Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Societies have long recognized that the big three visceral motivations: envy, jealously & resentment; are deleterious, and warn against them. Why? Because they manifest as spite, perversity & vindictiveness; which are destructive all around. It's actually rather curious that more emphasis is not given to these base feelings because they are quite predictive, but people wish it wasn't true, so they ignore their own complicity in being bad. In fact, it's probably the case that if asked, most everyone would deny they are often consumed with counterproductive thoughts, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

Then there is another group of negative emotions that explain the rest of human activity: fear, anger, lust, avarice, selfishness & sloth. It's not a coincidence that the Seven Deadly Sins in the Bible so closely match this list because religious writings are primarily intended to warn future generations of the pitfalls that will beset them. Even though the evolutionary stimulus of our biology is clear to any analysis, people will still deny them as major components of their own lives; we are all willingly blind to the things that are harmful to our own self-image; a voluntary lack of self-awareness, and probably a good thing we are.