The Seven Social Sins is a list created by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1925. He published this list in his weekly newspaper “Young India” on October 22, 1925. Later he gave this same list to his grandson, Arun Gandhi on their final day together shortly before his assassination. The Seven Sins are:
- Wealth without work.
- Pleasure without conscience.
- Knowledge without character.
- Commerce without morality.
- Science without humanity.
- Religion without sacrifice.
- Politics without principle.
I wrote a blog for each of Gandhi’s “sins” about ten years ago. The blogs seemed to be quite popular with my readers. I am going to update and repost each of the Seven Sins for the next few weeks. Karen and I are making some major changes in our living arrangements and I probably will not find the time to write much new material. I am reposting these because they still seem to be quite relevant in these challenging and chaotic times.
Wealth Without Work: The First of Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins
Once upon a time in this great country, a model for attaining wealth and a set of rules to accomplish this objective stemmed from 3 basic beliefs. These were:
- You worked hard, long and industriously.
- You attained as much education as you could absorb and afford.
- You treated all of your engagements with absolute honesty and scrupulousness.
Somewhere during the later 20th Century these 3 Cardinal beliefs (Above) about attaining great wealth were replaced by the following beliefs:
- Wealth can be attained at a gambling casino or by winning a lottery if you are lucky enough.
- Wealth can be attained by suing someone and with the help of a lawyer who will thereby gain a percentage of your lawsuit.
- Wealth can be attained by finding some means of acquiring a government handout for the remainder of your life.
Admittedly, not all Americans subscribe to the second set of beliefs and fortunately there are many who still subscribe to the first. Nevertheless, I think you would be hard pressed to argue that gambling, casinos, government handouts and lawsuits have not multiplied exponentially over the past fifty years. The following are some charts which I think illustrate my points rather graphically.
The nature of human beings is to want things fast and with a minimum of effort. This is normal and not to be thought of as deviant or unusual. However, as we age and develop more self-control and wisdom over our daily affairs, we learn to temper our desire for instant gratification with a more mature perspective. Noted quality guru, Dr. W. E. Deming maintained that people wanted “Instant Pudding.” For Deming this meant, change without effort, quality without work and cost improvements overnight. Added together, “Instant Pudding” was Dr. Deming’s metaphor for the desire to obtain results with a minimum investment of time and energy. Dr. Deming continually warned his clients that there was no “Instant Pudding” and change would take years of hard work and could not be accomplished without continued dedication and focus.
Unfortunately, our media and even schools today seem to emphasize the possibility of achieving success and wealth overnight. Sports stars are depicted as suddenly being offered incredible contracts. Movie stars are shown as going from unknown to overnight fame and fortune. Singers and musicians seem to suddenly achieve fame despite being barely out of their teens and in many cases barely into their teens. It would appear that everywhere we look fame, fortune and success happen overnight. All it takes is to be discovered. This might happen if you can get on American Idol or be found by the right booking agent or obtain a guest appearance on a celebrity TV show. In some cases, all it takes is the right YouTube video to accomplish overnight success. One day PSI was an unknown Korean musician and in a few short weeks, he was celebrating success by a dinner in the White House and appearing at the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration. How can anyone dispute that all that is needed for fame and fortune is to be in the right place at the right time?
You may be asking “yes, but what exactly did Gandhi mean by this “sin?” The M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence gives the following explanation:
“Wealth Without Work: This includes playing the stock market; gambling; sweat-shop slavery; over-estimating one’s worth, like some heads of corporations drawing exorbitant salaries which are not always commensurate with the work they do. Gandhi’s idea originates from the ancient Indian practice of Tenant Farmers. The poor were made to slog on the farms while the rich raked in the profits. With capitalism and materialism spreading so rampantly around the world the grey area between an honest day’s hard work and sitting back and profiting from other people’s labor is growing wider. To conserve the resources of the world and share these resources equitably with all so that everyone can aspire to a good standard of living, Gandhi believed people should take only as much as they honestly need. The United States provides a typical example. The country spends an estimated $200 billion a year on manufacturing cigarettes, alcohol and allied products which harm people’s health. What the country spends in terms of providing medical and research facilities to provide and find cures for health hazards caused by over-indulgence in tobacco and alcohol is mind-blowing.” ‘There is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed’, Gandhi said.
There is a visual problem here that perhaps underlies much of the current thinking about success. The media loves to trumpet short success stories that will grab anyone’s attention. We are constantly bombarded with headlines such as:
- How I lost 25 lbs. in three weeks.
- Abs of steel in 2 weeks.
- Learn a language in ten days.
- Make 50,000 dollars in one month.
- How to pick the winning number for mega-millions.
- How to find your dream job in 21 days.
Each of these sites (click on to hyperlink to the actual site) promises you overnight success or at least success in a much shorter time span than is realistic. These ads are in the news, checkout stands, on TV and just about anywhere you turn around. The constant daily bombardment of such ads creates a zeitgeist in which overnight success not only seems to be possible; but it actually seems to be the norm. If you are not an overnight success, if you cannot become rich in days rather than years, if you contemplate a life of hard work to attain your fame and fortune, than something is wrong with you. Anyone subscribing to the first 3 sets of beliefs I mentioned in the opening is a peculiar species today. The most common belief about success in the new millennium can be summed up as:
I don’t have time to wait. I don’t have the patience to wait. I don’t want to spend my life waiting. I am entitled to success now. Why should I have to wait? I am as good as any of these rich successful people. If only everyone could see how good I really am, I would get the fame and fortune I deserve now. If you expect me to shut up and work hard, I will leave and go elsewhere. You need me more than I need you.
