Thus, a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but, what is worse, as many masters as he has vices. — St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God

As if we don't have enough things to worry about in our spiritual lives, along comes a Catholic writer that just tries to add to our misery by stirring the pot.

The study of sin is called hamartiology. (Technically, hamartiology is the study of evil in general but I'm limited to the amount I can write in a single article so I'll just stick with sin for now.)

Reflecting our Jewish theological heritage, for something to be a sin, you have to have done it consciously understanding that it is, indeed a sin.

So, if someone thinks Catholics must refrain from meat on Fridays, which hasn't been strictly the case in the United States since the 1960s, and unwittingly eats a pork chop, he has not sinned.

However, if someone mistakenly believes that he must refrain from meat and intentionally scarfs up a pork chop, he has actually sinned even though the prohibition against meat is no longer there.

It's a matter of intentionality, after all. But this is a matter you can discuss with your confessor. So when you speak to him, make sure you mention this article.

Say "Hi!" for me.

If sin were merely a matter of a bunch of rules one could memorize, very much like the multiplication table, we'd be doing pretty good for ourselves.

Unfortunately, sin is not just an intellectually grasped concept. It's also spiritually and emotionally damaging, opprobrious and stifling. It's cloying, mesmerizing, insidious and pernicious.

Sin sneaks up on us and often doesn’t even have the common courtesy of introducing itself before the assault upon our soul. Rather, one sometimes wakes up to the sinful reality in which one is drowning halfway through the act itself. All the while, still praising your, erstwhile, personal sanctity.

I recall watching several feminist spokesmen who insisted after several well-publicized sexual attacks in Brooklyn in the Fall of 2011, that the cause of those attacks was sexism. This is nonsense. The reason some men rape women is the same reason some women rape children and attack men—sociopathy. These attackers need not be "re-indoctrinated" in how to be a caring and sensitive member of feminist-led matriarchal society as if they were "otherwise" wonderful people who just so happen to be sexist. Instead, they need to have their sociopathy addressed.

Like all sins, libido dominandi, (Latin: the "lust for power") sneaks up on you and convinces you that you have the right to act as you wish. It appeals to your sense of righteousness, morality and justice convincing you that you're the thin, final line between good and evil, right and wrong and, in fact, the entire breakdown of society. It deviously appeals to your sense of pride by letting you think that you, and you alone, are righteous and that you can "make a difference" by "striking a blow" for what you think is "right." In reality, it's merely your own narcissism wanting to control others. Whether you get your way or not, you feel your anger is justified making you commit even worse sins and injustices towards others. The desire is to control others so that your personal concept of right and wrong is respected and adhered to. In essence, you hope to recreate society and others in your own image.

The term comes from Book I of St. Augustine's City of God in which the author puts to rest Aristotle's claim that an individual was a slave either by nature or by act of law. St. Augustine instead taught that an individual's freedom was solely a function of his moral state. In other words, a man had as many masters as he had vices. In a real sense, libido dominandi is wishing to recreate others, and society in general, in one's own form. This sin finds its fullest flower in the various styles of modern social control specifically, political correctness.

Political correctness is a monist, totalitarian ideology in which one need not prove one's "superior morality" through the use of subtle logical argumentation or empirical evidence but rather through threats, force of will, paranoia and emotionalism. It's more often experienced from the far left but the far right is not immune to it. It's based on an extensive and complex, historical victimology that doesn’t stand up to criticism. All evil committed in the name of their philosophy is rationalized. Their lust for power becomes an all-encompassing sin.

Those who claim to want to liberate mankind, or more likely, a special select group of it, from the moral/social order actually need to impose their own social controls because such "liberation" inevitably leads to anarchy. [1] To support this philosophy, adherents will need to rely upon rewritten history, tortuous logic, skewered statistics, fabricated lies, unexamined claims, outrageous demands and suppressing the rights of their opponents. Free speech is restricted for the sake of "protecting" it. As George Orwell wrote in his Animal Farm, "Some animals are more equal than others." Monism inevitably blinds those who wish to dominate others.

Political correctness is inevitably a result of deconstructionist social philosophy—all of society's ills are reduced to one single, core issue regardless of logic or facts. In fact, logic and facts only confuse the political correct and exacerbates the anger of these "societal protectors." Thus, legal and governmental power must be used to quell all dissension. Vengeance and legalism are the antidotes to the perceived injustice of the majority. Political correctness is a type of cultural/ethical Marxism that teaches that all morality, perceptions of reality and history are determined by power and that counter-cultural groups are the only ones sufficiently "insightful" to see true injustice and to have the answers to rectify those mistakes. Everyone who disagrees is evil (even if the political correct person insists that such concepts as good and evil don't really exist.)

Libido dominandi sneaks up on us but worse, it convinces us that we aren't really sinning. Worse yet, it convinces us of our unapproachable righteousness and that we're surrounded by a sea of the vilest of sinners.

It's important to be vigilant as to our motivations and moral limitations lest we find ourselves in over our heads lusting for the power that lies on the Road to Perdition.

[1] Lind, Bill. The Origins of Political Correctness. AIA Conference. 2000 Conservative University at American University.