Why We Chase Status and Fear Obscurity — The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Smith locates the origin of ambition in sympathy's unequal pull toward joy and sorrow. Because observers sympathize more completely with happiness than with misery, we parade riches and hide poverty; the poor man's worst wound is obscurity, the sense that no one imagines half his suffering. The laborer's wages already supply nature's necessities, yet educated people would rather die than live at that level without notice. Wealth, power, and rank are pursued chiefly to be seen, attended to, and approved, not for ease; vanity rests on the belief that one commands the world's sympathetic attention.

This disposition grounds the distinction of ranks. We defer to superiors less from private benefit than from imagining their happiness near perfection, sympathizing with their satisfactions and resenting injuries to them with exaggerated force. Kings dominate tragedy because imagination credits them with superior felicity; disturbing that enjoyment feels uniquely atrocious. Nature teaches trembling respect before exalted station, so that even when rebellion is philosophically justified, compassion soon revives loyalty, as after Charles I's execution and during James II's capture.

The great learn propriety of manner because every gesture is watched: Lewis XIV won Europe's esteem less by justice or valor than by rank, grace, and the flattery his presence imposed. The man of inferior station cannot rival that easy empire; politeness borrowed from the great invites double contempt. He must distinguish himself through knowledge, industry, patience, and probity, displayed in difficult situations that demand real virtue, while the man of rank may shine at balls and shun sustained exertion, leaving heavy administration to those raised from the middle ranks. Fall from greatness is unbearable because it ends command over others' affections. The captive King of Macedon, though promised humane security, seemed bereft when deprived of the admiring crowd; Roman spectators scorned his inability to bear loss of attention. Rochefoucault's remark that ambition rarely yields to love captures how discarded statesmen languish without public regard. Place and pre-eminence, Smith concludes, drive half life's labor and much of the world's injustice; only wisdom or abject indifference can make rank seem insignificant when conduct already secures propriety and approbation.