Mahatma Gandhi’s Checklist of the Seven Social Sins; or Recommendations on The right way to Keep away from Residing the Dangerous Life


Picture through Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In 590 AD, Pope Gre­go­ry I unveiled an inventory of the Sev­en Lifeless­ly Sins – lust, glut­tony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and satisfaction – as a strategy to preserve the flock from stray­ing into the thorny fields of ungod­li­ness. Today, although, for all however essentially the most religious, Pope Gregory’s record appears much less like a method to ethical behav­ior than a descrip­tion of cable TV professional­gram­ming.

So as an alternative, let’s look to one of many saints of the twentieth cen­tu­ry–Mahat­ma Gand­hello. On Octo­ber 22, 1925, Gand­hello pub­lished an inventory he known as the Sev­en Social Sins in his week­ly information­pa­per Younger India.

  • Pol­i­tics with­out prin­ci­ples.
  • Wealth with­out work.
  • Plea­certain with­out con­science.
  • Knowl­edge with­out char­ac­ter.
  • Com­merce with­out ethical­i­ty.
  • Sci­ence with­out human­i­ty.
  • Wor­ship with­out sac­ri­fice.

The record sprang from a cor­re­spon­dence that Gand­hello had with some­one solely iden­ti­fied as a “truthful buddy.” He pub­lished the record with­out com­males­tary save for the fol­low­ing line: “Nat­u­ral­ly, the buddy doesn’t need the learn­ers to know these items mere­ly via the intel­lect however to know them via the center in order to keep away from them.”

Not like the Catholic Church’s record, Gandhi’s record is categorical­ly centered on the con­duct of the indi­vid­ual in soci­ety. Gand­hello preached non-vio­lence and inter­de­pen­dence and each sin­gle certainly one of these sins are examination­ples of self­ish­ness win­ning out over the com­mon good.

It’s additionally an inventory that, if ful­ly absorbed, will make the parents over on the US Cham­ber of Com­merce and Ayn Rand Insti­tute itch. In any case, “Wealth with­out work,” is a pret­ty accu­fee descrip­tion of America’s 1%. (Make investments­ments ain’t work. Ask Thomas Piket­ty.) “Com­merce with­out ethical­i­ty” sounds quite a bit like each sin­gle oil com­pa­ny on the market and “knowl­edge with­out char­ac­ter” describes half the hacks on cable information. “Pol­i­tics with­out prin­ci­ples” describes the oth­er half.

In 1947, Gand­hello gave his fifth grand­son, Arun Gand­hello, a slip of paper with this identical record on it, say­ing that it con­tained “the sev­en blun­ders that human soci­ety com­mits, and that trigger all of the vio­lence.” The following day, Arun returned to his dwelling in South Africa. Three months lat­er, Gand­hello was shot to dying by a Hin­du extrem­ist.

Notice: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our web site in 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tol­stoy and Gand­hello Trade Let­ters: Two Thinkers’ Quest for Gen­tle­ness, Humil­i­ty & Love (1909)

Albert Ein­stein Specific­es His Admi­ra­tion for Mahat­ma Gand­hello, in Let­ter and Audio

Isaac New­ton Cre­ates a Checklist of His 57 Sins (Cir­ca 1662)

Mahat­ma Gand­hello Talks (in First Report­ed Video)

When Mahat­ma Gand­hello Met Char­lie Chap­lin (1931)

Hear Gandhi’s Well-known Speech on the Exis­tence of God (1931)

Jonathan Crow is a author and movie­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wooden Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions,



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