Omnia Vanitas

[speed]

Omnia Vanitas

Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas—Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.


Vanitas vanitatum" has rung in the ears
Of gentle and simple for thousands of years;
The wail still is heard, yet its notes never scare
Either simple or gentle from Vanity Fair.

Ecclesiastes said that "all is vanity,"
Most modern preachers say the same, or show it
By their examples of true Christianity:
In short, all know, or very short may know it.

(Don Juan, Lord Byron)



"Vanity is the fear of appearing original: it is thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality.” Nietszche




Vanity. It has been said all life is vanity: from the statesman, to the artist, to the scientist, even down to the bubbly hairdresser down the street. Vanity truly encompasses every sphere of life. It compels anchorites to suffer in deserts, saints to martyrdom, artists to huge canvases, writers to sonnets and turgid 1,000 page novels, woman to clothes and accessories and makeup, young males to gyms and steroids, businessmen to insatiable desires of money, and so on and so forth. It even—and perhaps most virulently (well, besides those cliquish adolescent girls, and their male counterparts)—affects philosophers. How long would some of these mammoth philosophical tomes be, if vanity were not part of the equation? Is vanity not the new universal? Now that man has been loosed free from his chains of community and culture, and believes, like Hamlet (Shakespeare predated and far surpassed many a 20th century philosopher), individual concerns are now preeminent—that ones questioning and understanding of ones own life and being is pre-eminent. Does this not fuel the fire for an all consuming vanity?



Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
This is the world's condition now
John Donne


Is all now vanity now that the individual is the center of the universe? (or his/her own little ptolemaic sphere)

 

[JColtrane]

That's really cool; vanity is a subject that has always fascinated me. Nietzsche is my favorite thinker who has confronted this head-on. But I think I will contribute one quote from Kierkegaard, from his comparsion of the revolutionary, passionate age and the present age in the book, A Literary Review:

"A passionately tumultuous age wants to overthrow everything, subvert everything. A "revolutionary", but passionless and reflecting age changes the manifestation of power into a dialectical sleight-of-hand, letting everything remain but slyly defrauding it of its meaning; it culminates, instead of in an uprising, in the exhaustion of the inner reality of the relationships, in a reflecting tension that nevertheless lets everything remain; and it has transformed the whole of existence into an equivocation which, in its facticity, is--whereas privately a dialectical fraud surreptitiously substitutes a secret way of reading--that is not."

 

[Seditious]

Pride is an established conviction of one's own paramount worth in some particular respect; while vanity is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others. Pride works from within; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. Vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, from without. - Schopenhauer

What makes the vanity of others insupportable is that it wounds our own. - la Rochefoucauld

The surest cure for vanity is loneliness. - Thomas Wolfe

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it. - Mark Twain

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it make us vain, in fact, of our modesty. - Louis Kronenberger

Virtue would not go to such lengths if vanity did not keep her company. - la Rochefoucauld

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity. - Henri Bergson

 

[speed]

Virtue would not go to such lengths if vanity did not keep her company. - la Rochefoucauld

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity. - Henri Bergson

These two are wonderful!

 

[derek]

Indeed, quite resonant.

 

[speed]

I still wonder how much of philosophy is dedicated to vanity? Especially in the past where philosophy was important (or at least commonly discussed in learned circles). How many of these philosophical works and arguments were nothing more than attempts or exercises in vanity and pride, used to promote or enlarge the ego or immortality of the philosopher? And is this a bad thing?

For example, even some of the most revolutionary of all philosophers, the Cynics, renounced the world and all material items, and travelled about in rags begging for food etc. When confronted with the exhortations of Diogenes, Plato replied he saw the vanity in the hole of Diogenes' cloak.

 

[Blowtus]

I think I was trying to say much the same in my ego thread - this in particular.

Is all now vanity now that the individual is the center of the universe? (or his/her own little ptolemaic sphere)

According to my dictionary 'vanity' is "Excessive pride in one's appearance or accomplishments" and by pride I believe they mean 'externalised pride'. So - the inability to conceal pride, as Mr Twain suggests so nicely.

Perhaps more descriptive terms could be developed to indicate a fuller understanding of matters - but it seems to me that when people generally speak of 'vanity', they refer to a highly self conscious adjustment of ones own appearance (whether purely physical or in a broader sense) with the aim of winning approval greater than the aim of self expression.

As people become more faceless, less entwined in each others lives (this reduction of community, individualistic business) then there is more need for favourable initial impressions, and less for favourable long lasting ones. So yes, while I don't think it's 'all' there is, vanity is certainly more pronounced, and pride in oneself potentially lessened, with individualism.

This ties in strongly with the recent 'image' thread - how we present ourselves is a tool. Appearing in a manner that leads people to a more accurate understanding of who we are would seem to me to be the most honest and enjoyable way to live, but this requires a sense of pride in who we really are, and a lack of desire for the things a more falsified appearance can bring us. I know for myself I have had to find compromise in my desire for self expression, desire for maintaining a reasonable income, desire for social contact. As of course does everyone living in a society, I would suggest.

 

[speed]

I think I was trying to say much the same in my ego thread - this in particular.




According to my dictionary 'vanity' is "Excessive pride in one's appearance or accomplishments" and by pride I believe they mean 'externalised pride'. So - the inability to conceal pride, as Mr Twain suggests so nicely.

Perhaps more descriptive terms could be developed to indicate a fuller understanding of matters - but it seems to me that when people generally speak of 'vanity', they refer to a highly self conscious adjustment of ones own appearance (whether purely physical or in a broader sense) with the aim of winning approval greater than the aim of self expression.

As people become more faceless, less entwined in each others lives (this reduction of community, individualistic business) then there is more need for favourable initial impressions, and less for favourable long lasting ones. So yes, while I don't think it's 'all' there is, vanity is certainly more pronounced, and pride in oneself potentially lessened, with individualism.

This ties in strongly with the recent 'image' thread - how we present ourselves is a tool. Appearing in a manner that leads people to a more accurate understanding of who we are would seem to me to be the most honest and enjoyable way to live, but this requires a sense of pride in who we really are, and a lack of desire for the things a more falsified appearance can bring us. I know for myself I have had to find compromise in my desire for self expression, desire for maintaining a reasonable income, desire for social contact. As of course does everyone living in a society, I would suggest.

Yes, we're on the same page here. I am stretching the meaning of vanity --intellectual vanity if you will.

Thus, as you state about appearance (and I did in a previous thread), I am extrapolating into the intellectual sphere. Those who present ideas, thoughts, for reasons extraneous to the ideas themselves--or in essence, to suit or for themselves and their place in society, not for the ideas or society itself.

And I was wondering if there was a link between vanity and the current era of individualism. Its a bit of stretch, I know, and two possibly seperate ideas/topics are perhaps wrongly put together. But I do find so much of what is written or produced in any field and academia, seems to be produced out of what I consider intellectual vanity.