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Sunday, July 31, 2005
Fran’s Sunday Ruminations: All You Can Be Part 4
When I first decided upon this series, I jotted down a short list of focus items: qualities, emotions, life orientations and motifs, and so on that could be used to anchor an essay. Over the weeks since then, I've reviewed that list several times. I've added a few things here and subtracted one or two there. I've pondered whether the enveloping ideal of being all you can be would include the avoidance of sin or the elimination of personal weaknesses. And I've discussed just about all of it, at one time or another, with Pascal, who's repeatedly pointed me back at the Ten Commandments, particularly the last of them:
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. [Exodus 20:18]
Every good writer knows that the power position in prose, the passage that receives the greatest emphasis and will linger longest in the audience's memory, is the conclusion: the last paragraph, the last sentence, and the last word. God knows it too.
Many times in these pages, I've recommended Helmut Schoeck's magnum opus Envy: A Theory Of Social Behaviour to anyone with an interest in social and psychological dynamics. I suppose I've just done so again. The book is worth it: unique of its kind, merciless in its explorations, and brilliant in its insights. The wisdom contained therein, if taken to heart, could cure much of what ails the human race, both in large matters and small.
Christians are taught early on about the Seven Capital Sins:
- Anger
- Pride
- Lust
- Greed
- Gluttony
- Sloth
- Envy
The modern style is to refer to these as the seven deadly sins, but this sacrifices a shard of meaning which might well be all-important. What does "deadly" mean in this connection? The seven failings listed above are emotions rather than deeds, and therefore can claim no more than venial status. They cannot of themselves bring about spiritual death. Indeed, the sole sin of the emotions that can do that is despair: the abandonment of faith, hope, and charity that occurs when a man with a void at his core curls around it allows it to swallow him.
To recognize the deadliness of these sins, we must acknowledge their capital nature. For the emotions are the things that motivate us to act; nearly a tautology, but nevertheless worthy of reflection. They have the productive power of a capital item, in that they impel us to produce still worse offenses.
Malign envy -- I mean to distinguish this from benign envy, in which the achievements or blessings of another merely spur one to greater efforts of his own -- is the desire to see someone suffer loss, specifically because he has something the invidious one does not. Ayn Rand called envy "hatred of the good for being the good," which is very near the mark. However, we should also recognize envy's participation in circumstances where the person envied isn't "good," but merely more fortunate or more favored by others.
But even malign envy is not covetousness. Covetousness is malign envy in its productive state: that is, when it seeks expression in action.
The covetous one seeks to harm the person he envies, even if in so doing he suffers harm himself. He doesn't yearn to be harmed, of course; he merely regards it as an acceptable price to pay for the harm he wants to do to the target of his ire. Thus, envious Smith might accept the unending hatred of Jones's wife if he can alienate her from Jones. He might accept damage to his own home if he can arrange for Jones's home to be destroyed. It's a negative-sum game, but Smith chooses to play even so, because of the power of his envy.
That negative-sum aspect is paramount. To assuage his envy, Smith is willing to set events in motion that will lead to everyone involved being worse off. Plainly, this is the exact reverse of a determination to be all that he can be.
Envy is independent of all objective considerations. The following semi-humorous story, which I encountered in logician-philosopher Raymond Smullyan's book This Book Needs No Title, is very much on point.
There once lived a man -- call him Davis, as Smith and Jones are already occupied -- who hated above all other things to be the focus of anyone else's envy. He had done well by the standards of the world, yet it brought him little pleasure, for he was eternally conscious of the envy of his neighbors. Not that they ever did anything about it, mind you; he was simply aware that they envied him, which turned the finest wine into gall in his mouth.
Davis conceived his need to be one of renunciation. He began a systematic program to reduce his material station in life, giving up one thing after another. He gave up his fine suburban home and moved into a small apartment, and then a smaller one. He gave up his luxury car, first for a small, beaten-up jalopy, then for complete reliance on mass transit. He gave up his executive position in a large company, first for a humble bookkeeper's job at a non-profit, and then for a minimum wage gig at a fast-food restaurant. He gave away all his movable property, to the best and most blameless causes he could find. He kept on until he owned nothing but a warm place to sleep and the clothes on his back.
