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Monday, December 9, 2013

The really deadly sins

The seven deadly sins -- wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, gluttony, and envy -- are really nothing more than a basic description of human nature. All of those sins are committed by everybody, and on a daily basis. The only danger is in letting any one of those basic human instincts gain too much control over your life.

The only really unforgivable sins are:

1. An inability to admit fault.

2. Hypocrisy.

3. Habitual dishonesty.

Funny how these three truly deadly sins always cluster.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I had a boss that showed all three of those traits. He was a catastrophe, left a trail of wreckage, and yet it took three years to get rid of him. He was ignorant, arrogant and incompetent.

John Craig said...

Bob --
I've had a couple of bosses like that. It's actually pretty hard to find one of those traits without the other two accompanying it.

One of the reasons it takes a long time to get rid of guys like that is, the worm's eye view is always much clearer than the bird's eye view; it's the subordinates who get the much clearer picture of his personality, whereas the higher ups whose butts he kisses are much slower to see the real him.

Anonymous said...

Hypocrisy is human nature, I agree with Penn Gillette in stating that there is no problem with hypocrisy, rather, it is to be expected and planned for rather than simply criticized to no avail.

Fascism's greatest tool is hypocrisy, for it is how we take power and eventually remove democracy.

John Craig said...

Anon --
Interesting. You're right, fascists have to be hypocritical, almost by definition.

As far as human nature, though, my experience is that those who feel shame are far less hypocritical. The biggest hypocrites, of course, are narcissists and sociopaths, and they also happen to be the ones most adept at grabbing the reins of power.