‘Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.’ Those were the sagacious (logophile vanity?) words of the famous writer, Jane Austen, whose novel, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is among the greats of all time. She has been compared to legendary musician, Wolfgang Mozart, as one of a tiny number of individuals who produced works of genius, while still a teenager.
Jane Austen elaborated on the theme with, ‘vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.’
This is not a lecture; merely a reflection. A simpler definition of vanity that I prefer is: ‘Excessive pride in, or admiration of, one’s own appearance or achievements.’ Per se, the preoccupation with ‘what shall I wear/how is my hair’ is fine. It boils down to a question of degree. Where crossing the red line takes pride into vanity.
Vanity is generally a function of the wealthy. Others prioritise best-case survival. The rich have the money, the assets, social and even political status in which to pursue indulgence. However, vanity is nothing new. From ancient Egyptian and Roman times, people have been obsessed with appearance. The wealthy would submerge themselves in cosmetics, oils and fancy clothing. Then in the 1700s, men in England started wearing big fancy wigs to hide baldness and non-mentionable diseases. The criminal courts of the UK and Eswatini have judges and legal counsel still wearing those wigs as part of a rather pompous culture of maintaining the tradition and formality of the courts. In the USA, the wig has gone. In many societies, men do wear hair-lookalike wigs, aiming to secretly create the improved appearance. Fortunately, unaware of passers-by invariably thinking or saying – he’s got a wig on.
The vanity creating that fashion in the 1700s has extended into modern times. In the 1960s, the ladies who we chased (chaste ladies, I must emphasise) had the bouffon hairstyles – massive edifices that threatened to topple their owner-occupiers. These elicited the most admiring looks from myself and fellow chasers. When we look at them today, we may be heard whispering ‘ouch!’.
However, fashion has a noticeable roundabout activity in some areas. The ‘short back and sides’ (SBAS) haircuts that some fathers insisted upon, not least to save money, were something that in my youth caused embarrassment, even shame, among one’s peers. Today, you aren’t fashionable if you don’t have an SBAS. Men’s trousers are another example. Tight as possible and called ‘drainpipes’ in the 1950-60s, to emphasise the narrow tube into which the legs had to be squeezed. Alienated for decades, thereafter, during the bell-bottom trousers era, only to be fashionable again today. It’s the turn of the bell-bottoms soon, though I can’t see that coming.
In modern times, the mechanism that has given an indulgence in vanity the biggest shot in the arm is social media, where self-promotion has emerged as a cost-effective substitute for conventional advertising. Then, what does vanity demand when you have enough money to buy whatever clothes you fancy, have your hair done twice a day and place a few Porsches, Mercs and Beemers in the driveway? It offers replacement of various personal features that Mother Nature gave you, and with which you are no longer satisfied. I am excluding the necessary organ transplants and referring only to the cosmetic alterations, mainly of the face. Well, put simply, it’s your face, so you can do what you like with it. But just be careful. Many times, you see famous people, are simply never satisfied with what they have. They end up with something resembling a disaster. They didn’t deserve that. Couldn’t someone have warned them?
The reality is that physical self-improvement – whether by clothing or other physical add-on embellishments – is definitely a relatively unique feature of our times. And can extend into a state of pure vanity. I have undying admiration for the great athletes – sportsmen, runners, field athletes, and weightlifters. But when it comes to the bodybuilders, I slow down into free-wheeling mode (I’m on the bike now and I’ll include cyclists in the “good” list). What does bodybuilding achieve? Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger achieved stardom with dedication to many hours a day to build a body that, if we’d been supposed to have, we’d have had.
That is why I reserve the fullest admiration for the likes of Andy Ripley. The great Corinthian sportsman was a triathlete, top sprinter, played rugby for England and won the BBC World Superstar series, later becoming a top rower in his fifties. He contracted cancer, became an ambassador for the Prostate Cancer Charity and before he died, still quite young and emaciated like a stick, he attended a very public OBE award function. Not a trace of vanity in him. He should be posthumously knighted.
Nothing wrong with self-improvement, using gratefully what you have been given and building on that in a productive way. It is the intrinsic quality of a person that should be what impresses others, if that’s the objective. And what are you anyway? At the very basic level, we have this: ‘What you really are is how you behave when you don’t think anyone is watching you.’ Up a few levels and ‘you are how you treat everyone, regardless of what they have.’
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