In defence of vices

Amy Gray
August 19, 2013
The Age

With sitting denounced as the new smoking, smoking denounced as the new heroin and heroin now possibly cheaper than a carton of cigarettes, it’s fair to say modern society doesn’t like vice.

We see campaigns to change our wicked ways on a daily basis, exhorting us to increase our daily vegetable intake, give up meat or eat more of it if we want to lose weight like the French, walk more, watch TV less, stand up at our desks or even install a treadmill beneath them (they’re actually serious about that one).

Our bodies are under relentless pressure to eat, work and exercise to ever increasing standards. It’s as if we’re encouraged to live a life of non-stop activity where every moment is filled with life-sustaining purpose. It’s exhausting.

So often we’re told these virtues and “good choices” will make us feel better, happier and productive. But what kind of happiness is to be enjoyed if you’ve spent your day standing at a treadmill desk, working with clarity and focus, only to step off and enjoy a thoroughly healthy meal and spend the rest of your evening tending to your macrobiotic balcony garden or really rock out and activate some almonds? Where is the joy in that?

That such virtue leads to a longer life will be cold comfort for those who realise that longer life only leads to more virtue. Yes, you’ll be around for longer but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can suddenly indulge in trans fats when you hit 70. This dedication to virtue is not like superannuation where you save for later relaxation and sustenance – it’s a system that assumes you consider a longer life to be reward enough and that you won’t lose out by indefinitely deferring pleasure and vice. It’s a system that won’t let you enjoy crossing the finish line.

Perhaps the virtuous think they’ll be around longer to better enjoy others. But honestly, do we really want to be around the vice-free with their earnest intent? In fact, it may be a virtue to tolerate the company of those without vice. As US President Abraham Lincoln once observed, “it has ever been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues”.
We’re told that avoiding vices will generally lead to a longer life and greater productivity, but it’s interesting to ask who really benefits from our obsession with eradicating vice. Government is one, with its interest in productive people contributing to the economy through work and not draining already stretched services in healthcare; industries are another beneficiary – consider the revenue generated by the diet industry alone. Viewed from that perspective, a life of virtue could appear to benefit others more than ourselves.
And anyway, what’s wrong with a little bit of vice? A teensy soupçon of sordid pleasure?

Kate Moss once said “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, which just proves Kate Moss has never tried butter. Though I’ll never be in danger of becoming a supermodel, Moss will never know the delight of decadently buttered scrambled eggs, or creamy mashed potato that bubbles with golden rivulets, or – and I’m particularly proud of this one – twice buttered toast.

We hear the virtuous intone the clarity of mind that shines from living cleanly. But for many, boredom and laziness can be just as conducive to a clarified and creative mind. The pursuit of pleasure – whether in small or large measures – can be hugely motivating.

A spot of vice in your life can give amazing contentment. There is still no greater feeling than lying on the couch with a cup of tea, cigarettes and a spot of trashy TV. The pleasure is actually heightened in proportion to the amount of work you’re avoiding.

It’s not practical to forsake all virtue and revel only in the base pleasure of our vices – such an undertaking would be just as exhausting and boring as being earnestly virtuous. Vice and virtue exist in balance – the pleasure of either is magnified by the presence of the other.

But perhaps we should not feel such guilt over the cheeky pleasures we enjoy.

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