Adam Smith on Celebrity
A quote from the ‘Theory of Moral Sentiments’.
This disposition to admire, and to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean conditions... is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
Adam Smith from ‘Theory of Moral Sentiments’
Adam Smith gets it right again. The love of celebrity and wealth does not just cause social injustice it distorts the basic fabric of our everyday moral instincts which becomes tattered and confused.
We forget where our sympathies should be directed, we admire those we know are not admirable and we drop our standards to the level of those we admire.