The Virtues of Ambition
Joph Epstein
Para 1
Ambition is one of tho Rorschach (罗夏墨迹测验) words: define it and you instantly reveal a great deal about yourlf. Event that most neutral of works, Webster’s, in its Seventh New Collegiate Edition, gives itlf away, defining ambition first and foremost as “an ardent（强烈的）desire for rank, fame, or power.” Ardent immediately assumes a heat incommensurate with good n and stability, and rank, fame, and power have come under fairly heavy attack for at least a century. One can, after all, be ambitious for the public good, for the alleviation of suffering, for the enlightenment of mankind, though there are some who say that the are precily the ambitious people most to be distrusted.
Para 2
Surely ambition is behind dreams of glory, of wealth, of love, of distinction (名望), of accom
plishment, of pleasure, of goodness. What life does with our dreams and expectations cannot, of cour, be predicted. Some dreams, begun in lflessness, end in rancor; other dreams, begun in lfishness, end in large-heartedness. The unpredictability of the outcome of dreams is no reason to cea dreaming.
Para 3
煎酿三宝
To be sure, ambition, the sheer thing unalloyed by some larger purpo than merely clambering up, is never a pretty prospect to ponder. As drunks have done to alcohol, the single-minded have done to ambition – given it a bad name. Like a taste for alcohol, too, ambition does not always allow for easy satiation. Some people cannot handle it; it has brought grief to others, and not merely the ambitious alone. Still, none of this ems a sufficient cau for driving ambition under the counter.
王娡Para 4
What is the worst that can be said – that has been said – about ambition? Here is a (surel
y) partial list: To begin with, it, ambition, is often antisocial, and indeed is now outmoded, belonging to an age when individualism was more valued and uful than it is today. The person strongly imbued with ambition ignores the collectivity; socially 佳人的诗句detached, he is on his own and out for his own. Individuality and ambition are firmly linked. The ambitious individual, far from identifying himlf and his fortunes with the group, wishes to ri above it. The ambitious man or woman es the world as a battle; rivalrousness is his or her principal emotion: the world has limited prizes to offer, and he or she is determined to get his or hers. Ambition is, moreover, jesuitical: it can argue tho possd by it into believing that what they want for themlves is good for everyone – that the satisfaction of their own desires is best for the commonweal. The truly ambitious believe that it is a dog-eat-dog world, and they are distinguished by wanting to be the dogs that do the eating.
Para 5 电脑横屏
From here it is but a short hop to believe that tho who have achieved the common goal
s of ambition – money, fame, power – have achieved them through corruption of a greater or lesr degree, mostly a greater. Thus all politicians in high places, thought to be ambitious, are understood to be, ipso facto, without moral scruples. How could they have such scruples – a weighty burden in a high climb – and still have rin as they have?
Para 6
If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition – wealth, distinction, control over one’s destiny – must be considered worthy of the sacrifices made on ambition’s behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality李从佳, it must be widely shared; and it especially must be esteemed by people who are themlves admired, the educated not least among them. The educated not least becau, nowadays more than ever before, it is they who have usurped the platforms of public discussion and wield the power of the spoken and written word in newspapers, in magazines, on television. In an odd way, it is the educated who have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal. What is odd is
有些人走着走着就散了
that they have perhaps most benefited from ambition – if not always their own then that of their parents and grandparents. There is a heavy note of hypocrisy in this: a ca of closing the 安慰妇barn door after the hors have escaped – with the educated themlves astride them.
Para 7
Certainly people do not em less interested in success and its accoutrements now than formerly. Summer homes, European travel, BMWs – the locations, place names and name brands may change, but such items do not em less in demand today than a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot own up to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive, vulgar管理博士. Instead we are treated to fine pharisaical spectacles, which now more than ever em in ample supply: the revolutionary lawyer quartered in the $250,000 Manhattan luxurious apartment; the critic of American materialism with a Southampton summer home; the publisher of radical books who takes his meals in three-
star restaurants; the journalist advocating participatory democracy in all phas of life, who own children are enrolled in private schools. For such people and many more perhaps not so egregious, the proper formulation is, “Succeed at all costs but refrain from appearing ambitious.”
Para 8
The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impul, a quality to be admired and inculcated in the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean that ambition is at an end, that people no longer feel its stirrings and promptings, but only that, no longer openly honored, it is less often openly profesd. Conquences follow from this, of cour, some of which are that ambition is driven underground, or made sly, or perver. It can also be forced into vulgarity, as witness the blatant pratings of its contemporary promoters. Such, then, is the way things stand: on the left angry critics, on
the right obtu supporters, and in the middle, as usual, the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.
