Is Europe the ultimate demonstration of human vanity?

It just occurred to me. Some grad students going off to Europe for a month before they start their "real job" got me thinking. Europe seems to be a popular destination. Perhaps compared to the U.S. it is far more popular. I wonder if that has to do with the fact that there really isn't thousands of years of visual history here like in Europe where it seemed the Europeans were so vain and narcissistic they built or painted some elaborate building or statue that stayed standing for years and years. While here in the land of the massacred Native Americans, there was no such narcissism prior to the massacre. In fact, before we, perhaps least vain and narcissistic of Europeans, arrived, these inhabitants lived the antithesis - from dust to dust - in peace with nature, though perhaps not always each other.

Maybe this is the feeling I get from my fellow countrymen: they are naive enough to desire the facades of old Europe despite what these facades meant at their times and places - or maybe ignorant of those meanings. I know enough about the Spanish Inquisition, for example, that to this day the Catholic church and Vatican politics angers me more with each passing year. But I'm not sure many of my countrymen know about this event. I doubt they are even aware of the Salem Witch Trials.

As an American I look to Europe for its sage advice if only because it is reminded daily of man's vanity by these facades.

I hope for the full appreciation these grad students get the opportunity to see the ugly history behind these beautiful facades they'll see. The Coliseum is surely an overwhelming sight, though I haven't seen it. I can almost hear the builders shouting as loud as they can "I'm so much better than this, than the Lions!" Not vanity, but apology. I hope the students see this.