Vanity: a position of last resort

(A Preliminary Consideration)

          Assuming that advent is essentially “impossible” (in that its possibility lies outside of the categories of experience), I am interested in attempting to describe the last intentional position or posture human being can take in seeking the divine. I would like to propose that vanity is just such a posture, a position of last resort. From the perspective of vanity, humanity moves from its easy habitation of the possible and into the difficulty of dwelling in openness to “something else,” i.e. that which is impossible, divine advent. Vanity is recommended to us in this regard from several sources: scripture, philosophy, and the history of Christian practice. However, before undertaking an analysis of vanity’s potential as a religious posture, it is necessary to supply a preliminary definition of the term.

            The biblical book of Ecclesiastes serves as a fitting introduction to vanity. Ecclesiastes’ place in the cannon of biblical literature is illustrative of its central theme; it is an anti-wisdom book. Traditional wisdom books, like Proverbs, present universal truths as suggested by specific observations from daily experience. For example, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” (Proverbs 26:11)  The form typically calls the reader to survey an particular instance from which a universal, moral principle will be drawn. Ecclesiastes however, is a book about exceptions. It reads as a ledger of examples in which experience does not add up, leaving our best intentions to fall short. Therefore, Ecclesiastes delivers a single judgment: vanity.

            The word “vanity” is an interesting one. In English, the most common meaning of vanity is excessive pride or egotism. While this is not the meaning intended by the author of Ecclesiastes, the ambiguity is helpful as the text is driving at crisis of human agency which in the end is nothing less than a criticism of the autarkic self. In his book, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes, Michael Fox concludes his analysis of the term (hebel) by correlating it closely with “absurdity” as employed by the existentialist philosopher Albert Camus. ^[1] According to Fox, vanity is best categorized as an irrational disconnect between cause and effect which results in indifference (Fox, 30). In making the correlation between absurdity (in Camus) and vanity, Fox suggests that vanity is a disappointment with the expectation of order and a criticism of the human ability to bring order about. When the ability to reasonably predict outcomes is challenged, the result is indifference toward worldly circumstances.

            Jean-Luc Marion employs the term similarly to Fox in his philosophical work. Because it renders all difference indifferent, vanity denies human being its means of orientation in the world.[2] In this way, vanity is not an objective observation, but rather a subjective judgment; circumstances are not absurd, as much as the human position in relation to them is absurd (Fox, 31). In his later work, Marion accurately voices the accusation of vanity with the insistent question, “What’s the use?”^[3] The thread of meaning that connects human beings to the world is frayed to the breaking point by vanity. Fox writes, “When the belief in a grand casual order collapses, human reason and self-confidence fail with it.” (Fox, 49). In this way, vanity criticizes the autarkic self as futile.

            In taking “all” under its indictment, Marion finds that vanity encompasses a “tearing away” or separation from the worldly “spectacle.” (Marion, 119) Fox agrees with this assessment, describing “vanity” as a disappointment with the world as such, i.e., existence as a whole (Fox, 32). Fox comments that Ecclesiastes presents the absurdity of vanity as an “alienation from the observed world; a distancing of the observer from the event; alienation of the observer from the self.” (Fox, 31) As a subversion of the human relationship with the world, vanity represents a separation of humans from the world. It follows that vanity establishes an exteriority. Yet here Marion makes a careful distinction. The judgment of vanity is not directed at what-is or even a sum of things that-are. Rather, vanity takes aim at the world as creation (Marion, GWB, 121-122).           

            Introducing creation at this point in his interpretation, Marion suggests that the world is a limit that can be exceeded; the concept of creation circumscribes the world, but at the same time it represents an extension beyond the world’s horizon (Marion, 109). According to Marion then, vanity does not have the last word on creation, merely the first word; the idea of creation in excess of the world enters our vocabulary by way of vanity. In this way, creation provides the “space” in which the distance of vanity can be thought. In turn, vanity offers an exterior view of the world as creation.

            Further, if vanity addresses a concept of creation, then it implies the idea of a creator. Fox agrees, finding that the totality of the conclusion “all is vanity” is aimed ultimately at God (Fox, 49). The exterior quality of the totalizing pronouncement of vanity assumes an other-worldly perspective: not simply distance, but a distinctly different viewpoint (Marion 128-129). Marion writes, “The black light of vanity already testifies to the fact that another sun can light the totality; that this other sun should render any novelty in this world unthinkable attests already that this world admits an outside.” (Marion 122-123) Vanity glimpses a glint of another light in its view of creation. While the indifference of vanity cannot admit divine advent, it peripherally presents the possibility as an alternative.

            As read by Fox and Marion, vanity describes a separation of the human self from the context of the world. Having experienced this separation from the world, the self gains an indifference toward the world. From this distance emerges the potential to readdress the identity of the human self. Therefore, I propose that vanity, as described above, is a figure of separation from the world (a perspective on the world) which predicates the turn from that which is possible to the impossibility of divine advent.

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[1] Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 30.

[2] Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 122.

[3] This phrase appears in The Erotic Phenomenon.  Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Stephen Lewis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

Comments

[Willy]

is this 'casual' or 'causal'?

Fox writes, “When the belief in a grand casual order collapses, human reason and self-confidence fail with it.” (Fox, 49).

thanks for any clarification.

[RSA]

I wonder sometimes if vanity can bring out the worst in me.

[Display Centres]

I think that there are other stuff that can help you with your understanding of vanity.

[business opportunity]

Vanity is something that can be changed like everything else.

[Job]

If that is so then why are there so many questions related to vanity.

[Soft Cialis]

well i am curious about what vanity means. specifically what does "lying out of vanity" mean? can anyone tell me please?