CHAPTER 1: 1492: The Seven Deadly Sins Tumble out of Europe

Europe Rebelling Against Christianity:
The Role of the Renaissance

EUROPEANS LACKED AN IDEOLOGY JUSTIFYING SELF-INTEREST. In Renaissance Italy, elites and intellectuals used the Greco-Roman heritage to free themselves from a medieval Christian worldview and to integrate their society. In the Italian city-states, lack of cultural integration was especially marked. Rather than one set of rules, there were separate sets for separate "games" of politics, trade, church and art. Capitalists, politicians and thinkers such as Machiavelli developed rationales that justified existing rules.

The Dane Johannes Sløk argues, "The Renaissance meant that humanity seized power in a radical liberation from all traditions and authority." Acquiring power and accumulating capital became justifiable ends, unlimited ends. There was no limit to the power and capital that could be accumulated. By accumulating, elite individuals and families differentiated themselves from society and its interests. Individualism justified accumulation. Limitlessness created uncertainty (especially for those subject to elites), which encouraged dynamic innovation. Individualistic, innovative, respecting no limits, humans were in control.

Renaissance Europeans did not invent rebellion against God. They only tried to justify and regularize it, then build a society around it. They groped for ideas to explain and justify rebellion and for human-centered ideologies to integrate their culture.²⁷