept that we can in some way grieve the Supreme Being, he is sensitive enough to see the wreckage that sin visibly causes in our earthly lives. "Sin is the destruction of one's self as well as the destruction of one's relationships with others," he says. What makes this be sin rather than just some ordinary failing of character is that sin perverts something indefinably fundamental in us, from which all the rest of our humanity proceeds.And so off he goes, incisively describing and deploring each of the traditional Seven Deadly Sins. His heartfelt, well-supported exposition should win understanding and respect from believers, and should give unbelievers pause. His politics sometimes trip up his argument. "Even our socialism is sinful..."--as if a political system based on breaking the Eighth and Tenth Commandments could ever be anything but sinful. But such missteps do not impede this pilgrim's progressWhat does bring everything to a screeching halt is the final chapter, "The paths of love". Here his agnosticism brings him up short, and he is quite at sea trying to formulate a counter-balance to the awful fact of sin. One hopes that he eventually realized before he died that he didn't have to re-invent the wheel. An incredibly brave near-classic from a modern "pagan worthy".

It is difficult to praise this book sufficiently. Henry Fairlie's 1978 book has thankfully been reprinted by the University of Notre Dame Press for a new generation. Fairlie presents the Seven Deadly Sins--Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony and Lust--as they manifest themselves in contemporary Western (especially American) society and in individual lives. Whether or not one is religious in orientation (Fairlie characterized himself as a "reluctant unbeliever")this book offers a disciplined optimism in suggesting that "The understanding that we sin is a summons to life."