"We are not punished for our sins, but by them"
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Sin, in Hubbard's hands, isn’t a rule broken so much as a boomerang thrown. "We are not punished for our sins, but by them" swaps the courtroom fantasy of morality for a mechanics lesson: consequences aren’t delivered from on high; they’re baked into the act. The line works because it drains punishment of its melodrama. No thunderbolts, no vindictive deity, no cosmic bookkeeping. Just cause and effect, unfolding with the quiet inevitability of rot.
Hubbard was a turn-of-the-century American writer and aphorist with a knack for moral clarity that doubled as self-help before self-help had its current branding. In a culture reshaped by industrial capitalism, Protestant self-discipline, and a growing appetite for "practical" ethics, his formulation flatters modern sensibilities: it feels rational, even scientific. You don’t need to believe in hell to accept that cruelty corrodes the person who practices it, that deceit trains you to live in fear, that addiction rewires desire into a cage.
The subtext is both compassionate and severe. Compassionate, because it implies punishment is not a sentence handed down but an outcome that can be interrupted: change the behavior, change the trajectory. Severe, because it refuses the comforting idea of moral debt being paid off by suffering. The punishment isn’t separate from the sin; it’s the sin continuing, maturing, and finally collecting interest. It’s an elegant warning, aimed less at divine approval than at self-preservation.
Hubbard was a turn-of-the-century American writer and aphorist with a knack for moral clarity that doubled as self-help before self-help had its current branding. In a culture reshaped by industrial capitalism, Protestant self-discipline, and a growing appetite for "practical" ethics, his formulation flatters modern sensibilities: it feels rational, even scientific. You don’t need to believe in hell to accept that cruelty corrodes the person who practices it, that deceit trains you to live in fear, that addiction rewires desire into a cage.
The subtext is both compassionate and severe. Compassionate, because it implies punishment is not a sentence handed down but an outcome that can be interrupted: change the behavior, change the trajectory. Severe, because it refuses the comforting idea of moral debt being paid off by suffering. The punishment isn’t separate from the sin; it’s the sin continuing, maturing, and finally collecting interest. It’s an elegant warning, aimed less at divine approval than at self-preservation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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