AmbitionAmbition and Its Enemies1.Speaking Activities: first here are some questions to discuss for students towarm up:1) What is ambition? Do you think it?s good or bad for a person to have a strongambition early in his/her life?2) Some people believe it?s quite ok for a man, especially a young man, to beambitious in life. But it would not be appropriate for a woman to be much ambitious. What do you think of it? Do you have any supporting ideas?3) What?s the difference between wild ambition and noble aspiration ? Do youthink you can perfectly distinguish them from each other?2.Read the following passages and further your discussion with moresupporting facts and ideas.Ambition: vice or virtueA slave has only one master, an ambitious man as many mastersas there are people he thinks can be useful to himLA BRUYERE There is understandable pleasure to be taken in the downfall（垮台、毁灭）of the overweening(自负)individual who has gambled with truth and integrity（正直）to thrust his way into public notice.A Burmese proverb says: "He who takes big paces leaves big spaces", which readily fill up with trouble. This is a lesson that anynumber of collapsed politicians and public figures would do well to learn, but ambition is a ruthless master, and its votaries（信仰者）easily forget or ignore the insights that might otherwise save them. Some might say that it is not desire so much as impatience which unseats（使从马上摔下, 使失去资格）the ambitious person. People in a hurry to be famous, rich or both, are apt（无疑的）to cut corners（抄近路）, truth being one of the easiest to trim（修剪）. There are certain creatures which run so fast on the surface of the water that they do not sink, for a time anyway.But although ambition for worldly success - money, power, titles - can indeed prompt impatience, and almost always does, it is only ambition that explains a person's persistence even after he has been caught out - in warping（扭曲, 变形）facts to conceal the marches he stole, the parties he gate-crashed（无票入场）, the one-way streets he drove up the wrong way, and in general the smaller and greater dishonesties by which he wormed（蠕行）his way, without a ticket, into life's front row.It is a risky proceeding. Tacitus put his finger on it when he said: "Those who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall." He was thinking of the bloody history of Rome after Augustus, but the point is general. Ambitious people rely on others to help at crucial moments; but if they leave those others behind in their ascent（爬升）, they risk turning them into enemies.But ambition is not a bad thing in itself. Milton called it "the last infirmity（弱点）of noble minds", and even those who think it a vice - as is taught in religiousmoralities of the kind that extol（赞美）humility and "knowing one's place" - can agree that though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.Better still is the thought that ambition can be the mother of achievement, leading to scientific discovery, works of art, enhancement of the public good. A desire to be ranked with the great figures of the past can be a good emulation, if it recognises what it takes.Worthy ambition, in short, is responsible ambition, because it is prepared to pay the costs of attainment. Mere ambition wants to leap high without effort, and looks for easy ladders.The difference is well illustrated by the contrast - to employ a familiar example - between the person who says he "wishes to be a writer" and the person who says he "wishes to write". The former desires to be pointed out at cocktail parties, the latter is prepared for the long, solitary（孤独的）hours at a desk; the former desires a status, the latter a process; the former desires to be, the latter to do.It remains true that most ambition is not a noble aspiration but mere "wild ambition" which, says Dryden, "loves to slide, not stand,/ And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land." It is the ambition which consumes other people, and veracity（诚实）and trust, and eventually itself. But only, of course, if it is found out; which some seem to think is the only sin it is really possible to commit.Clinton and Female AmbitionPatrick HealySenator Hillary Rodham Clinton was pumped up（俚语：使振奋：使充满热情、力量和能量）this morning over her performance in Sunday night?s debate, trading a perfectly executed high-five with the tennis legend Billie Jean King at a “W omen for Hillary” campaign event and even taking on the “pundits”（专家、学者）who suggest she is more than a littleambitious.