CONCEPT TO SEE:

ACCEPTABLE SINS — BEHAVIOR AND MEANING, VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE

The recognition of “changing meaning”, through habituation and other mechanisms to be discussed, suggests an inherent vulnerability of cultural expectations, agreements and laws.

We notice that it is not uncommon for certain behaviors that violate rules or laws to be “allowed”, as victims and observers seem unsure if a violation has or has not occurred. Why this happens will be the focus of continuing consideration, but the existence of these behaviors is recognized here.

Therefore, certain behavior tactics permit the enjoyment of what will be called “acceptable sins.”

For those who don’t recall the meaning of “sin”, it is as follows:

sin /rhymes with tin/ noun 1 an act considered to break a religious or moral law. 2 an act regarded as a serious offence. . verb (sins, sinning, sinned) commit a sin.

Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English, Third Edition (2005). Catherine Soanes and Sara Hawker (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sin is an ancient concern of mankind. Mockery and other angry responses to the idea of sin are just as ancient. With the decline of religious participation in many Western cultures, sin is less present in the vocabularies and concerns of everyday life. Yet, the definition indicates that this word best captures the meanings of a concept essential to all societies, religious or not: the need to develop values and laws, and to adhere to them, in order to retain order.

Acceptable sins are those sins that go unnoticed by observers, or, if noticed, fail to evoke a response. If, at times, following an acceptable sin, an observer cringes, or even experiences the urge to comment on its flagrantly obvious nature, but does nothing, this does not qualify as a response, due to a failure of effective action.

For example, if a military superior has been vicious during training, retaliatory vicious aggressive behavior by the recruits at a later time is viewed as an acceptable sin because it is done “playfully” with a sense of the humor of mirroring his aggressive behaviors, and because it is justified as retaliation. Nevertheless, it is viciously aggressive behavior.

A TASTE OF LIFE

It is also necessary to provide a warning: human interactions are immensely complex. It is useful to borrow a term to illuminate one peril of this complexity: “free riders”, in economic theory, enjoy benefits without contributing to the cost of the benefits (e.g., a product). Similarly, we can say that free riders enjoy the benefits of the arduous intellectual work of others that produces the safety and progress of a vibrant society of order, ideas and progress. Yet, the free riders wish to avoid the work of learning about the complex forms of social behavior upon which the culture is built and remains dependent. The effort of learning and applying the new knowledge as citizens would make them participant in the shared cost. The free riders sometimes will also simultaneously question or even mock the expertise of those guiding the progress, hiding their own lack of effort. The complexity of human interactions can be used to disguise the actual purpose of complaints: to avoid the effort of further learning.

This complexity yields the following dilemma: the methods permitting the enjoyment of acceptable sins are plentiful, and require considerable study if they are to be identified and understood. This requirement for effort in learning is among the most significant causes of the enduring success of acceptable sins; we fail to respond to them because we wish to avoid the work of understanding, identifying, and responding to them. Other causes will be described.

VOICES

What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate or grow old, or become colorless.

Oscar Wilde

 

There is no sin except stupidity.

Oscar Wilde

 

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. .   .   .

Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle.

C. S. Lewis (1942/2008). The Screwtape Letters. London: The Folio Society, p. xx.