Jorge Freire, philosopher, writer and columnist, publishes ‘The Strangers’, a delicious and unclassifiable essay in which he dissects, as a microbiography, four great writers (Edith Wharton, José Bergamín, PG Wodehouse and Blasco Ibáñez) and their sins. About sins, precisely, we spoke with him. We forgive him one:—All are forgivable, except envy. It is the only one that harms those who harbor it. Ovid represented her as a vexatious woman with a reptile that gnaws at her breast. He who envies devours himself.—Do you forgive yourself?—Me, less so. It’s really harmful. Other sins always have something good. In a book that excites me, ‘The Seven Columns’, Wenceslao Fernández Flórez imagines that the capital sins disappear. What would happen? That society becomes a pain. There is no lust and demographics plummet; Without gluttony, gastronomy disappears, because people eat only to feed themselves; Greed disappears and the economy collapses without a desire for profit…—He agrees with Fernández Flórez that it is the great passions that move the world.—And the great sins. We live in a time that denies sin and is obsessed with the sinner. One that, furthermore, never has the possibility of being compensated. It is Protestant puritanism that invades everything today. Whoever has committed a sin, even if it is a venial one, is condemned forever and, at the same time, original sin is denied, because there are people who are saved from birth. We must remember that we all share sin.—Have we lost the ability to forgive?—Contemporary culture proscribes forgiveness. It is one of the causes of the debasement of public debate: failure condemns forever.—We are denied learning from our own mistakes…—Sin, let us remember, comes from pecatum, which means stumbling. Who has never stumbled?—But what do we do with sins if we forgive them?—They are a good moral compass, but that axis can be expanded. Other sins can be added, as long as we reduce solemnity and contemplate forgiveness. I would incorporate one that is contemptuous appreciation, which is one of the forms of slander. And a sin, furthermore, exclusively Spanish: despising someone through appreciation. If I tell you “you are very good for your age” it seems like I am flattering you but I am calling you old.—It seems like a combination of several sins: pride, envy and some anger.—Western culture is based on anger. The first verse of the Iliad is “Sing, goddess, of Achilles Pelida the wrath.” We are all in love with the tits of bad milk.—We have not talked about the carnal ones. Aren’t lust, gluttony even sins…?—They don’t harm anyone, so they wouldn’t be.—Sloth?—I take it back: the worst of all is laziness, not envy. I deeply hate him, he is a crusher of talent.—What you don’t sin about is pride: you recognize your mistake and unrepent. —Like everyone who writes, I am a little arrogant. But I think that pride is unfairly maligned. Whoever has high ideals is always somewhat arrogant. But one should not be arrogant.—A question of moderation?—The Aristotelian middle ground. I defend that you have to value yourself and, as El Cordobés said, love yourself very much.—Let’s leave it here: a philosopher quoting ‘El Cordobés’.—He is a wise man.
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