Seven deadly sins have been identified: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth. Knowing them does not prevent committing them.
The sins have virtuous counterparts. Virtuous Pride, Industry, Love, Respect, Discipline, Forbearance, and Initiative. There is a personal satisfaction experienced when the are practiced. There are also societal benefits attained when individuals collectively, and reasonably, practice them.
What makes them sinful is going to extremes in the same, or in polar opposite, behaviors. The virtues morph into the sins. They can be collectively summarized with a single word, excess.
It can reasonably be said that an excess of anything is evil. And that can be extrapolated to say, excess is evil and evil is excess.
When evil/excess becomes de rigeuer, society, even on a national basis, takes steps to purge it. Some extreme examples are the American and French Revolutions, the Civil War, WWII, and Korea. The excesses of colonial rule, the aristocracy, slavery, German and Japanese Imperialism, and the attempt by North Korea to take over South Korea, all had to be confronted and, thankfully, checked. Even now in the Ukraine, the excess of power being displayed by the Russian dictator is being resisted by an international coalition. Many of our laws, regulations, and ordinances are an attempt to curb excess.
On a personal basis, excess can be avoided by making behavioral changes to avoid it as soon as the first signs are recognized. If excess takes hold and becomes the raison d'être, it takes heroic individual effort to get rid of it. It is an addiction and analogous to war on the international scale.
All of this does not propose prevention on a grand scale, but admonishes us to is be mindful that small excesses on a personal level can lead to perdition if they take hold. Excess is the result of gratifying personae who are primarily of the Emotional source. We see that this is the battleground of good v. evil, the struggle to keep appetites under control.
When a being succumbs to excess, it denies Core-being the ability to achieve his aim. Denied, Core-being patiently waits for moderation to be restored so he can get on with his work. If he determines that that won't happen, he may exit the being and allow it to be destroyed by those same excesses.
