The Seven Deadly Sins: Playing On A World Stage Near You

Reading through the world news section of the newspaper can be quite an odious task—indeed, whoever said the Seven Deadly Sins is an archaic term that has little or no relevance in the 21st century obviously hasn’t read the headlines lately. From the wrath of the violence in Syria, to the gluttonous hypocrisy of the Italian elite, who parade around in luxurious cashmere while their countrymen fall victim to that country’s economic crisis, the world is awash with examples of those seven sins being played out to the max.

To round out the seven, consider these news bites from other foreign locales: the beautiful and body-conscious Brazilians, for instance, are celebrating another stunning carnival with near-naked revellers basking in exuberant and lustful excess before the austerity of Lent begins.

In California, researchers at the University of California Berkeley have found that people with a higher socio-economic status are greedier than those less materially well-off—that they are more likely to cheat to win a prize, steal sweets from children and keep money mistakenly given to them rather than return it.

Still in California, but now in the City of Angels—Los Angeles—where tens of millions of viewers sat through the glitz and glamour of the 84th Academy Awards, where wealth and beauty is honoured just as much as, if not more than, creative vision and talent. If an Oscar could be given for envy everyone in the audience, and indeed everyone watching at home, would be a contender. And speaking of films and the hedonistic, at the site of the original world stage, the Parthenon on the Acropolis, the Greeks are howling in protest over government plans to raise desperately-needed revenue by pimping out this and other treasured monuments as sets for films and advertisements. They say pride comes before a fall, but the Greeks have long since fallen, so to cry foul at this and other austerity measures seems profoundly petulant and more than a bit late in the day.

And, finally, in Australia, we’ve just witnessed yet another leadership spill within the Australian Labor Party. Driven by hostile and allegedly “faceless” factions within the ALP, the contest was convincingly won by the incumbent Julia Gillard over a embittered and embattled Kevin Rudd—not that anyone seems convinced that this loss will be the last we see of the former prime minister. Which brings me to the last, but not least, of the Seven Deadly Sins—the sin of sloth. Kevin “747” Rudd is certainly no sloth, nor is Gillard, but perhaps the Australian voters, are. In 2007 they voted in Rudd because, in simple terms, they were “bored” with John Howard, despite his 12 years of steady captaincy and tenacious ability to steer the Australian ship through some pretty turbulent economic, social and military waters. Australia’s dissent wasn’t driven by a passionate ideological agenda, but by complacency, almost a “whatever” approach to politics. After all, in a steady democracy what’s the difference between left and right wing anyway, and as long as the pay-cheques keep coming in, the interest rates stay low and the kids can get into university, we don’t really care. “I’m alright, Jack” hasn’t become an Australian catch-cry for nothing. Yes, we look after our mates, but we also like to look after ourselves and inherent in that is a laziness of thought, an apathy toward the grand scheme of things and our responsibilities in this world. It may be the “lucky” country, but it could be steadily evolving into a spoilt one—a trait that encompasses pretty much all of the Seven Deadly Sins in one neat bundle.