Modern society embraces the social sins it once condemned
The essay argues modern society glorifies social sins like wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, and politics without principle, which erodes responsibility, morality and community.
By Morf Morford | FāVS News Columnist
The seven social sins are:
“Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.”
–Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925
You might think of “sins” as religious. But if you think of sins as basic violations of what keeps a society functioning well, you arrive at something like the “social sin” list from more than 100 years ago.
Most statements and proclamations speak to their moment, and just a few years later — or even a few weeks later, in today’s news cycle — they seem stale, dated and ridiculous.
But some, like this list of social sins, only grow more true with each passing news story.
We of the 21st century not only embrace and embody each one of those “sins” — we proclaim them, we glorify them and we declare our allegiance to them.
Wealth without work
I don’t know if these “sins” were meant to be in any kind of ascending order of importance, but wealth without work has certainly become the reigning first principle of the 21st century digital economy.
Influencer, consultant, advisor — call it whatever euphemism you like for not really working. Being absurdly rich isn’t just the American Dream anymore. It’s the universal aspiration, maybe even the assumption, for a generation. Or two. Or three.
Know anyone under 50, or even 60, with anything that might resemble a work ethic? Employers are having a hard time finding them.
AI and bots are not only taking jobs, they are taking the idea of a job — and work and skill and experience and almost everything else that makes work, even dreary repetitive work, human.
Young people I know and talk to tell me that they want money, but they don’t want to work. They specifically say it’s not just that they don’t want a boring job or career — they don’t want a job or career at all.
When I ask them what they do want in their lives, they almost all tell me the next thing on the list.
Pleasure without conscience
Most young people I talk to, at least based on their words, aspire to idleness, to as little responsibility as possible.
They tell me of their revulsion to adulting — to taking on work schedules, budgets, family or relationship responsibility or any sense or aspect of being a responsible parent, worker, citizen or friend.
They want to act without consequences, without meaning, without purpose. They definitely do not want to study, to apply themselves — and, perhaps above all, challenge themselves.
Knowledge without character
Teachers and parents of school age children know this one too well.
What do children learn in school?
Do they learn anything about or related to resiliency? Resourcefulness? Patience? Cooperation? Determination? Common courtesy? Self-reliance? Problem solving? Respect — including self-respect? When to respect authority? And when to question it?
Are young people learning how to regulate their feelings and impulses? Manage their money? Develop enduring friendships? Care for animals? Give their best? Face inconceivable challenges? Cook a basic meal? Read a transit schedule? Or a local map?
Our current students “know” a lot. But they know almost nothing that matters. Or that will matter two or 10 or 20 years from now. Or in any crisis.
Information is important, but every device has more information than anyone could ever need. How are schools building character? And what happens when they don’t?
Commerce without morality
Once upon a more innocent time, a business vision was an outline for a service to the community. Local businesses met local needs.
But now franchises and chains leach money out of communities, sending the profits to a distant corporate center, as they undercut and destroy local and regional businesses and services.
And they do this for one reason: money. They have no interest in the communities they “serve.”
And when the profits dip, or a more promising investment or resource is somewhere else, they abandon the local market, leaving it emptied.
Science without humanity
The tech bros, the prophets of technology, only need us as passive “users” of their technologies and devices. In a very real sense, the fewer of us, the better for their profit margins.
When they say, or imply, “without humanity,” they don’t just mean without the touch or feel or soul of humanity — they mean literal humanity. They (or at least their vision of a device-based future) do not “need” living, capable, productive human beings.
Their envisaged “efficiency” is the efficiency of the well-oiled machine; a machine that never complains, never sleeps and never deviates from the established program.
They do not need us. But somehow they have convinced us that we need them. Or that we should idolize them. We don’t and we shouldn’t.
Worship without sacrifice
Look at public figures that proclaim faith or religion. The words they use, and how they use them, reveal their true “faith.”
Their faith costs nothing. There is no sacrifice, no courage, not even integrity and basic decency.
Their faith has no substance, no meaning and no resonance with either current concerns (like war, homelessness, debt and corruption) or with historic strands and impulses of the faith they proclaim.
They pronounce and proclaim God’s blessing on themselves and are eager to “curse” anyone else.
As more than one religious leader has said, you shall know them by their fruits. And their fruits are all too obvious: contention, division, distrust, betrayal and deception.
You will look in vain for integrity, honor, compassion, generosity and humility among these prophets of comfort and wealth. Or any winsome, engaging, invitational and, of course, spiritually or philosophically appealing reason for attracting or keeping followers.
Heresy, blasphemy, conquest and blood and fire condemnation are the favorites of this beast of a religion.
Which leads some of them to merge God and country, faith and politics, into a confused and contradictory morass of self-serving prophets and kings who would inspire any God worth believing in to send floods, fires and plagues upon such a people.
Which leads us to our next social sin.
Politics without principle
As I write this, as an American in 2026, the political landscape around me — if not the entire world — has one principle: loyalty. Not loyalty to a document or core principles or a constitution, but to a single person. And his everchanging whims, biases and fantasies.
There is no guiding principle, like justice, or human rights or even rule of law. The whims and rants of a toddler king rule above any statutes or traditions. To put it mildly, this is no way to run a country. Or a state. Or a precinct. Or a business.
These “sins” were presumably put in this form as a warning, that these actions and beliefs were inherently self-destructive and corrosive in any setting or culture.
As with many sayings and proverbs, we in the 21st century have decided to see these statements, not as warnings, but as inspirations for the barest, most brittle and short-sighted appropriations or assignations of success.
These have become principles in our times, not to be scrupulously avoided, but to be embraced and embodied. And we have.
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