Vanity Fair. How To Recognize A Conceited Person? - Society

If a person were like a cat that walks by itself, would he have such qualities as ambition and vanity? Apparently not. These are the qualities of collective beings. Their roots give rise to the sprouts of the tree, the "branches" and "crown" of which bloom in society

Ambition and vanity are the most indicative social feelings of the egoistic content of a modern person, as well as a person from the past.

At the same time, ambition is interpreted by researchers as a desire to acquire a high social position, influence, as well as a desire to earn recognition and related honors and awards.

Vanity is seen as the futility of seeking fame, boasting, arrogance, ambition, that is, the desire to achieve reverence by others for something that is not really a person's true dignity.

Lighthouses of ambition

In modern society, ambition can be perceived as a negative quality, and neutral, and positive. In the collectivist cultures of the East, ambition is condemned, in the individualistic cultures of the West, it is encouraged, and in hybrid cultures where there is an intertwining of East and West, an indifferent attitude prevails.

A large number of all kinds of competitions, titles, awards, honorary positions - an indicator of the domination of "ambitious beacons" in society.

However, realizing that ambition acts as an egoistic generator of the individual's social activity, it is sometimes difficult enough to consider the conditional border beyond which the ambition of one leads to the infringement of the rights and freedoms of others, and the pursuit of false glory and the madness of his own greatness - to the death of people and even nations.

Attraction to greatness and resentment

Vanity is not just ambition, but the arrogant desire of a person to rise above others, his desire to declare to them a claim to his exclusivity. Such a person desires much more than he really can or deserves. This is a terrible force acting within us and against ourselves.

Ambitions are present to one degree or another in each of us, but they have a different direction, and it is their pathological nature that translates into vanity.

Vanity is nothing more than one of the forms of manifestation of resentment, which a person is not able to forgive, because he cannot achieve the real greatness to which he aspired to follow the role models

Buy me an "academician"

For example, sometimes one has to observe how scientists, after becoming doctors of sciences and professors, immediately strive to "jump" to the topmost perch of the scientific hierarchy - "academicians." Moreover, many of them have absolutely no internal potential for this.

If they don't reach these "heights", "vanity firms" give them the opportunity to simply buy those titles. For example, you can acquire the title of Academician of the New York Academy of Sciences.

And soon the pseudo-academics, with proud grandeur, are prescribing a new title on their business cards and office plates. At the same time, they react very painfully when those around them convict them of “forgery”.

Another familiar example is politicians who assert their greatness by exploiting the aspirations and hopes of voters. Flirting with populism is also an installation of the vanity of a politician who strives to be better than others. He tries to attract attention to himself in order to generate admiration and envy from both voters and competitors.

A bad soldier who does not dream of becoming a general. But woe to those who obey a general with the psychology of a “freed slave”.

How to recognize a conceited person?

An overly vain person outwardly may well seem modest, but he will certainly have conspicuous attributes that arrogantly emphasize his exclusivity.

He wants to be addressed with pleasant, ear-pleasing words and reviews, intolerant of criticism, touchy and vindictive. Vindictiveness manifests itself at the level of the fact that, posing as a victim, such a person begins to constantly complain, look for "specks in the eyes of others."

He does not hesitate to choose the means to preserve his sense of superiority and protect arrogance from any encroachment, choosing the most destructive methods of revenge.

Seeming, not being

Vanity, like ambition, is present in each of us. The difference is in the levels of their installation.

As noted psychologist Alfred Adler, “vanity is a consequence of the dissatisfaction of many people. They are those unfortunate that they cannot find a common language with others and adapt to life. Their main goal is the desire to appear more significant than they really are."

Such people are eternally with everyone at knives, since their only concern is their own reputation, and in a society of vanity, the principle “to appear, not to be” is a significant guideline for life. It is enough to recall the novel by William Thackeray "Vanity Fair" or Anton Chekhov's story "Joy" to understand what vain people are ready to sacrifice.

Imaginary fame on social media

Today, in the era of the dominance of social networks, the vanity of those people who seek to declare themselves at any cost is especially vividly manifested. It is important for them to show how they can “defeat any enemy” or “take possession of any citadel”.

It is especially sad that such vain individuals create negative orientations for immature children's minds and infect them with dark thoughts about the ability to win "great victories."

This is how various destructive groups of minors arise, in which teenagers with a fragile psyche are involved. Vanity is very toxic, and especially in a social environment where it acts as a role model. "Take a chance, be different, you are the chosen one, you are the best …"

Vanity Generation Factories

Vanity causes a whole range of social and psychological manifestations.

People can both admire those who have ascended the pedestal of fame - having received a prestigious award, award or entered the top of the best, and envy them, and sometimes hate them.

But if earlier (before the advent of television, the Internet and social networks) such manifestations were broadcast to a more or less limited audience, today the symbiosis of human vanity and the media has received the opportunity to penetrate the consciousness of thousands of people.

Vanity people and "institutions of vanity" supply the information market with the fame, power, and wealth of the few and everything connected with them. And the media are turning into a kind of mouthpiece for vanity

The illusions of one's own greatness no longer represent something extraordinary and unnatural. They are presented as an everyday occurrence in the life of modern society. After all, the desire to be better than others is quite acceptable and sometimes the only motivation for personal self-development.

Beyond the cave mind

Nature itself encourages the development of the human individual, rewarding everyone who has achieved high results with a sense of satisfaction.

If it were not for those who strive for self-improvement, for perfectionism, it is unlikely that our civilization in its development would have gone beyond the "cave mind"

But not every person is able to rise above others thanks to his painstaking work. There are many examples in history when it was not work that raised a person, but his painful pride, which was sublimated into the most unsightly actions.

If you can't get up yourself, but you really want to be the best (or there is only one place on the pedestal), then you can try to “lower” others. And here ambition "exalts" human baseness, which today is being produced on such a scale and with the help of such means, to which the richest human imagination could not have guessed in earlier times.

How to avoid becoming a toxic person

We are now under the influence of vanity propaganda in a way that no generation has ever experienced. At the personal and group levels, there is an increase in selfish attitudes aimed at their own exaltation and proof of their superiority over others, and vanity becomes the true motive of the behavior of millions.

It is important to remember that the arrogant production of such social feelings leads to illness and conflict. As long as you do not constitute a threat to others, your value and success are perfectly acceptable. But as soon as your ambition turns into a "tsunami", you become toxic and, at best, doom yourself to the torments of loneliness. Perhaps you will be happy to play the role of "a cat that walks by itself", but then the question arises - why so fiercely strive for vain glory?

More about this:

• 1. Barsukova OV The idea of ambition in fiction, religion and philosophy. - M.: Rech, 2010.-- 192 p.
• 2. Ilyin EP Psychology of envy, hostility, vanity. - SPb.: Peter, 2014.-- 208 p.
• 3. Simon Fan C. Vanity Economics: An Economic of Exploration of Sex, Marriage and Family. - Cheltenham; Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2014.-- 304 p.