Vainglory and Sloth

DeYoung begins the chapter Vainglory by noting that many high school students at her church could effortlessly name a couple dozen celebrities, but were silent when asked to name their heroes. When pressed for an answer, many simply stated that their heroes were their grandparents. After comparing the two, DeYoung claims that celebrities receive glory far beyond their worth to society and heroes are worth much more than the meager amount of recognition they receive.

Vainglory is the desire for acknowledgment, recognition and approval from others. It is the part of each person that desires for their actions to be known. Aquinas speaks of vainglory, writing that individuals have a natural craving for recognition. This vice can manifest anywhere: in the classroom, on the field and in the workplace. In the case of Aquinas, it manifested in a pear orchard; he stole pears with his friends, not because he was hungry, but because he wanted to impress them. Vainglory stems from a person desiring attention from a certain person or group of people, but the means of attracting the desired attention is usually shallow and meaningless, like stealing pears for fun.

It is important to note that vainglory is different from pride, but the two are regularly confused. The main distinction between the two is excellence. According to DeYoung, the prideful person desires to be “number one” more than anything else in the world. However, the vainglorious person simply desires as much public applause and praise as they can get. A prideful person could potentially be content knowing that they were the best in the world while no one else knew, but the vainglorious person would never be content with secretly being the best; to them, the whole point of an action is for others to notice the action.

Both DeYoung and Aquinas explain the vice of vainglory in the context of religion. This is the worst manifestation of vainglory and occurs when people fail to give glory to God as the source of their blessings. They ignore God as the source of their blessings and, worse, take the credit for themselves.

Is there a way to free oneself from this lifestyle? Potentially, but it seems nearly impossible to be completely free from vainglory. It requires total humility and the ability to control their yearnings for fame and recognition.

Sloth – Chapter 4

At first glance, this vice seems very out of place on the list of capital vices. How can sloth compare to vices like anger and lust? Since when is sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating M&M’s a moral and spiritual failure? Is being lazy that big of a deal?

In order to really understand sloth as a vice, people must understand the Christian virtue of diligence. A diligent person is one that takes on responsibility, is committed to hard work and possesses a willingness to see events through to completion. On the other end of the spectrum is the slothful person; lackadaisical and apathetic, this person is indifferent to the needs of others and is unwilling to contribute to society. Sloth seems a bit more serious now, doesn’t it?

Sloth is much more than laziness and has been noted, particularly within religious circles, as a serious vice because it threatens one’s commitment to their vocation and religious identity. DeYoung mentions Cassian and the difficulties of living in monastic communities; each monk was expected to contribute to the good of the whole community. However, with all the daily chores, rules and strict schedules, it is easy to see how people could desire to shirk their duties and do as little work as possible. This would be a serious problem and could threaten the whole monastery. Even in this example, laziness isn’t the problem; the problem arises because a member of the community is unwilling to contribute to the community and becomes detrimental to the well-being of others. Imagine being a monk and laboring all day, then showing up to dinner, only to find that a slothful monk had not done his duty and there was no food for anyone to eat. The slothful person sacrifices the good of others in order to pursue their own selfish desires.

It is difficult to find a solution to the vice of sloth. The vice itself refuses the very things that could cure it: commitment and perseverance. Mastering this vice, or even opposing it, seems to require a complete change of course. Advice on conquering sloth boils down to ‘just keep trying to stick with it.’ While that does not seem like helpful advice at first glance, sloth did not seem like a serious vice at first glance either. This advice stems from the idea that interest and commitment will go through many peaks-and-valleys. That is to say, there will be times that a person feels very committed and times that a person feels almost no commitment. Continually enduring the hard times instead of taking a convenient escape and shirking one’s duties cause a person to build commitment and take the first steps to overcoming the vice of sloth.

Glittering Vices – Blog Post 1

In her book “Glittering Vices,” Rebecca DeYoung explores the origins, causes and effects of the Seven Capital Vices. These vices stem from a combination of Christian tradition and philosophical reflection on the historical context of various time periods.

The seven capital vices have varied depending on the person creating the list. The first written account of the vices can be traced back to Evagrius of Pontus, a desert-dwelling monk of the early Christian church. His list included eight vices; lust, gluttony, anger, sadness, vainglory, pride, avarice and sloth.