I believe that Gandhi and many of my generation would find such ideas very peculiar not to mention that they contradict certain universal principles. Every time I hear of a new terrorist attack in this country or a new massacre at some workplace, I wonder how much the instigator was influenced by his or her desire for overnight fame and fortune. In some bizarre out-of-this-world thinking, these maniacs equate their picture on page one of the news with a sort of glory that is accomplished by their bizarre and cruel rampage. The more they kill or maim, the greater they think their glory will be. We can look for all the “reasons” why but we will never find any “good” reasons for anyone to take such anti-social actions against others. The paradox is that often the very people they hate are the ones they wanted attention or recognition from.
Ok, time for questions:
Have you raised your children to believe in hard work? Are you one of the parents who want to make sure their kids have it easy? How do you know how much hard work is enough? Do you think you are entitled to success because you work hard? What other factors play a role in success? Is it fair that some people do not seem to have to work hard and yet still reap big rewards? Do people today have it too easy compared to the immigrants that founded this country?
Life is just beginning.
Meaning and purpose are Yin and Yang to each other. Purpose is outside you and is what you do in the world. For me purpose involves doing. Meaning is inside you and what you do for yourself. Meaning involves being rather than doing. Let’s use a running race as an example.
Meaning in my dictionary is about living up to my potential, my values and my beliefs by doing the best I can each day to be consistent with them. No one may ever know if I am being kind, compassionate or patient today. You cannot see the inner virtues that I want to live by. I am the only person at the end of each day who can judge whether or not my life had any meaning today. If I can be the best person that I want to be each day, I will die feeling that my life had meaning. To the rest of the world, I may just be another old teacher, old veteran or old guy who lived an average life and died at an average age. Meaning to me is about being and not doing.
If I answer, I want to be rich, my meaning in life will be defined by how I go about becoming rich and what I do with my money. If I want to be a writer, my meaning will be defined by what I write and how I go about the writing process. If I want to be happy, my meaning in life will be defined by how I go about achieving happiness. No one except me can judge how I define myself. People may say that I am not very rich or that I am not a very good writer, but it is what I believe about myself which will define my meaning in life. Vincent Van Gogh is now widely regarded as one of the greatest painters of all time. His paintings sell for millions of dollars. However, in his lifetime, he sold only one painting. It was to his sister-in-law who felt sorry for him.
“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.” — 
I conclude with the consideration that Meaning and Purpose may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I confess that it was much later in my life and many hurdles had been taken and many obstacles overcome before I started caring about the meaning and purpose of life. Now I look back and shake my head with some sorrow that I did not grasp their import on life when I was in my teens. A have learned that a life without meaning and purpose is not a life, it is just living.
When we get back to normal, two parent families will again reign supreme. Mom will stay home to cook, while dad goes to work. There will be no trans-people. Girls will stick to cheerleading and let the boys play the sports. Contraceptives will be banned, and no one will dream of getting an abortion. Priests and ministers will be male, and gay people will disappear. Everyone in America will go back to being good Christians.
Once upon a time I had more friends on Facebook. I had both Democratic friends, Republican Friends and friends who cared not one whit about politics. Many of all political persuasions were friends who simply wanted to ignore politics. During the run-up to Trump’s election, I discussed, debated, argued, reasoned and fought with many friends who wanted to support Trump. The results were not pretty. Zero changed their minds. I was angry and frustrated.
There have been many theories proposed for the policies held by Trump and his Republican supporters. They include “Greed Theory.” The Republicans are held to be greedier than most people and only want to accumulate as much money as they can. Another is “Hate Theory.” This theory holds that since most Republicans are White European in ancestry, they loath and detest any people who are different then they are. This includes Asians, Blacks, Indians, Latinos and any immigrants not from Europe.
About a week later, I was substitute teaching in a Casa Grande High School. I drew an eleventh-grade social studies class. The teacher had left an assignment wherein the students had to find certain terms and concepts associated with the second industrial revolution and write definitions for each of them. Included among such terms as: robber barons, corporations, patents and trusts was the term “Social Darwinism.” One of the students asked me to explain it beyond the simple definition she found on line. I tried to recall my ideas relating to this concept from many years ago. I gave her my explanation and then later I looked up the definition at Wikipedia. I was struck at how well my memory had served me. It was at that point that the proverbial light bulb or blinding light of inspiration hit me. I suddenly realized that the Republican Party was not just trying to create elite systems but they were also trying to build on the theories of Herbert Spencer. The following excerpt explains this theory very well as it applies to many current concepts such as: trickle down theory, privatization, corporate welfare and tax reform.
So, there you have it. Trump and the Republican Party are not greedy, hateful or fearful of others, they simply do not believe that you have a right to anything unless you are also rich and successful and White like they are. Based on the concepts of Social Darwinism, they have the right to whatever you have if they can find a way to take it away from you. If you cannot keep it, that means you are inferior. If you are inferior, you have no right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. According to Social Darwinism, the elite will eventually Trump the poor because they are stronger, smarter and more fit. This will eventually result in a society wherein everyone is fit, and everyone is trying to screw everyone else.
Aging Capriciously 