180. Sloth
180. SLOTH
What is the difference between the capital sin of sloth and mere laziness?
Sloth, according to Damascene, is an oppressive sorrow which . . . is always evil . . . For sorrow is evil in itself when it is about that which is . . . good in reality, even as . . . pleasure is evil if it is about that which . . . is in truth evil. Since, then, spiritual good is a good in very truth, sorrow about spiritual good is evil. . .
Passions are not sinful in themselves, but they are blameworthy in so far as they are applied to something evil, just as they deserve praise in so far as they are applied to something good. Wherefore sorrow in itself calls neither for praise nor for blame, whereas moderate sorrow for evil calls for praise, while sorrow for good and immoderate sorrow for evil call for blame (II-II,3 5,1).
Sloth is a far greater problem in our advanced, sophisticated, complex, bored, and jaded time than in St. Thomas’ simpler, more natural and primitive time. There are few heroes today. There is little need for courage in our comfortable technological paradise. There is little passion for anything except pleasure and comfort and security. Indeed, passion is confused with fanaticism.
Our society is so afraid of “fanaticism” that it is our F-word. We fear terrorist Muslims without more than we fear relativists within.
The thing St. Thomas characterizes as “an oppressive sorrow” reigns in the most “advanced” places, such as Scandanavia and Harvard, where clinical depression and suicide abound.
Paradoxically, sloth reigns most in our technologically busy world where leisure has been abolished and life has been programmed and scheduled down to the last detail.
Though sloth is “always evil,” people may be more the passive victims than the active perpetrators of this spiritual disease, because their culture encourages them to it.
Sloth is more than laziness. Laziness may be (1) physical, due to genetic predispositions and biologically determined temperament, or (2) emotional, a felt preference for relaxation rather than exertion, or (3) moral, a freely chosen attitude of avoidance of exertion even when exertion is a duty or at least would be of more moral value than relaxation. Only insofar as (3) is involved is laziness sinful. For as St. Thomas says, “passions (emotions) are not sinful in themselves” but only when “applied,” i.e., deliberately directed, to good or evil. When directed by the will to the good, emotions become good; when to the evil, evil.
Evil consists of both sins of commission and sins of omission. Sloth is a sin of omission: the refusal to exert oneself, to rouse oneself, to move toward the good even when the good is present and recognized. For instance, not jumping in the pool to save a baby from drowning. Or not getting out of your warm, comfortable bed on a cold winter morning to go to Sunday Mass. Or not inquiring of God what He wants you to do. Or, stupidest of all, not inquiring whether or not God even exists. “Drifting.”
Not inquiring means not caring, and not caring means not loving, and not loving means not willing, and not willing is a choice, and a choice is praiseworthy or blameworthy.
There is a word in modern languages that is very similar to “sloth.” It is a word that did not exist in any pre—modern language. The word is “boredom.” I mean not boredom with a particular thing but objectless, generalized boredom, emptiness. We are the first culture in history in which boredom is so common that there is a word for it. (See Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos for a hilariously incisive treatment of this. See also the section of Pascal’s Pensées entitled “Indifference”.) Boredom (sloth) has invented a new evil word: the word “whatever”. It is really a curse word, because it means “the Hell with it” or “I don’t give a damn.”