Johnson\'s \"The Vanity\" Jonson\'s Theme -- so

¶ … Johnson's "The Vanity"

Jonson's theme -- so often stated in his major writings, particularly in "Rasselas" - is the dangerous but all-pervasive power of wishful thinking, the feverish intrusion of desires and hopes that distort reality and lead to false expectations, where we picture things as one would like them to be, not as they are. Social psychologists would call this self-deception, and indeed evolutionary psychology teaches us that wishful thinking, or self-delusion, is very much a part of man's character.

A long poem, Johnson's perspective is a philosophical lament on the futility of human existence and the irrationality of our thinking. Blinkered humans that we are, Johnson observes, "How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice / Rules the bold hand, or prompts the supplicant voice" (lines 11-12). Rather, emotion is the dominating tone and, as often as not, squelches reason to the downfall of the human himself. It is not only the individual that suffers through emotion's dominance, but nations (an aggregation of humans) suffer too, often literally killing themselves in the process. Elaborates Johnson: "nations sink, by daring schemes oppress'd / When vengeance listens tot the fool's request" (Lines 13-14).

Closely linked to the influence of emotion is the contaminating lure of wealth on rationality. Even "the knowing and the bold / Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold" (21-22). All is affected by gold from the ruffian to the judge, and even when one has this gold, man's irrationality continues as "wealth heap'd on wealth.. / the dangers gather as the treasures rise."

Lust for power is the next despoiler of rationality. Where kings compete for land and title, "how much more safe the vassal than the lord" (32). Later indeed, Johnson seems to imply that the needy traveler "serene and gay" singing his toils away is more to be envied than the king and other wealthy and influential persons who sweat and labor after conglomeration of gold and power.

The poem, written in England of yore, has an antedated, medieval tone, but its message is more applicable today (particularly to Americanized West) than ever. Replace kings and noblemen with corporate businessmen and gold with accumulation of property, investments, and dollars and Johnson's message springs to life. On a global scale too, as witnessed by the Vietnamese war and by our ongoing Iraqi war that assumes various names as it strands along, we see man's irrationality as country seeks to dominate country refusing to let go, despite endless futility and slaughter, until it achieves its goal. Deceit piles on deceit, and squandering his limited span on earth by transforming possible contentment into constricted tension, man deliberately, and, therefore, all the more irrationally brings upon himself an early death by stress, depression, competitiveness, envy, begrudgment, aggression, and so forth. Truth becomes farce, and joys and griefs become "causeless" and "vain." With his transcendental perspective, Johnson seems to tell us that lust for money and power invents joys and sorrows where none exist and destroys our clear-sightedness.

It seems to me that additional destructive causalities can be added to Johnson's list such as the desire for conforming and the reluctance to discover our beliefs incorrect (called 'belief perseverance). These human tendencies, amongst others, cause many an individual to adhere to destructive beliefs resulting in the contemporary plague of fundamentalism in its various forms including terrorism and religious aggression. Addiction, too, of drugs, smoking, sex, and so forth, conspicuously bears evidence to Johnson's plaint that irrationality destructs the individual. Lust, wealth, and power are classical culprits, but in the modern age these have been joined by addictions peculiar to modern man.