John Cassian, a disciple under Evagrius, took the list and changed it sometime between 360-430 CE. While the vices remained the same, Cassian’s adaptation changed the order of the vices to mesh with communal life in a monastery. His list was gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, sloth, vainglory and pride. This list begins with carnal desires and progresses into more spiritual matters. These vices correspond to the hardships of monastic life and the monasteries used this list as a way to point monks toward virtuous and harmonious lifestyles.

Cassian’s list remained unchanged for a few centuries. However, when Pope Gregory I came into power, he changed the list. Instead of 8 vices, there would only be 7. This change stems from the Bible, where the number “7” represents completeness. Pope Gregory I further changed the list by combining “sloth” and “sadness” into one category and adding “envy” to the list. Gregory’s list was vainglory, envy, sadness, avarice, wrath, lust and gluttony. Interestingly, Pope Gregory I also removed “pride” from the list of capital vices. He claimed that the seven capital vices were like tree branches, while pride was the trunk and the roots. All of the vices stemmed from pride.

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas brings a fusion of theology and philosophy to the seven capital vices. In his descriptions of the vices in his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas quotes famous theologians and philosophers, leading to a less pastoral tone than Pope Gregory I. The tone may be different, but Aquinas’s list is identical to Gregory’s, with the exception of Aquinas changing “sadness” to “sloth.” While Aquinas’s list is not necessarily definitive, it is the most commonly used list when referencing the seven capital vices.

At this point, DeYoung considers the difference between sins and vices while wondering if the ideas have been commercialized to the point of meaninglessness. DeYoung separates sins and vices by giving them different definitions. A sin is a behavior, an act of disobedience and a description of the ‘fallen’ state of humans since Adam and Eve. A vice is a deeply rooted pattern of actions within an individual. DeYoung further separates the two based upon their predicates; “deadly” reflects the Catholic teachings of certain sins cutting a person off from God in a sort of spiritual death. The word “capital” is used to give particular attention to specific vices. This is especially important to Aquinas, who believes that some acts of vice are not deadly sins. For instance, acts of lust and gluttony are more indicative of impulsive decision-making/moments of weakness than they are of a willful preference to pleasure over a relationship with God. DeYoung goes on to note that the commercialization of “The 7 Deadly Sins” has nearly ruined the true meaning behind the phrase. T-shirts, wristbands, movies and YouTube videos that supposedly depict “The 7 Deadly Sins” rarely convey the severity of such actions.

At this point, DeYoung has finished the history behind the vices and begins examining specific vices, starting with Envy. Envy differs from jealousy because the jealous person simply desires something similar to what others have, while the envious person wants to take the exact possession or quality from the person they envy. The jealous person wants more, but the envious person wants more while also desiring for others to have less.
Envy, like all of the vices, is rooted in pride. In this case, pride demands for an individual feel superior to other people. DeYoung gives readers an example based on buying a new car. A neighbor buys a new Toyota. You also buy new car and have selected a BMW. DeYoung claims that there is a difference in buying the BMW based upon its features and buying the BMW to upstage your neighbor’s purchase. In the latter, buying the new car is nothing more than a way to feel superior to your neighbor.

Envy is very pervasive and starts out small. According to Aquinas, Envy starts with detraction. In more modern terms, this would be known as “back-stabbing.” It starts with small, negative comments that take away from someone’s reputation, then grows until these comments are made public. From there, envy can progress into hatred, where the envious person believes that another person is preventing them from achieving happiness. If left unchecked, the hatred takes root and manifests as malice; the originally envious person openly wishes evil upon another person and anyone that he believes “stacked the deck” against him.

DeYoung ends the chapter by comparing envy with love. The envious person, according to DeYoung, is very self-loathing and can only view themselves favorably if others are viewed as worse than themselves. The Bible says to love others as you love yourself, however, the feelings of self-hatred expressed by the envious person prevents him from loving himself, let alone the people that he envies. DeYoung believes that the only “cure” to this problem is changing how a person perceives their self-worth. If their self-worth is grounded in comparing their merits and possessions with the merits and possessions of others, that person cannot move beyond being envious.