PrintSeptember 6, 2012
Obama and the Infernal Serpent
The president may not be aware of it, but envy has always been regarded as a sin. Envy of the rich is actually one of the seven "deadly sins," according to Christian belief. The idea that envy is "deadly" is so deeply rooted in Western civilization that only a politician profoundly ignorant of that tradition, or dismissive of it, would fail to regard envy as wrong.
For the ancients, envy was such a harmful instinct that it was represented as a mythological figure of destruction. One of the earliest Greek writings, Hesiod's Works and Days, describes envy as nasty-mouthed, physically repulsive, and rejoicing in human suffering. It is the sort of evil that Hesiod associated it with the decline of civilization ruled by a corrupt race of "iron" men (not the gold or silver of the past). Even 2,800 years ago, it was understood that envy is an evil that arises in the late stages of great civilizations, when political life begins to focus on how to...(Read Full Article)
