My Catholic-school-educated readers may recall there are seven “deadly sins”: sloth, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, envy, and wrath. In Dante’s theology, the first four don’t hurt anyone but the sinner, but the last three are violent. They make people attack each other. Pride doesn’t just say “I am good,” it says “I’m better than someone else.” Envy doesn’t just make us want stuff, it makes us want at least as much stuff as someone else. Wrath isn’t random; it’s targeted at someone else. When we lock into errors of righteousness, we invariably point at someone else and turn them into what
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