John Adams Has Had Enough Of Your Vanity

Well, the good news is that we got to read something historical in class today. (I love history.) The bad news, is that I had no clue how to interpret it because the diction was so outdated. The quote below is from John Adams' letter to his wife Abigail. The message itself can be connected to today, however here in 2016, I doubt the average person is aware of their unruly love of "pomp and dress".

"Whenever Vanity, and Gaiety, a Love of Pomp and Dress, Furniture, Equipage, Buildings, great Company, expensive Diversions, and elegant Entertainments get the better of the Principles and Judgments of Men or Women there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us." - John Adams

Now that sounded pretty but what does it actually mean?

Allow to me clarify. What Adams is trying to say is that people want material possessions, for example, "furniture, equipage,... expensive diversions, and elegant entertainments", to make themselves look good, People surround themselves with "great company", they have a lot of "pomp", (defined as a vain display of dignity or importance), they wear the best "dress". But what is the outcome? Often times, this changes people into fake wannabees that are consistently trying to outdo one another.

Does this still happen in 2016?  ----  Of course.

 

The picture above is consistently re-posted on social media. People today, much like back then, want each other to be true to themselves. They don't want their friends being exact copies of them, they want people who have different interests and ideals. The diversity among us is what makes life interesting. So when people try outdoing each other, this leads to a whole mess of things like pettiness, envy, and animosity towards each other. No one needs that in their life. John Adams certainty did not want it either.  

This chaos is not only in small social circles but also more wide-spread. When people are constantly trying to get the next best thing and keep up with everyone else, they lose track of their role as a citizen and more importantly, as a human. Now John Adams was not saying self-driven interests are bad. However, they can get out of hand when people become so overwhelmed with vanity that they don't care about the welfare of anyone else. We should be building each other up, not trying to tear each other down. We have to start becoming more aware of this since nothing has apparently changed since 1776. Why can't people just be friendly and get along?