A Not So Deadly Sin?

Envy. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. It is something that, nearly from birth, we are trained is evil. It is often associated with the devil, sin, and bad people, but what about biology and necessity? I’m not talking about jealousy, because jealousy is linked with love. Envy, at its core, is disdain for another person because they possess something that you do not. So what role has this “evil” thing played in history?

Sure you think of warlords and medieval Europe, the whole my castle is bigger than your castle thing, but I’m talking positive. Is envy a positive thing? Sounds crazy right?

I don’t believe it’s all that crazy. I think envy is beyond important. At first it is hard to break out of our molds to think about something like envy in a positive way, but envy is actually biologically necessary. Imagine the earth a few million years ago, and a monkey is out collecting food. It comes home with three nuts, only to discover that another monkey in the tribe collected five nuts! That monkey gets envious of the extra food and vows to collect more nuts next time he is out. Now this story may seem like a stretch, but hopefully the main idea got across. Envy, in a way, actual wills the evolution process. Envy, a somehow trivial feeling, is anything but! Are brains may possibly be wired to be envious in a way to make us want to be better, and feel that it is necessary to be better than we are!

But that’s not all! Imagine its implications today, in modern society. Look at the United States, a completely consumer driven society. Think about the man the returns home from work, and discovers that his neighbor has purchased a new car. He instantly dislikes his neighbor for his new purchase, and the only way he can strike back is by buying a new, better car. So he works extra hard for that big bonus, helping his company, then buys that expensive car, therefore stimulating the economy!

In more ways than those two, envy is vital to our world. It could be vital to the very evolutionary process that made us what we are today and it is more than vital to running our country. 2/3 of our economy is run by consumers, and imagine what would happen to the economy if every person decided they were happy with what they had!
So wait. Is envy really as evil as we preach it to be? Isn’t envy the very thing that runs our countries, runs the animal world, and even our world? Or is it truly evil, something that makes us materialistic and bitter? Well that’s for you to decide, but I think this deadly sin deserves to be rethought a little.