Our present situation is analogous to the Titanic, which was not just a ship, but a mentality of excess and arrogance.
The condition of titanism leads to excesses of arrogance and desires for power that produce blind ignorance, the destructive rejection of all empathy and increasing brutality.
It started with an excess of British arrogance.
Instead, the culprits are excess and the arrogance that comes with success -- although Wall does show why cultivating a dark image contributed to legends about the band's demise and the personal tragedies of its members.
For example, let's look beyond the sexual activities usually cited as examples of "sin" and consider the sins that were the downfall of the ancient city of Sodom: pride and arrogance, excess of food and comfort, neglect of the poor, immorality and idolatry.
It's reminiscent of VH1's "Behind the Music" series, in which the arc is always the same: The band gets big, then falls into turmoil, then tries to make a comeback without committing the same old sins of arrogance and excess.
MF Global is the latest dastardly culprit of Wall Street's arrogance and excess.
Which means, somewhere under all that arrogance and excess, there's a human.
Christian citizens would shun any politician or entertainer or athlete who lives a lifestyle of pride, arrogance, or excess.
Their Gods that Failed are not just the City and Wall Street and various other citizens that annoy them but, in a smart rhetorical manouevre, certain copy-book moral failings: speculation, recklessness, greed, arrogance, oligarchy and excess.
