Sin 2.0

The seven deadly sins get revamped for the new millennium. As we make technological, scientific and capitalistic advances, the old sticks by which we used to measure morality are no longer stacking up. The Catholic church hopes to help navigate through the oceans of morally grey territory with a new compass: seven more sins to add to the list.

If you are a devout Catholic, schooled by mirthless nuns, whiskeystained priests and lapsed parents (who nevertheless can't seem to shake the crushing guilt instilled within them during their own youth), then perhaps the word brings to mind hellfire, torment and the eternal suffering of the Inferno?

If your education was firmly planted within the earth-bound hell of public school, safe from religious revelation (thanks to the secular SS), and blissfully oblivious to the subtle messages espousing Christian virtue sprinkled in those horrid Disney films, then the word probably brings to mind those things which are the spice of life (most of them having something to do with sex).

Regardless, the word and all it entails brings images to your mind. Well, maybe Pride doesn't, but that one is kind of boring anyways, despite, according to the Vatican, being the most deadly.

The seven deadly sins first espoused by Pope Gregory the Great almost 1,500 years ago are Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Or, in their original Latin form (and far more sinister sounding): Luxuria, Gula, Avaritia, Acedia, Ira, Invidia and Superbia. These mean something very different today than they did to Pope Gregory, and are so toothless that they are rarely taken seriously.

The seven deadly sins as updated by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, in an interview with the Vatican Newspaper and published on March 9, 2008, are much less personal, and they have fangs galore. They are environmental pollution, genetic manipulation, accumulating excessive wealth, inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and consumption, morally debatable experiments and the violation of the fundamental rights of human nature.

Not so sexy, are they? In fact, they are downright depressing. And perhaps that was smart on the part of the Vatican. Girotti, who is the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary (not a prison, if that's what you're thinking), called these new sins, "social" sins, in an attempt to illustrate the social dimension of avoiding the virtuous life. Things like lust, gluttony, sloth and especially pride stir nothing but positives thoughts in my head. But inflicting poverty?! Vile hellspawn! To Hades with you!

Social sin is infused in modern life. It is a part of my daily routine. It is part of my work and it is part of my play. And in Calgary, the downside of modern life is only getting worse, and social problems somewhat unfamiliar to those of us who grew up here are now spilling out of the alleyways and crack houses onto our exhaust choked streets and opulent mini-mansions.

Stepping outside any religious judgments, is Calgary a socially sinful city?

Environmental Polution (gluttony and sloth)

According to Forbes magazine, Calgary is clean. In fact, they consider us the cleanest major city in the world (take that, Minneapolis). Our LRT is powered by the wind and the Chinook winds push most of the smog to Medicine Hat. All in all it's pretty good. But let's not celebrate just yet. The smog is still generated here, and so is garbage; acres and acres of garbage. Seventy per cent of the power generated in this province is from burning coal, and the corporate towers filled by oil barons and thousands of their underlings stay populated thanks to squeezing oil from open pits the size of Okotoks.

Our environment is seriously degraded, and to say otherwise is to be intellectually dishonest (usually due to a hatred of holier-than-thou environmentalists). But even those of us who accept humanity's negative impact on the planet cause irreparable harm ourselves.

To live in our society is to be a polluter. Unless you grow all your own food, make your own clothes, live in the dark and walk everywhere, you are a polluter, and I guess, a sinner. You don't mean to. It just happens. We expect a certain level of luxury. We expect warm houses and street lights. We expect fresh fruits and vegetables year round. Oranges in winter? You bet! They come from California, driven a thousand miles in diesel trucks, completely unnecessarily. Madness! We don't need oranges year-round; or at all, really, and yet, we demand it, so it is supplied, no matter the cost to the planet.

In Purgatory the slothful are forced to always be in a hurry, but towards nothing. In life the souls of the slothful saw the good, but were not diligent in their pursuit of it. In Calgary, people recognize the effect we are having on the environment, but we are not willing to do everything we can to change that.

Genetic Manipulation (gluttony, with a side of greed)

This one is a doozy. The human genome was cracked, at least roughly, in the last year, and the experimentation will soon begin. Along with possible cures for cancer, Alzheimer's and other noxious decimators of humanity, comes psychos who would cross a trusting test subject with a tomato, never mind the suffering. Genetic manipulation of humans is an easy target, so I'll not go there. But regardless, genetics is scary, and it is the future.

But what does this have to do with Calgary in particular? The answer is one out-of-style word: Frankenfood. Those peppers the size of softballs piled in great mounds at the grocer? They are not natural. By crossing particular plants with other particular plants for the best genetic result, we are unnaturally genetically manipulating that species. And we have been doing it for millennia. The food that feeds Calgary is no exception.

On the surface that's fine by me. It keeps bellies full. And really, civilization would cease to exist if we were forced to rely on the wild products of nature alone. But we've taken it a little too far, the worst consequence being a complete lack of bio-diversity in genetically manipulated food. And that is bad. Strains of wheat genetically modified to contain their own pesticide, and then patented and planted across the continent means a single germ that kills that type of grain could wipe out every stalk of wheat in existence.

Enter in starvation. According to Dante, gluttons must spend eons without eating or drinking, their flesh emaciating from their bodies, all the while walking by fountains of fresh water, never able to take a drink. I bet it was bottled in France and driven, shipped and driven again to get there, too.

