I caught a pretty raw glimpse of this sin the other day on a television talk show. The ''guests'' were trashing themselves for a studio audience bent on cheap thrills. The guests, as usual, were quite pitiful, but the audience who jeered and hooted didn't get it, couldn't relate to them as human beings at all. Any person with a shred of sensitivity feels insulted at such a display of utter alienation being paraded and actually encouraged by this talk show. It's the very last thing we need.
People are already too alienated and too readily viewed as objects.
This we know. But we can't afford too much of it. No human being can survive in it. We cannot be totally herded, totally made anonymous, because the uniqueness in each of us cries out to be seen, and recognized and honored. Truly, we each mirror the eternal, and to insult that aspect in ourselves and others is to insult the creator and to miss the point of existence.