Fife wrote:Is sloth a sin against God? Or consumers? Or the state? Or who?
It's obvious Martin isn't talking about Catholic sloth; I'm quite sure he don't believe in salvation. StA, what kind solth are you talking about?
What kind of sin is sloth, exactly?
Sloth is a sin.
The problem with calling it out, though, is the subjective nature of what makes one slothful. Until recently, most people had to work in order that the community survive through the year. So sloth was not just a spiritual sin but also a kind of crime against society. But we live in a time now where we have more people than we need for production. Thus it's possible for society to survive just fine with some fraction of society doing the producing. That raises all sorts of moral problems all by itself that we have discussed in other threads.
But beyond even that, the problem arises that what one man considers sloth, another might not consider so. If, for example, you are enslaved, then sloth can be seen as a virtue. A man who was made by Nazi occupiers to repair the railroads so more Germans could deploy into France would not be immoral to behave slothfully. Even today, because the corporations that control so much are actively trying to harm society, it doesn't seem virtuous to me for people to produce at maximum efficiency for them at all. Indeed, to my mind, it's more virtuous to check out from the whole program, homestead or start a small business, etc. But Hash thinks that's slothful because these people are not producing as much as they otherwise could if they became what they could consider corporate slaves.
I am sure the feudal lord hates it when the peasants are "slothful", but they might be producing just enough for everybody to survive and not really overdoing it, since they have nothing to gain by overdoing it, and really much to lose.