vanity

68:2.4The herd in­stinct in nat­u­ral man is hardly suf­fi­cient to ac­count for the de­vel­op­ment of such a so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion as now ex­ists on Uran­tia. Though this in­nate gre­gar­i­ous propen­sity lies at the bot­tom of hu­man so­ci­ety, much of man’s so­cia­bil­ity is an ac­quire­ment. Two great in­flu­ences which con­tributed to the early as­so­ci­a­tion of hu­man be­ings were food hunger and sex love; these in­stinc­tive urges man shares with the an­i­mal world. Two other emo­tions which drove hu­man be­ings to­gether and held them to­gether were van­ity and fear, more par­tic­u­larly ghost fear.

68:2.6Hunger, van­ity, and ghost fear were con­tin­u­ous in their so­cial pres­sure, but sex grat­i­fi­ca­tion was tran­sient and spas­modic. The sex urge alone did not im­pel prim­i­tive men and women to as­sume the heavy bur­dens of home main­te­nance. The early home was founded upon the sex rest­less­ness of the male when de­prived of fre­quent grat­i­fi­ca­tion and upon that de­voted mother love of the hu­man fe­male, which in mea­sure she shares with the fe­males of all the higher an­i­mals. The pres­ence of a help­less baby de­ter­mined the early dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of male and fe­male ac­tiv­i­ties; the woman had to main­tain a set­tled res­i­dence where she could cul­ti­vate the soil. And from ear­li­est times, where woman was has al­ways been re­garded as the home.

70:1.103. Van­ity—the de­sire to ex­hibit tribal prowess. Su­pe­rior groups would fight to im­pose their mode of life upon in­fe­rior peo­ples.

62:5.4Many new emo­tions early ap­peared in these hu­man twins. They ex­pe­ri­enced ad­mi­ra­tion for both ob­jects and other be­ings and ex­hib­ited con­sid­er­able van­ity. But the most re­mark­able ad­vance in emo­tional de­vel­op­ment was the sud­den ap­pear­ance of a new group of re­ally hu­man feel­ings, the wor­ship­ful group, em­brac­ing awe, rev­er­ence, hu­mil­ity, and even a prim­i­tive form of grat­i­tude. Fear, joined with ig­no­rance of nat­u­ral phe­nom­ena, is about to give birth to prim­i­tive re­li­gion.

69:5.63. Van­ity—long­ing to dis­play one’s prop­erty ac­cu­mu­la­tions. Ex­tra cloth­ing was one of the first badges of dis­tinc­tion. Col­lec­tion van­ity early ap­pealed to the pride of man.

68:2.10If van­ity be en­larged to cover pride, am­bi­tion, and honor, then we may dis­cern not only how these propen­si­ties con­tribute to the for­ma­tion of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions, but how they also hold men to­gether, since such emo­tions are fu­tile with­out an au­di­ence to pa­rade be­fore. Soon van­ity as­so­ci­ated with it­self other emo­tions and im­pulses which re­quired a so­cial arena wherein they might ex­hibit and grat­ify them­selves. This group of emo­tions gave ori­gin to the early be­gin­nings of all art, cer­e­mo­nial, and all forms of sportive games and con­tests.

147:8.4“‘Then shall your light break forth as the morn­ing while your health springs forth speed­ily. Your righ­teous­ness shall go be­fore you while the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then will you call upon the Lord, and he shall an­swer; you will cry out, and he shall say—Here am I. And all this he will do if you re­frain from op­pres­sion, con­dem­na­tion, and van­ity. The Fa­ther rather de­sires that you draw out your heart to the hun­gry, and that you min­is­ter to the af­flicted souls; then shall your light shine in ob­scu­rity, and even your dark­ness shall be as the noon­day. Then shall the Lord guide you con­tin­u­ally, sat­is­fy­ing your soul and re­new­ing your strength. You shall be­come like a wa­tered gar­den, like a spring whose wa­ters fail not. And they who do these things shall re­store the wasted glo­ries; they shall raise up the foun­da­tions of many gen­er­a­tions; they shall be called the re­builders of bro­ken walls, the re­stor­ers of safe paths in which to dwell.’”

70:7.7The very se­crecy of these so­ci­eties con­ferred on all mem­bers the power of mys­tery over the rest of the tribe. Se­crecy also ap­peals to van­ity; the ini­ti­ates were the so­cial aris­toc­racy of their day. Af­ter ini­ti­a­tion the boys hunted with the men; whereas be­fore they had gath­ered veg­eta­bles with the women. And it was the su­preme hu­mil­i­a­tion, a tribal dis­grace, to fail to pass the pu­berty tests and thus be com­pelled to re­main out­side the men’s abode with the women and chil­dren, to be con­sid­ered ef­fem­i­nate. Be­sides, non­ini­ti­ates were not al­lowed to marry.

68:2.11Van­ity con­tributed might­ily to the birth of so­ci­ety; but at the time of these rev­e­la­tions the de­vi­ous striv­ings of a vain­glo­ri­ous gen­er­a­tion threaten to swamp and sub­merge the whole com­pli­cated struc­ture of a highly spe­cial­ized civ­i­liza­tion. Plea­sure-want has long since su­per­seded hunger-want; the le­git­i­mate so­cial aims of self-main­te­nance are rapidly trans­lat­ing them­selves into base and threat­en­ing forms of self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion. Self-main­te­nance builds so­ci­ety; un­bri­dled self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion un­fail­ingly de­stroys civ­i­liza­tion.