Pride or Vanity?

Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.  Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent and well contented in fine saloons.  But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.  Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.  -R.W. Emerson, Conduct of Life

As a sort of philosophical dilettante, living in the generous and pluralist age that is sometimes called postmodern, mostly for lack of a more descriptive phrase, I often hear biting critiques of the age of reason, sometimes called "the Enlightenment," other times simply referred to as "the Modern age."  As one who has a definite sympathy with the experience of the mystics, while perhaps not calling myself a mystic per se, I often want to hear the postmodern indictments of pure reason.  I want to say that "there is more in heaven and earth than was every dream't of in your philosophies."  As one who, even in an age that is increasingly agnostic about the existence of God or gods, stands proclaims allegiance to the idea that there is a creative force behind the universe that transcends random chance and natural processes.  As one who believes that there is something in the great void of the universe other than impersonal laws of fate or science, I wander my way back to Ralph Waldo Emerson from time to time.

The thing about Emerson that fascinates me is that he is, at one and the same time, a thorough rationalist, and also one who seems to believe that there is transcendence, which has led to him, along with Whitman and Thoreau being labeled transcendentalists, but the label would lead you to believe that Emerson and his motley crew were vaguely spiritual, head-in-the-clouds sorts, who spent hours gazing at flowers and dreaming of tree spirits, when in fact, they did nothing of the sort.  The wonder of nature that they grappled most fervently with was the rather miraculous force of humanity.  Even Thoreau, who at one point was Emerson's gardener, in his famous escape from civilization at Walden, used his separation to examine things like economy and human society.

Emerson repeatedly wrestles with dilemmas of the human condition, which in our postmodern fervor to move past such crunchy old ideas we may have left behind too quickly.  It is not too hard to find glaring examples of both pride and vanity at work in our society, but until I wound my way through Emerson's analysis, I had always tacitly assumed that the two were part and parcel of the same moral deficiency, when Emerson pointed out that they are in fact two entirely separate sins.  Also, while they may in fact be sins, each produces a set of corresponding characteristics that society might be prone to admire.  A prideful person might be admired for their determination and will power in setting aside all other considerations in pursuit of their goal or their art, but they will be a hard and selfish person, perhaps not very nice to be around.  A vain person will go to great lengths to be liked and though of well, but their purpose is dissolute: "a long way leading nowhere."  They may be sycophants, they may be dandies, but they will be the life of the party, and they may actually be kind and generous in the process.

Here's why Emerson fascinates me a great deal, in addition to his brilliant turns of phrase like: "a long way leading nowhere," because he can pick apart these dichotomies and oppositions within the human nature.  In analysis of those tensions you will find that the "answer" to your struggle to be a human does not lie in the adoption of absolute values, or rigid moral standards, it lies in the struggle with the transcendent reality that can strike a balance between pride and vanity, where you can be authentic, serious and dedicated to your purpose in life, yet have enough of a sense of humor that you're not a big drag when a party breaks out.  Where you are kind and generous with others, because your life has direction and purpose, not just because you want people to like you.

I have very rarely heard people take the time to sit down and pick apart the difference between pride and vanity, to tease out the implications, to name the sins and, oddly enough, the virtues that proceed from each condition. But then again, maybe that's why we have such a hard time defining exactly what it is that afflicts us as humans in the postmodern world, because we think we've left it all behind and are moving into some glorious future where things like sin and virtue no longer matter.  I believe that there is a reality that transcends the spirit of whatever age you happen to be living in, and that reality requires us to think a bit about what it really means to be a human being.  I guess that's why, when ever I open my dauntingly thick book of Emerson's writings, I rarely get very far before I discover something I just hadn't thought of before.