Open Mike III: Seven Dangers to Human Virtue

1. Wealth without work.
2. Pleasure without conscience.
3. Knowledge without character.
4. Business without morality.
5. Science without humanity.
6. Worship without sacrifice.
7. Politics without principle.

(The "Seven Social Sins" of Mohandas K. Gandhi, known as the Mahatma*)

Funny how there can still be great things out there that you can discover from a T-shirt.

Mike
(Thanks to the guy who was wearing the T-shirt)

"Open Mike" is the Sunday off-topic edition of TOP. There usually aren't three of them.

*"Mahatma" is a transliteration of the Sanskrit for "great soul."

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ed Hawco: "A T-shirt is the best place to discover it. You certainly won't learn this by observing the world around you.  :-/  "

Comments

[Hugh Smith]

Seen on a "T" shirt at a mall:
"Sex is like snow. You never know how much you're going to get or how long it will last."
(On a young ladies "T" shirt at the mall.)
mi dos pesos

[Don]

8. India without Pakistan.

Arguably a result of Gandhi's intransigence.

He might have been a great soul but he was a religious fanatic, he endorsed the caste system, and some of his early writings are quite revealing:

The impression, which is but too prevalent both in the Transvaal and in this Colony, that the quiet and inoffensive Arab shopkeeper, and the equally harmless Indian, who carries his pack of dainty wares from house to house, is a Coolie, is due largely to an insolent ignorance as to the race whence they spring. When one reflects that the conception of Brahmanism, with its poetic and mysterious mythology, took its rise in the land of the “Coolie trader”, that in that land 24 centuries ago, the almost divine Buddha taught and practised the glorious doctrine of self-sacrifice, and that it was from the plains and mountains of that weird old country that we have derived the fundamental truths of the very language we speak, one cannot but help regretting that the children of such a race should be treated as equals of the children of black heathendom and outer darkness. Those who, for a few moments, have stayed to converse with the Indian trader have been, perhaps, surprised to find they are speaking to a scholar and a gentleman. ... And it is the sons of this Land of light who are despised as Coolies, and treated as Kaffirs.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Collected_Works_of_Mahatma_Gandhi/Volume_I/May_1895_Petition_to_Lord_Ripon

[Yonatan Katznelson]

Perhaps the esteemed members of Congress should be required to wear this T-shirt as their official uniform. The message might sink in, kind of like subliminal advertising.

(Also - though this is covered in part by #s 3 and 5, I would add ``technology without wisdom''... more of a danger to existence than virtue, but there is a bit of virtue in existence too.)

[Stan B.]

21st cent USA to a T.

[Michael Bearman]

How times have changed. These are no longer social sins but instead are requisite social aspirations.

[Hugh Smith]

Only SEVEN?

[paul in Az]

On a T-shirt spotted in a book store.
A favorite of mine, a Graucho Marx quote.

"Outside a of dog a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog its too dark to read."

[Steve Smith]

Sounds like the right wing elite in both of our countries.

[Doug Thacker]

The T-shirt I've learned the most from recently I saw being worn in Tokyo. It featured a large black rectangle on its front, inside of which were the words:

"This Image Not Available In Your Country."

[Jim Metzger]

A tee shirt worn by a well endowed woman at a Breast Cancer Awareness rally "Of course they are fake, the real ones tried to kill me"

[Roger Overall]

All this T-shirt talk makes me think TOP might do well out of a TOP T-shirt. I'd wear one with pride.

[Kodachromeguy]

Nos 1, 2, 4 and 7 are certainly destroying the USA, not too slowly and inexorably.

[Ken Tanaka]

Two t-shirt inscriptions have stuck with me.

Two summers ago I was walking behind a lovely young womanl wearing a black t-shirt with white text reading , I'm big in Bulgaria..

I also recall, a few years ago, seeing a -ahem- heavy fellow wearing a t-shirt reading, "When is someone going to do something about my weight?"

[Manuel]

My T-shirt culture is admittedly very poor. The most interesting saying I've read stamped on cotton was "F*ck Google ask me."
This said I have reasons to believe the seven dangers have actually become virtues in this twisted world. Except knowledge, which no one seems to give a toss about - with or without character.

[Kevin Purcell]

Gandhi probably would have added:

8. India without Jāti.

Gandhi gets too much slack for his views on the Indian caste system (Jāti).

He could be snotty about the West ("Western civilization. It would be a good idea") but at least we don't have a class system that is hereditary. You can escape the Western class system but you can't escape a government enforced caste system for the reservation of jobs.

His view of India was built around the hierarchy of the caste system ("Caste, has saved Hinduism from disintegration"). He didn't think the current system was perfect but he certainly didn't want to abolish it.

Of course, it was reinforced by the British Raj (the caste system was a race-like classification system that appealed to the Victorians) but I didn't see Gandhi complaining about that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India

[These comments (this and others about Gandhi) are textbook ad hominem and don't address the subject of the post. Just sayin'. --Mike]

[David Bennett]

Opinions without humility

[Yonatan Katznelson]

To David Bennet - Amen!

[Mathew Hargreaves]

Nice wisdom. It combines well with the ten commandments.

My favorite T shirt slogan came about due to Edward Snowden. "N.S.A. / The only government agency actually listening to you."

[Stan B.]

I don't get how people are saying that The Mahatma was big on the caste system- he was, in fact, very much opposed to what it had devolved into:

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/caste/mahatma-gandhi-views-on-caste-system/38494/

[John Ironside]

The Guardian's take on the the NSA meme.
a crown pictogram
G. C. H. Q.
Always Listening To Our Customers

[Sean]

4. Business without morality

Said T-shirt probably made in a sweat shop in Bangladesh