None of it helped. However far Davis reduced his material station, he remained aware of the envy of others. It changed only in character: where he had previously been envied for his material comforts, now he was envied for his generosity and his ability to indulge it. It drove him near to insanity.
Davis's last step was total renunciation: he gave up everything he had left and donned the robe of a mendicant monk, who lives on the charity of others and claims nothing for his own, not even the bread he's about to eat if another's hand should reach for it. He wandered from place to place, frequently hungry and cold, often sleeping in the open, utterly dependent on the acceptance and open-handedness of others. It was a hard life, made harder because he could not adequately explain it to anyone. After all, it wasn't about a religious calling; it was about expelling from his life the thing he hated most.
But it worked. After some months of the beggar's life, Davis felt the weight lift from his soul. His spirit began to soar. He acknowledged the advent of happiness. And it showed.
Which brings us to the climax of this story, which is not a pleasant one. For you see, Davis's wanderings, as all random motions do, eventually returned him to the place from which he'd begun: the town where he'd lived, worked, amassed wealth, and from which he'd fled to escape the envy of his neighbors. And one fine spring day, Davis, wreathed in the joy of one who has finally achieved his heart's desire, encountered one of those neighbors for the first time since his departure: our old friend Smith. After one look at Davis's beatific countenance, Smith's own face twisted into a grimace of pain.
"My God, Davis," Smith said, "how radiantly happy you look! How I envy you!
Envy is a deep failing, but beneath it lies a deeper one: the assumption that the worth of one's life and station is determined by how they compare to others'.
It is one of the pervasive errors of our time not merely to apply a comparative standard to human lives, but to act as if equalizing the conditions and stations of all men is a moral obligation. The unskilled are regarded as oppressed because they cannot command the salaries of professionals and executives. Cripples are regarded as oppressed because they cannot become star athletes. Dullards are regarded as oppressed because they can't acquire college degrees. The ugly and graceless are regarded as oppressed because they come off badly in social situations, particularly with regard to romance. And those who've coppered their bets on the profitability of sowing guilt among the innocent harangue us from dawn to dusk about our obligation to raise all these folks to our level.
It's a damnable lie, a piece of vileness propelled strictly by envy and the lust for power. It's false witness of the most despicable sort, and those who persist in it will surely face a judgment of wrath.
But it has punch. It afflicts millions of entirely innocent persons. It funnels tons of money into the coffers of persons and organizations which, by the nature of the vampiric forces that drive them, only become more voracious the fatter they grow.
None of this would be possible if it weren't for our susceptibility to comparative standards and the envy they engender.
To judge one's worth according to the heights achieved by others is to guarantee one's own misery. For envy continues to make one suffer even when the current object of his ire has been laid low. There's always someone else doing better than you, and the world will make sure that you know it.
Even if you were Ulysses or Aeneas, a titan for the ages, it would be possible for you to imagine that others are better placed or better off or otherwise happier than you. Envy really is independent of true inequalities, as Davis learned above. Indeed, wealthy, highly accomplished men often envy others of far lesser degree, and for things their targets might not appreciate. For their supposedly carefree lives, if nothing else will serve.
Envy, not jealousy, is the true "green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on." Its ravages are more likely to retard a man from becoming all he can be than any other emotional flaw. Nor is it sufficient to say, "All right, then, I won't envy. I'll learn to be content with my own achievements and the satisfactions they bring me." Envy has the teeth of a weasel and the jaw strength of an alligator. Once it has bitten into a susceptible mind, it never, ever lets go.
The preventative, or cure, lies in becoming insusceptible.
"Honor" is a word one doesn't often hear these days, and for good reason. Its meaning is murkier than most other abstract nouns. One can possess many qualities generally adjudged as fine and desirable, yet be denied this accolade. But it is the key to the defeat of envy.
Honor has a lot to do with pride. Not all pride is sinful. Pride in one's accomplishments certainly isn't, provided it doesn't exceed the deserved and induce self-exaltation or the unjust denigration of others. Without pride, honor cannot be achieved.
