"Ethics of Vanity" — Edmund Burke Describes Wokeness in 1791
It's been with us for a long, long time
I was reading an excerpt from a letter by Edmund Burke the other day in which he strongly critiques a system of education based on the ethics of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (the “moral hero” referred to below), and I couldn’t help but be struck by what a perfect description it provides of modern-day wokeness:
It is that new invented virtue, which your masters canonize, that led their moral hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of universal benevolence; whilst his heart was incapable of harbouring one spark of common parental affection. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in contact, form the character of the new philosophy. Setting up for an unsocial independence, this their hero of vanity refuses the just price of common labour, as well as the tribute which opulence owes to genius, and which, when paid, honours the giver and the receiver; and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for his crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who touch him by the remotest relation, and then, without one natural pang, casts away, as a sort of offal and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hospital of foundlings. The bear loves, licks, and forms her young; but bears are not philosophers. Vanity, however, finds its account in reversing the train of our natural feelings. Thousands admire the sentimental writer; the affectionate father is hardly known in his parish.
- Edmund Burke, A Letter from Mr. Burke to a Member of the National Assembly
This “invented virtue” that Burke attributes to Rousseau is vanity, and he calls Rousseau’s entire philosophy the “ethics of vanity.” Essentially, it can be summed up in the way that Rousseau advocated a sort of universal benevolence while abandoning each of his five children to an orphanage (yes, he really did that.)
I was reminded, viscerally, of how woke social justice activists will passionately declare their love for all who they deem oppressed while expressing utmost hatred at a human being in front of them who dares to have the wrong opinions. They will champion the omnicause, which has them supporting, in the same breath, “queer” rights and radical fundamentalist Islamist groups like Hamas, but they will cut off family members who vote the wrong way or call neighbors with the wrong lawn sign “fascist.”
Whipped into a frenzy, they might even find themselves, like Matt Croyle here, asserting that you may have to kill your friends and family based on their choice of presidential candidate.
As Burke said, this ethics of vanity is “false and theatric.” It is all done for the sake of appearing good rather than for the sake of actually doing any good. It feels righteous to proclaim that you stand up for the marginalized. But most people who take up the omnicause don’t do anything but sit online shouting at others about how bigoted they are. They don’t contribute meaningfully to making anyone else’s life measurably better. It is an entirely vain enterprise. Worse yet, they may go a step further and torment friends, family, and people they know in real life for their “wrong” political beliefs and opinions.
Do I think we shouldn’t care about anyone other than those we interact with directly? Of course not. I care if people are suffering and struggling even if it doesn’t impact me. In politics, I will support policies and parties I believe are most truly beneficial to society as a whole, as opposed to the politicians who simply proclaim loudly that they care the most. I also care about gender ideology because I think it impacts many people so horrifically, whereas it has not had much of an impact on my life beyond the ways I have personally invited it in.
But political and ideological causes are not everything. They will never be the sole reason I stop talking to someone and they will never be the reason I mistreat someone. To put such causes above genuine human affection and relations is horribly misguided yet increasingly expected of people today.
Don’t take part. It is just another manifestation of the false and theatric ethics of vanity. Stay human, and listen to the natural pangs.
Wow, I didn't know Rousseau put all his children in orphanages! What a cruel hypocrite! Pretending to care about people while assigning the most vulnerable who were HIS responsibility to an uncaring, bleak fate. I did know that he thought women existed solely to serve the needs and desires of men. He was like a latter-day hippie: regressive, selfish and morally pretentious.
Nice find. Fake empathy masking the absence of compassion.