Postmodernism can't kill sin (or self righteousness)

Last week there was a good column in The Times (London) by their Chief Sports Writer Simon Barnes about racism in sport. The column was prompted by a fixation of the press with recent allegations against John Terry, the England football captain.

A footballer can do all kinds of terrible things. He can dive in the penalty area. He can kick an opponent just for the fun of it and although he will be punished, as Wayne Rooney was, it won't affect his place in the England team or his value to commercial firms as a seller of goods.A footballer can lie, cheat and dissemble, he can be petulant and he can be violent, and all that he does will be accepted as part of the rough-and-tumble of football. He can indulge in grotesque displays of simultaneous fickleness and loyalty to squeeze the last $10 million out of the latest deal and still, as with Rooney and Terry, be a national hero....
A player can get up to all kinds of things off the field, including spectacular sexual irregularities, with piquant details. 

It's only racism that shocks...

 But I am fascinated by the way that, in the moral free-for-all of modern professional football, there is a need to identify something that is obviously and unquestionably immoral. It seems that football, and perhaps every other walk of life, has a need for an Unforgivable Sin. There are two reasons for this. The first is that there is a basic need for a moral structure; even the lawless need a code that they can live by. ....The second is the Unforgivable Sin can provide great comfort. If you are not committing it, you must be basically all right, mustn't you? .....
The notion of the Unforgivable Sin can be found in other sports: .... It can be found in other walks of life....

We need this line in the sand. We need the feeling that there are crimes in which there are no grey areas, no question of tolerance....  

So - and let me say it again, because I do not wish to be considered an unforgivable sinner - I am not advocating easing up on anti-racism. But the promotion of racism as the One Great Sin means that plenty of other sins, many of them equally odious, get an easy ride. Racism in sport and outside sport is something that needs to be constantly addressed. And is. There am may other things, in sport and outside sport, that need to be constantly addressed. And aren't.

I guess this also shows that in reality we do not really live in a post-modern age where morals are just a matter of personal preference. Humans have an innate sense of right and wrong and desperately want to be righteous.