Moraly Questionable Experiments
(i'm going to say, pride)

Pride is believing humanity is capable of goodness without God, which is an awful sentiment if you ask me. I, personally, do not need God to do anything for me. But you probably didn't ask me, so I think I'll uproot the concept away from the divine and plant it in the real world.

Morally questionable experiments mess with the natural way life has evolved on this planet. The world works because each piece has grown with every other piece for billions of years. The sinuous web of life, matter and energy works, and we shouldn't mess with it. We should not assume that we can change this symbiosis and homeostasis without severe consequences for everything, everywhere. This one is hard to make Calgary specific, so I'll expand to the province.

We make our money in oil that we squeeze from millions of tons of earth in the oil sands. We build new developments over what used to be wild areas, then fail to understand why there are cougars and coyotes in our neighbourhoods. Our morally questionable experiments has a lot to do with environmental degradation (For my self-righteous thoughts on this please refer to my earlier wag of the finger on the subject).

Accumulation of Excessive Wealth
(greed, envy and pride)

I'm not sure what is meant exactly by "excessive" wealth, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Calgary has this in spades. But is it bad? I guess that depends on what is done with it. I had never seen a Ferrari in person growing up, but now I see one every couple of weeks, usually being driven by some balding engineer with huge sunglasses and a childish grin on his face. But I don't see them on Deerfoot, Crowchild, or some other high-speed thoroughfare; I see them in Kensington, on residential streets, and... parked. Utilitarian: no. Excessive: yes.

But I've earned it, the balding engineer will say. Have you really? Have you made sacrifices and worked hard? Or did you happen to be in the right place at the right time, and get a $100,000 bonus for doing your job; something that gets most people... their salary. But you know what? I'm not going to judge. Maybe that guy in the Ferrari just gave a million dollars for Cancer research. I don't know. Excessive wealth is only a sin if it was ill-gotten, or ill-spent. Myself? I would very much enjoy excessive wealth.

Calgary is a rich city. There are many people living in poverty, or just scraping by, of course, but they would all accumulate excessive wealth in a heartbeat if they had a chance. It's the nature of things and no edict from the Vatican-never mind a casual reference by a Cardinal-is going to change that.

Drug Traficking and Consumption
(gluttony, sloth, greed, scum sucking bastardry)

If you sell drugs, you are vile. If you sell hard drugs, you are even more vile. Calgary has a sickening drug problem. Crack heads are not funny. They are tragic. I cannot imagine a side of humanity so dark that you would consider crack or meth to be something you want to get in to. But to provide it, you are scum. I cannot fathom our society's increasing support for recreational drug use. Snorting coke in the bathroom stall at a night club is not something you should aspire to. Enough said.

This one is pretty specific. It is a recognition of the problems involved with drugs. They breed poverty, suffering and death. This is definitely something Calgary should take seriously, and is failing at.

Inflicting Poverty (greed, gluttony)

How awful does that sound? How could you inflict poverty and then sleep at night (unless of course, you sleep like McBain: on a pile of money surrounded by beautiful ladies)? But how is poverty inflicted in Calgary? Is homelessness thrust upon someone through the actions of another? Perhaps.

Calgary's homeless population has skyrocketed in recent years, thanks to an influx of people and a lack of affordable housing. In May 2006, the City counted 3,436 homeless people in the city. This is probably a low ball, but still, it is a more than 30 per cent increase over the number of homeless in 2004. That is staggering. And, thanks to the increased cost of living, many people may have a home, but not much else. Sure, you can start work flipping burgers for $10 an hour, but a living wage-i.e. a wage high enough to feed, clothe and shelter yourself and your family-is $12 an hour in this city. And minimum wage is $8.40! Ridiculous!

Still, with all the jobs available in this town, it's hard to say that anyone is inflicting poverty on anyone else. I think this sin is more for thirdworld despots and heartless transnational corporations.

Violating the Fundamental Rights of Humanity
(wrath, greed)

This one is hard to place anywhere in Calgary, at least broadly. But if you exploit a new Canadian, who may not have the best command of the English language, and, for example, pay them less than they should be making and assign them humiliating jobs that a sixteenyear- old wouldn't do, then you are violating their fundamental rights, which include dignity.

In Calgary, it is dignity that is most-often attacked. The right to be treated as a human being and not a piece of garbage is assailed every time someone ignores a homeless person. So stop it. If you don't want to give them money, then don't, but don't act like they aren't even there. They already feel like shit. Try not to make it worse.

There is no agreed upon and enforced universal declaration of human rights. Cultural relativism, national security issues and general distrust among the international community has made such an idea quite impossible. However, I say go with your gut. You know when something is wrong instinctively. Don't just let it go. Do something about it.

In the end, Calgary is a socially sinful city. But so is every city, everywhere. This is not a pessimistic view (and neither is my harsh judgment). Nastiness and indifference towards others is a constant found in human nature throughout time, but there are others constants, like our capacity for charity and empathy for the pain and suffering of others.

How can both of those be constants? Well, humanity is one messedup species. Calgary is a socially sinful city, but it is also a city filled with tireless volunteers and forceful advocates for change and improvement. We have good and we have bad. You cannot have one without the other. Without bad-without the comparative awfulness of drugs and polluters and soulless CEOs, the good would cease to exist.

But by recognizing problems where they do exist, we can at least make the bad a lot less bad. And I want no part of a God, Gods, Universal Oneness, or whatever, that would deny humanity salvation for trying to do good, even if we fail.

 

Written by Bryan Douey
Illustration by Katie Songer