And the horrors of unalloyed virtue
‘He hadn’t a single redeeming vice,’ was how the great Oscar Wilde famously referred to a particularly virtuous individual, presumably a regular pain-in-the-neck for all and sundry. Winston Churchill and Benjamin Franklin, two of the shrewdest observers of human nature, have also chronicled their horror of unalloyed virtue.
To be virtuous is without doubt a fine thing, provided it is not proclaimed non-stop from your rooftop – a very tough ask as far as most mortals are concerned. Virtue has a way of engendering a high opinion of self; and what’s more, barring truly exceptional individuals the unpleasant transition from ‘Look how great I am!’ to ‘Look how bad everybody else is!’ is only a matter of time. Nothing tempers this sort of thing quite like having a vice or two, and being aware of it as well.
Having thus established the need for some sort of a vice, we now come to the problem of actually finding a satisfactory one. This is no mean task, for just any sort of vice won’t do. To be acceptable, a vice must be of the sober type, that is, such that doesn’t render one oblivious to reality. Alcohol, porn and recreational drugs of all sorts can therefore be ruled out since they all involve escaping into an agreeable world of make-believe instead of dealing with ground realities, however unpleasant. In this regard, it is pertinent to mention that married people would have needed no particular vice (for nothing keeps one’s feet firmly on the ground quite like marriage) had it not been for the unfortunate fact that most of them (men as well as women) regard their married life as the epitome of sacrificial virtue, which takes us back to square one.
Unscrupulousness in matters romantic or amorous doesn’t fit the bill either, for flirting or worse obviously involves harming other parties. Although smoking sounds all right in theory, when it comes to practice it’s a rare smoker who can claim, hand on heart, that he has never been guilty of causing innocent bystanders to smoke passively. The purpose of the whole exercise of adopting a vice is of course to become a better, not a worse, person.
Ironically, some vices have the exact same undesirable effects as most virtues. For instance, many people consciously or unconsciously embrace the philosophy of pessimism, which qualifies as a vice since they almost always seem proud to be unhappy, and consequently feel superior to people who in their opinion are dumb enough to be happy. This makes them look down upon the latter, defeating the very purpose of adopting the vice in the first place. There’s nothing redeeming about a vice that comes with the most undesirable qualities of the best virtues.
So what qualifies as a legitimate redeeming vice?
Without for a moment suggesting that it is necessarily the one for all people under all circumstances, let me take a moment to talk about my own addiction: cola. With cola, of course there’s no question of avoiding reality or the inevitable hangover. Sure, it’s detrimental to health, but then so is every other human activity: modern medical science has made abundantly clear the harmful effects of sitting, for example. Heck, there’s irrefutable scientific evidence in support of the fact that the single most potent cause of death in humans is life itself. After all, in the end we all die – don’t we? Finally, cola doesn’t generate a sense of superiority in the imbiber: Being a cola addict, I don’t look down upon others. Well, I take that back. I do: upon cola enthusiasts who ease their guilty consciences on the basis of their favourite brand’s CSR campaign – but that’s where I draw the line. (Recall that easing of consciences is precisely what is so detrimental to a vice’s potential as a redeeming one. A vice can only be satisfactory if it is uncontaminated with virtue, even in trace amounts.) I believe my vice ticks all the relevant boxes.
In conclusion, in view of the horrors of unalloyed virtue I am convinced that having a vice (or two) is much better than otherwise – better for all parties’ sake that is. The vice however needs to be a well-chosen one, and here the reader is entitled to disagree with my aforementioned choice; in which case, he is advised to choose an appropriate one for himself.
*The author was not paid by any soft-drink manufacturer to write this article. He deeply resents this fact.