[00:03.69]2000 Passage5

[00:07.72]If ambition is to be well regarded,

[00:10.74]the rewards of ambition--wealth, distinction, control

[00:14.68]over one's destiny

[00:16.29]--must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices

[00:18.82]made on ambition's behalf.

[00:21.24]If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality,

[00:24.46]it must be widely shared;

[00:26.57]and it especially must be highly regarded

[00:29.10]by people who are themselves admired,

[00:32.13]the educated not least among them.

[00:35.15]In an odd way, however, it is the educated

[00:38.07]who have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal.

[00:42.60]What is odd is that they have perhaps most benefited

[00:46.03]from ambition--if not always their own then

[00:49.66]that of their parents and grandparents.

[00:52.69]There is heavy note of hypocrisy in this,

[00:55.61]a case of closing the barn door

[00:57.53]after the horses have escaped

[00:59.65]--with the educated themselves riding on them.

[01:03.65]Certainly people do not seem less interested in success

[01:07.08]and its signs now than formerly.

[01:10.21]Summer homes, European travel, BMWs

[01:14.14]--the locations, place names and name brands may change,

[01:18.57]but such items do not seem less in demand today

[01:21.90]than a decade or two years ago.

[01:24.51]What has happened is that people

[01:26.07]cannot confess fully to their dreams,

[01:28.79]as easily and openly as once they could,

[01:32.12]lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar.

[01:36.22]Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical spectacles,

[01:40.26]which now more than ever seem in ample supply:

[01:44.10]the critic of American materialism

[01:46.32]with a Southampton summer home;

[01:48.63]the publisher of radical books

[01:50.41]who takes his meals in three-star restaurants;

[01:53.35]the journalist advocating participatory democracy

[01:56.15]in all phases of life,

[01:58.37]whose own children are enrolled in private schools.

[02:02.32]For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional,

[02:06.37]the proper formulation is," Succeed at all costs

[02:10.51]but avoid appearing ambitious."

[02:13.73]The attacks on ambition are many

[02:16.06]and come from various angles;

[02:18.38]its public defenders are few and unimpressive,

[02:21.80]where they are not extremely unattractive.

[02:25.69]As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse,

[02:29.83]a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of the young,

[02:33.55]is probably lower than it has ever been

[02:36.28]in the United States.

[02:37.79]This does not mean that ambition is at an end,

[02:40.92]that people no longer feel its stirrings and promptings,

[02:44.56]but only that, no longer openly honored,

[02:47.87]it is less openly professed.

[02:50.61]Consequences follow from this,of course,

[02:53.43]some of which are the ambition

[02:55.35]is driven underground, or made sly.

[02:58.97]Such, then, is the way things stand:

[03:01.90]on the left angry critics,

[03:04.12]on the right stupid supporters,

[03:06.63]and in the middle, as usual,

[03:08.87]the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.