One may be justly proud, not only of his achievements, but of his adherence to his moral standards. A moral standard of substance always demands something; it imposes some combination of duties and constraints. A duty is a positive requirement to act a certain way under certain conditions. A constraint deems forbidden certain indulgences in certain contexts. The Christian moral standard -- the Ten Commandments plus Christ's command to love our neighbors as we love ourselves -- imposes a relatively light, even minimal set of requirements. That so many persons regard it as an intolerable imposition suggests that Mankind has a way to go before "all is accomplished" (cf. Matthew 5:17-18).
More strenuous moral standards are possible, and are often necessary. Most add to the Christian standard an increment of duty. For example, the duties of a soldier in combat include willing support and defense of his brothers in arms, even at mortal peril to himself. The duties of a chief executive in a joint-stock corporation include steering his company toward the highest possible stockholder return over the foreseeable future, consistent with moral and legal constraints. The duties of a political official include absolute fidelity to the best interests of his country against all other considerations, beyond the requirements of the written law.
He who willingly undertakes duties more demanding than the minimum, if he discharges those duties well and without violating moral constraints, has demonstrated honor.
- To marry and to be faithful is to display honor.
- To go to the relief of others when chance throws them into pain or disorder is to display honor.
- To accept an ongoing burden of true charity, and to carry it reliably and without complaint, is to display great honor.
- To subject oneself to danger or hardship in defense of innocent others, or in defense of an important principle, is to display great honor.
Great honor is the distinguishing mark of the true hero. Still, adequate degrees of honor are possible to those of us who live ordinary lives. Well that it's so, for honor is the only effective shield against the bite of envy.
The manner of the honorable man is plain and open. He concerns himself first with his duties, second with his opportunities, and not at all with the duties or opportunities of others. His wants are sincere; he acts to fulfill them without violating others. Because he concerns himself solely with what's proper to him and his, he is genuinely pleased when success comes to deserving others, and genuinely grieved when chance lays a good man low.
In other words, the honorable man gives no thought to how his station in life compares to that achieved by others. He stays busy becoming all he can be.
The 1982 movie Personal Best, which starred Mariel Hemingway, Patrice Donnelly, and Scott Glenn, made a beautiful point about the futility of comparisons to others. Protagonists Chris and Tory enjoyed bonds of love and friendship that outsiders might find implausible between competitive athletes. The climax of the movie involved one deliberately sacrificing her shot at first place to ensure that the other finished "in the money." At the last, Chris (played by Hemingway) decided that keeping Tory (played by Donnelly) beside her in the winner's circle was worth more than the top pedestal. She was satisfied with having advanced her "personal best" and didn't need the gold medal as well. Similarly, the ultra-competitive Tory, who'd been torn over her relationship with the younger, more gifted Chris, resigned herself to the dwindling of her years in the limelight. Chris's gesture made it plain that Tory had had her day; it was time for Tory to move aside for her successor.
It's a tough standard to meet. Brass rings glitter all around us, and ever more brightly as we grope for them without gripping and the years roll past. To want comes naturally; to accept one's discovered limitations with grace does not. But the gain of honor -- the clarity and resolve necessary truly to commit oneself to being all one can be, without envy of others regardless of comparisons -- is more than worth the price.
Comments
The inclusion of “Pride” and “Envy” in the list, as they are, has always bothered me, due to the multiple meanings you elucidate...a certain kind of pride can be a spiritually good thing, and a certain kind of envy, while never—I suppose—good, can be readily distinguished from the variety which is a capital sin. (Any desire for self-improvement inspired or motivated by seeing that which one does not currently have could conceivably be classed as “envious”, whereas I don’t regard it as sinful unless the desire to obtain for oneself morphs into the desire to deprive another...covetousness, in other words.)
“I want to have what you have” is distinct from “I want to also have what you have” (or, in even milder form, “having seen what you have inspires me to seek the same for myself"), and both are distinct from “I want you not to have what you have”. “Envy” could mean any of them. I think perhaps the linguistic ambiguity has caused some problems...folks who recognize that the second sense is not actually a sin become inclined to ignore the fact that the first sense is...and are thereby led down the path to the third sense, where things get really destructive.
And this is true regardless of whether “what you have” is physical posessions or emotional and spiritual attributes.
Thankfully I’ve never quite succumbed to envy in the third sense, and I’m fighting a mostly-successful battle to rid myself of the first. It’s not easy, for someone with my personal history...but I’m working hard on it.
Posted by Matt on 07/31/2005 at 02:47 PM
