A rose by any other name…
Some months ago an article in a magazine caught my attention. It was complaining about the increased gap between the rich and the poor in the US. The author acknowledged that even the poor had become much more wealthy over the past decade than they were before, but complained that the difference between them and the rich had increased. This increased difference, she claimed, was a problem, because it constituted “relative deprivation,” a serious sociological problem that has been shown to harm people’s health.
You can read more about “relative deprivation” on Wikipedia. Here’s their definition:
Relative deprivation refers to the discontent people feel when they compare their positions to those of similarly situated and find that they have less than their peers.
This phenomenon is indeed important. But we don’t really need a new name for it. The Bible talks a lot about it. It’s called “covetousness.” It is indeed a serious social problem. In fact, it is so serious that God devotes his tenth commandment (Exod 20:17) to it:
Thou shalt not covet
In his stimulating study of the ten commandments, David Noel Freedman argues that this final commandment is in fact a summary of all the other nine, which gives it a special prominence. It is the super-sin, the one that contains all the others. Perhaps that’s why God used this particular sin to pierce the self-righteous facade of Saul of Tarsus:
Rom 7:7-9 I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
And perhaps that’s why, when Saul, now preaching the gospel as Paul, wants to single out one sin as comparable to idolatry, he chooses covetousness:
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
This Biblical emphasis makes it all the more surprising when we now read that covetousness (sorry, “relative deprivation”) is now no longer the sin of the person who succumbs to this feeling, but rather the fault of those who have prospered even more than he has.
As believers, we should not be surprised when unbelievers “call evil good, and good evil; … put darkness for light, and light for darkness; … put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Isa 5:20). But this deception should alert us to the weakness of our own hearts, and warn us to guard against such attitudes in ourselves. The unbeliever cannot “rejoice with them that do rejoice” (Rom 12:15) if he has not received the same blessing. We can share in the joy of those more prosperous than we, because we have learned “in whatsoever state [we are], therewith to be content” (Phil 4:11). Our Father is wise enough to know what each of us needs, powerful enough to give it to us, and loving enough not to withhold it. From this foundation, we can enjoy the greatest increase any human could want: “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim 6:6).
Heb 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
February, 16th 2010 at 10:22 am
This is interesting…reminiscent of the story about people getting paid the same sums for varying durations of labor, where those receiving the effectively-lower wage become disappointed only upon learning that others are getting more.
I’m thinking about how much the converse may also be true. There’s a principle in economics called “positional goods” or “positional utility,” wherein a user’s satisfaction from something is largely a function of it’s relative status or prestige. It’s related to another phenomenon known as “conspicuous consumption.” I’m admittedly not convinced that these necessarily map as closely to “pride” or “greed” as their counterpart clearly does to “covetousness,” in part because the former have far less historical consensus around any precise or coherent definition (hence denominational clashes about the merits of pursuing worldly ambitions), but it’s nonetheless worthy of reflection.