The Surprising Personal Benefits of Vanity, According to Thinkers Adam Smith and Rousseau

Are you vain?

If you don't think so, you should probably think again.

Vanity is one of the most obvious modern vices. We criticize those who think too much of themselves, who worry excessively about their appearance or what others think.

But the truth is, most of us care about other people's opinions. And not just about our physical appearance.

Vanity isn't just an aesthetic concern, but also how we see ourselves in front of other people. It's the famous "what does the world think of me?"

For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th-century Swiss philosopher, we only become truly modern humans when we become vain.

That's where our self-esteem was born: the exclusive result of the value that others place on us.

Two types of love

Rousseau distinguished between two types of love:

L'amour de soi (self-love, loosely translated into Portuguese) is a natural concern for one's own survival. L'amour propre (self-love) is the desperate need to stand out in the eyes of others. Or, in other words, vanity.

From this perspective, vanity would be a product of life in society.

According to Rousseau, as societies developed, sometime between the hunter-gatherer era and the Enlightenment period, human beings became increasingly dependent on the opinions of others to live.

"From seeing each other so much, they reached the point where they could no longer stop seeing each other," he wrote in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men.

This process, according to Rousseau, is similar to what happens when a child becomes an adult.

As she goes through adolescence, she suddenly realizes that she occupies a position or status within society.

The same would have happened with humanity in general. As we became more socialized, we became increasingly concerned with how others perceived us. As a result, human beings became progressively more vain and incapable of independent self-evaluation.

Rousseau was distressed by the fact that people spent all their time observing others and wanting to be noticed.

The one who sang or danced best, the most handsome, the strongest, the most skilled, or the most eloquent ended up being the most admired. Until we began to value other people's opinions of us more than our own abilities or virtues.

The philosopher observed that, in the end, it is not your eloquence, your beauty or your strength that matters: but what others see as eloquent, beautiful and strong.

Another perspective

The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, a friend of Rousseau, saw the issue of vanity from a slightly different perspective.

For him, Rousseau was probably right in saying that vanity was the main characteristic of modern human beings, but he saw it as something necessary and a source of our redemption.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith asks, "What is the use of our cares and anxieties in this world?"

And he answers: to "be seen, noticed, treated with sympathy, pleasure and approval".

"It is vanity, not comfort or pleasure, that really interests us."

For Rousseau, self-love is an inevitable characteristic of modern human beings. It is also the source of social inequality.

In societies where appearances are more important than reality, appearing virtuous ends up replacing being virtuous as our primary motivation. In this scenario, we begin to seek wealth and power to appear important.

But Smith thought that this supposed vice was actually the basis of our sociability and our morality.

We are vain, and society reinforces this vanity. But it is precisely this vanity that allows life in society to function. We care about what others think of us, and therefore, we adjust our behavior.

We want to be seen as responsible, so we behave responsibly. We want to be seen as generous, so we act generously. We want to be seen as kind, so we perform acts of kindness.

Rousseau saw vanity as something that distances us from morality and binds us to status. It makes us care more about the mask than the face beneath it. For him, vanity leaves us trapped in a hall of mirrors.

Smith argued that no society could exist without this mask, because it is what makes social and moral interaction possible.

To be praised and worthy of praise

To see oneself through the eyes of others is to submit oneself to the judgment of humanity, according to Smith. It is our vanity that makes us accountable to others.

But for the Scottish philosopher, vanity is not simply a mask.

"Is there any greater happiness than being loved and knowing that we deserve that love? And is there any greater misfortune than being hated and knowing that we deserve it?" he wrote.

"Human beings desire not only to be loved, but also to be lovable, that is, to be someone who is a natural target of love. Naturally, they fear not only being hated, but also being hateful, that is, to be someone who naturally arouses hatred. They desire not only praise, but also to be praiseworthy or worthy of admiration, even if, in practice, no one praises them. And they are not only frightened by disapproval, but also by being reprehensible, or a natural target for disapproval, even if no one disapproves them."

We want not only to be praised, but to be worthy of that praise. And so, our vanity compels us to earn the praise of others: we need to earn our social status.

Unlike Rousseau, Smith did not think that vanity was the result or cause of moral corruption. For him, without vanity there would be no morality and no society.

So, are you vain?

I hope so. Because being social, and therefore being human, is being vain.

As novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

* This article is an adaptation of the BBC Reel video "You're so vain but here's why that's a good thing." To watch the original video, in English, click here .