But pride can also be a powerful force for good, if rightly directed toward genuine wisdom and achievement. Many Christian theologians now consider pride the original sin--the vanity of a man and woman wanting to know what only God had the right to know. (This definition of pride as the original sin was one of the first teachings that undermined Christianity for me.) I say brava to Eve for being tempted by the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But then, I am not a Christian or a religious believer, and I regard the story of the so-called sin in the Garden of Eden as a metaphor for growing up.

Lust isn't a sin either, unless it consumes one's life and is forced on someone who does not return our erotic desire. Anger too can be a righteous force if modified by personal self-discipline and civil law. When I was younger, I might have said that sloth was a sin, except it now occurs to me, in a society of people driven mad by the need to work (or appear as if they're working) 24/7, that a certain amount of sloth is a genuine virtue.

That leaves envy, gluttony, and greed. Although there's nothing good to be said on behalf of gluttony and greed (and American society is certainly filled with both), it seems to me that envy is the most prevalent and destructive of all sins. Anyone who has ever experienced envy knows that it is a sickening and unproductive feeling. Envy is often confused with jealousy, which is usually based on the fear that one is going to lose a love object to someone else. Envy is more pervasive, and it often has nothing to do with another person "taking away" what you believe is rightfully yours.

Envy assumes that there is only a finite amount of success, or love, or pleasure and that someone else's achievement inevitably comes at my expense. Envy is looking at glowing reviews of another writer's book and feeling that those reviews somehow mean that your own book won't get its due. Envy is not feeling the loss of a specific man to another woman, but looking at any happily married couple and feeling that their happiness somehow makes it less possible for you to be happy. Envy, in a politician, is looking at another candidate and concluding that he (or she) is a spinner of "fairy tales" instead of someone who has beaten you by offering a better vision for the future. Envy means wanting to tear others down instead of to build yourself up. I am certain, for example, that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were motivated by a compound of envy and hatred. Bringing down the World Trade Center, a symbol of successful western capitalism, obviously did nothing to help the millions of Muslims who live in poverty around the world because their countries are run by religious fanatics or oil-rich oligarchs. But the attack certainly showed those greedy westerners that they could be brought low!

Envy is also intimately related to fear--the fear that there just aren't enough good things to go around. If goodness is finite, then it naturally follows that anyone else's success diminishes my possibilities. In Othello, Shakespeare paints what is probably the greatest portrait of envy in western literature, in the character of Iago. Iago is not jealous of Othello; he is envious because Othello enjoys the respect and love that the mean-spirited Iago can never possess. Iago simply uses Desdemona to arouse Othello's sexual jealousy.

In his Agamemnon, Aeschylus wrote that "it is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered." In democratic societies, the vice of envy is often extended to entire groups. If an upper middle class parent's child doesn't get into the college of his or her choice, it must be because someone else has gained an unfair advantage by virtue of his race, his parent's greater wealth...you name it. Of course there really are groups who enjoy unfair advantages, and it is the business of politics, insofar as possible, to level the playing field. But the way to level the playing field is to build everyone up, not to tear one group down.

Envy is the worst moral failing of all; one only needs to recall envious feelings to realize that they corrupt hope, love, and ambition--in an individual or a society.

And now for something completely different (although racial and ethnic bigotry are often rooted in envy):

There were a number of comments on various threads, including mine, last week indicating that it was high time for Jews to "get over" or "forgive" the Holocaust. All I can say, given that I have spoken out forcefully against Jewish neoconservatives who uncompromisingly support all Israeli goverment policies, is that these comments go a long way toward explaining the anger that fuels Jewish neoconservatism. I do not believe that the Holocaust can or should serve as the primary basis for Jewish identity today. But Jews, who, along with Gypsies, were the only people systematically targeted by the Nazis for group extermination, cannot and should not forget what happened. I was shocked to the core by the anti-Semitism of some bloggers, including one who said that "liberal Jews" had been sent to the gas chambers. The whole point of the Nazi war against the Jews was that all Jews were targeted for death. Liberal Jews and conservative Jews, rich Jews and poor Jews, religious Jews and secular Jews, were herded into the gas chambers together. Decent Christians understand this.

I wish that all of the indecent anti-Semitic bloggers who weighed in with their bigotry and ignorance would simply take their hatred elsewhere, to the many blogs for right-wing nutcases that exist on the Web. Your vicious bile is the equivalent of graffiti scrawled on synagogue walls and it is regrettable that the Internet offers you the opportunity to broadcast your stupidity, prejudice--and yes, envy--under the cloak of anonymity. The same goes for those of you who use this thread to paint a picture of all Muslims as terrorists, murderers, etc., ad nauseam. Arguing about religion and criticizing other beliefs (including atheism) is fine. Lumping together all members of any group as vile human beings is not. I've said this before and I'll say it again: it is the essence of cowardice to broadcast slander and bigotry without having to account for it by using your real name. You people don't have the guts to use the First Amendment as it was intended to be used--to allow citizens not only to express any views they want but to express their views openly, under their own names, and be held accountable for them. There are so many thoughtful commentators on this thread--people who disagree as well as agree with what I have to say--that it's a pity they have to share this forum with no-name, know-nothing bigots.