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Hard work is not a virtue.
The realization struck me a few years ago while watching a Discovery Channel special on deforestation. Those men slashing and burning the Amazon basin (or "the lungs of the world" as the show put it) were clearly doing backbreaking, miserably hard work, and yet what they were working at was… well, wrong.
I poured myself another pint of bourbon and sprawled out on the couch as I pondered this. It occurred to me that all evilness aside, the Al Qaeda masterminds behind the World Trade Center bombing were certainly putting in the extra effort. So too were those Rwandans who hacked up a million of their countrymen with machetes. And no one can deny the diligence Kim Jong-il has shown in building his nuclear arsenal. Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Karl Rove… all exceptionally hard working men. All malevolent to their very core. Where's the virtue in that? Wouldn't it have been better for all of us if they'd just spent their days sucking bong-loads of indica and watching Simpsons reruns?
Finishing the pint, I chased it with a fistful of Vicodin and meditated some more on the subject. After all, if hard work isn't a virtue in itself, then doesn't that conversely give the "deadly" sin of SLOTH the potential to be a good thing? And if SLOTH can be good, what about all those other sins?
In search of the kind of profound philosophical truths that only quality infotainment can give, I reached for the TV remote and changed the channel. First up was the local news. In typical sensationalist fashion, the top story was about a fifty-two-year-old woman who had somehow managed to strangle a rapist to death with her bare hands (they actually had a Krav Maga martial arts expert demonstrating how this could be done). Can anyone seriously claim that killing your rapist isn't a good use of the sin WRATH? I surfed a few more channels and landed on a History Channel docudrama about Anne Frank. Were the people who hid her and her family from the Nazis wrong for LYING about her whereabouts?
Slathering another pork rind with Easy Cheese, I switched from live TV to TiVoed South Park, and began to think about who had instilled this idea that "sin is wrong" in me, anyway? Was it my family? Was it my education? The various mental health detention facilities and super-max penitentiaries that I've been incarcerated in over the years? Or perhaps the whole Judeo-Christian tradition? Or even humanity itself?
In any case, in the moments before the Vicodin kicked-in and I finally passed out on the floor for my customary morning nap, it became clear to me that my family, my education, all those Pentecostal prison chaplains, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and possibly even humanity itself were dead wrong. And I, of course, was right.
Sin is good.***
My goal with this section is not just to examine the Seven Deadly Sins of Sloth, Greed, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, and Pride, but to extol them. I will offer comprehensive, if poorly researched (see SLOTH), arguments in favor of all seven sins, and supplemental exercises to help you to master the exhilarating art of sinning. In addition, I plan to add bonus material introducing you to the lesser known, but aptly named, Six Ultra-Super-Mega-Deadly Sins. All I ask in return, is that you throw out everything you've ever been taught about morality at home, church, or school, and let me, a complete and utter stranger with an apparent substance abuse problem, tell you what to do.
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