The 7 Virtues of Modern Society

Most cultures define virtues that “good” people should adopt in order to become successful, productive members of that society. So have we, and it’s a bit of an odd bunch.

Wrath

Your capacity for wrath, blame and judgment is directly correlated with your ability to succeed in modern society. The more capable you are of putting other people down, labeling them, exacting revenge or inflicting domination over other people, the more you impress people and thus, the more admiration, respect and resources you’re able to attain. In the 21st century, our society has decided wrath is a core virtue.

Greed

We’re taught from an early age to chase status and having the biggest house, the fastest car, the most money, the most power is good and we should pursue those things at all costs, because those things translate to respect, power, admiration and the ability to live a comfortable life. It doesn’t matter how our material success is acquired. We have all sorts of mantras to justify greed: It’s a dog eat dog world. Early bird gets the worm. Someone was going to do it, why not me? We lionize wealth in media as much as we demonize it. Entire industries are built around simply scheming for more wealth, no matter the cost to society.

Envy

So much of our identities are modeled after celebrities or characters invented by the media. We create our own personas based off of the acclaim that we see other people receive. Even the blind admiration of celebrity that we see is a form of envy. We’re envious of a person’s lifestyle and as a result we give deference and respect to their ideas, even if they are objectively silly or wrong or outright appalling. Envy also manifests in another dark way as bitterness. We’ve normalized envy and consumerized is like anything else. We sell envy on dating shows and reality TV and awards shows and through the myriad cults of personality that persist on the internet.

Lust

Not only is social media creating an epidemic of shallow, flesh-based popularity, we see literal altars and cults to lust. Models with no notable accomplishments beyond their appearance wielding influence over hundreds of thousands of followers who do their bidding on a moment’s notice. Women who are literally placed on a pedestal to be worshipped and then ultimately sacrificed. A media that commodifies the language of sexuality and shames anyone who’s not pursuing a position of power in a cult of lust.

Sloth

Society rewards addiction with status. You’re a good consumer if you stay up to date with everything on television. On Twitter. You’re a good consumer if you buy the right products. If you passively consume. If you embody the sloth of cattle, you are a good consumer. We consider sloth to be a virtue in this society, even as we denigrate so-called “laziness”. We want you to work hard, but only to be able to uncritically consume what our society produces so that our system can generate wealth. Our system requires good consumers, and good consumers watch TV. They browse the internet. They masturbate to porn. They eat food constantly. Anything that generates a profit. Advertising promises them a better life with every addiction they acquire. Drink more and you’ll have a more fun life, meet sexier people and mate more often. Eat this food and you’ll be thin and happy and your children will love you. Buy this, you’ll be happy. Eat that, you’ll be happy. Watch this, you’ll be happy. But no matter how much you buy, eat or watch, you still haven’t moved in days, you’re miserable and you’re angry.

Pride

Our society thrives on self-promotion. If if you have nothing to feel notably prideful about, which is perfectly fine, society demands that you find something about yourself to aggressively self-promote, whether that’s on resumes or on social media. You must differentiate yourself, inject yourself into the conversation and say “Hey. Me.” And the more successful you are at doing that, the more successful you are at playing the game of self-aggrandizement — pushing yourself as a topic while skillfully avoiding seeming narcissistic or vain — the more resources and status and envy you can acquire.

Gluttony

We live in a consumerist society and it needs consumption to run, even if that consumption is damaging to people and completely unnecessary. We’re gluttons not only in the traditional sense of overeating, but gluttons in every way. We buy more clothes than we could ever need or ever reasonably wear, even though they’re made by slaves and go into landfills where they sit for a thousand years. We binge-watch media until our eyes bleed. We feast on unnecessary, incendiary opinions even though it fills us with anger and fear. We religiously consume all the latest movies and gossip and news because consumption is our religion. We consume. We consume. And if we don’t consume, there’s something wrong with us.

Aristotle defined the virtues as Bravery, Temperance, Generosity, Honesty, Wit, Friendliness, High Spiritedness, Conscientiousness, Benevolence and Industriousness. Recently the secular psychological Big 5 attributes scale codifies many of the same attributes.

The Kabbalist sephiroth defined the virtues as Will, Understanding, Wisdom, Power, Love, Discernment, Compassion, Foresight, Splendor, Righteousness and Presence.

The Eightfold path defined the virtues as Right View, Right Mindfulness, Right Intention, Right Thoughts, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, and Right Livelihood.

Christianity defined 7 heavenly virtues in opposition to the 7 sins: Chastity, Temperance, Diligence, Charity, Patience, Kindness and Humility.

When’s the last time you saw someone in this society achieve success in such a way that emulating them would be emulating the virtues of any of these sets?

No. Our heroes are heroes of Greed. Our idols are idols of Wrath. Our kings are kings of Gluttony. And they are never punished. We wish we were like them because we see ourselves in a pit and see a ladder with them at the top. But it is an illusion. The only way to win the game is not to play. Stop writhing in the pit and be calm. To be calm in the pit is better than to be atop the ladder, giving what you have to shave from your soul to get there and the damage you do.

It’s a bold prescription. Much like “If we all fail the test they have to give us an A” or trying to shoot the moon in the card game Hearts. But it’s gotten this bad. It’s the only thing that can be done. Eventually, the people on top of the ladder will see their status, which they so single-mindedly pursue, degrade, as no one envies them any longer. Their wrath produces no more cheers. Their pride no longer draws attention.

Capitalism vs socialism aside, cultural consumerism is at the heart of this plight. The cultural agreement that having more money, more material attainment, no matter the impact, is always worthy of respect and admiration. The “rat race” as it were.