Smith’s Account of Ambition

            I found Smith’s account of ambition to be extremely interesting! When I think of ambition, I think of personal drive and individual initiative. However, Smith seems give an account of ambition that stems from a desire for public admiration and sympathy—something that seems to be based outside the self. According to Smith, ambition acts as a response to other peoples’ vanity. Because people are more likely to sympathize with joy than sorrow or hardship, “we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty” (50). We admire and respect those who are wealthy because it is much easier to sympathize with the rich than to attempt to understand another person’s sorrow, especially since we can only imagine another person’s hardship rather than fully understand it. For this reason, people vainly consume superfluities and show off their wealth “because [those who do so] fee[l] that they naturally draw upon [themselves] the attention of the world” (51). Vanity is therefore a response to an attempt to gain the sympathies of other people and win their interests.

            But those who are not born into affluence cannot parade invisible wealth. Smith states, “the poor man… is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it either places him out of the sight of mankind, or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers” (51). In either regard, Smith argues that those who are impoverished feel shut out from the world because they are unable to inspire sympathy in others. It is this feeling of solitude Smith conveys when he contends, “The poor man goes out and comes in unheeded, and when in the midst of a crowd is in the same obscurity as if shut up in his own hovel” (51). In order to combat these feelings of solitude, Smith asserts that an individual of lower class is willing to work extremely hard by employing “the labour of his body [and/or] the activity of his mind” in order to bring his talents into the public view (55). Thus, ambition derives from an attempt to acquire public admiration—admiration that the wealthy were able to achieve simply by a vain display of wealth. Smith ultimately argues that ambition is driven by human desire for the sympathy and affections of others. But my questions are: is this an accurate account of ambition? Do individuals strive to succeed simply because they wish to gain the affections and praise of other people, or do they do so for some internal reason too? Is it fair or accurate to say that ambition stems from others’ displays of vanity, and if so, is this the correct interpretation of the American Dream?