“Last night I thought I might be asked the question, …Well, Senator Clinton, people say that you are ambitious, what do you say to tha t??” Mrs. Clinton told a ballroom packed with more than 1,000 women (and a few men) in midtown Manhattan. “I was goi ng to say, …I assume you?ll ask all the men.?”Referring to her decision to run for office, Mrs. Clinton also said that, “contrary to some p undits, it was certainly not something I thought about all my life.” She took a long pause between the words “some”and “pundits,” as if considering, for a moment, using a less gracious words than pundits.She added, “I never shook hands with anybody when I was 16,” an apparent reference to the oft-told（经常说起的）story of her husband, as a young man, meeting and shaking hands with President Kennedy.Rather, Mrs. Clinton said, she grew up with parents who told her that everyone was expected to work and become self-reliant. She also recalled her love of sports as a child, including playing pick-up basketball（一种篮球游戏）. (Obama（另一总统竞选人）alert! Though she has talked about playing pick-up before Friday?s Page 1 storyin the Times about Barack Obama?s basketball playing, a story that raised the ire（忿怒）of some Clintonistas for its vigorous imagery.)She also revealed that she once won a mixed doubles tournament in Fayetteville, Ark., and received a trophy（奖品）where the cast of the male player was a good bit larger than the cast of the female player.As for the policy discussion at this morning?s campaign event, there was one interesting moment on Iraq. When asked ifit was possible to have a truly stable Iraq after American troops leave, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged, “I don?t ha ve an answer for that.” Regardless, however, she said that “having our men and women in the middle of a civil war is not a good policy,” and repeated her plan to remove many troops but keep a reduced force there to fight Al Qaeda（基地组织）and pursue other national security priorities there.Mrs. Clinton also got off a zinger（有力的反驳）about what she saw as the Bush administration?s approach to foreign policy, describing it in a way that parents might appreciate.“It seems to me that the Bush diplomacy is just, …go and do what I tell you to do,?” she said. “That doesn?t work with your children. That doesn?t work with the rest o f the world.”One female audience member said that when she talks up Mrs. Clinton?s candidacy to friends or at dinn er parties, she hears the same refrain: “Hillary is great and there is no way this country is ready for a woman president.” How should she respond? the audience member asked.“Well, the first answer I give when I heard that question is, I think trying is more than half the battle,” Mrs. Clinton said.But she also made clear that she had to convince enough voters that she was tough enough on national security.“Ultimately the Am erican people make a judgment about candidates for president that is focused on whether these people can be commander in chief,” she said. Once that “threshold”（阈值、临限）is crossed, she said, voters will listen and respond to candidates? plans on health care, et al.Ms. King, for her part, hailed（喝彩）Mrs. Clinton as a fellow trailblazer（开路先锋）.“Hillary can hit the ground running（to immediately workvery hard and successfully at a new activity.）; she?s already lived there for eight years! I mean, c?mon!（come on）” Ms. King said.Leadership: Ambition--Vice or Virtue?A pair of new books on Senator Hillary Clinton, as described by the Washington Post, draw a portrait of a woman who is smart, shrewd and very “methodical.” Both book s, one by Carl Bernstein (Her Way) and the other by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr. (A Woman in Charge), describe a woman bent on achieving her aims and very ambitious. In other words, she?s a politician. But consider what would a politician be without ambition? Someone standing on the sidelineswatching others do the work!Ambition is after all the inner drive that pushes someone to achieve. It is absolutely essential to leadership. Yet so often, as in the case of Mrs. Clinton and most other politicians, ambition is perceived as a negative. Why? Because it is how the politician channels that ambition as in putting the means to end ahead of the end. For example, Huey Long, the crusading governor of Louisiana in the Thirties, wanted to raise the standard of living in his poor state. He did improve the state?s infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals) through public works, but he achieved his aims through ruthless means and corruption top to bottom.The same might go for corporate executives like the Rigas family that took Adelphia from obscurity to a multi-billion status; they made plenty of money for shareholders, but also robbed those shareholders blindly by, treating the company, as one prosecutor put it, “a personal piggy bank.” Clearly ambition was misplaced for personal gain.Ambition, however, can be force for the good. Here are some ways:Use ambition to capitalize on opportunity. Sometimes opportunity is staring us in the face but we may not recognize it. Ambitious people look at the status quo and see ways to do things differently. It may be to develop a new product, a new process, or a new service. Looking to do things differently can be a force for the good. Entrepreneurs are folks who channel their ambition into looking for new opportunities.Use ambition as a tool for change. Ambition may be the driver that challenges assumptions. Part of a leader?s responsibility is to identify the need for positive change and to usher in that change. It may provoke us to say why are we doing things this way? Asking the questions may stimulate debate and ultimately action that will cause new ideas.Use ambition as tool for personal growth. Ambition is wanting to move to the next step. Fulfilling that dream may require more schooling, more training, and more experience. Ambition can be the spark that pushes you to achieve your dream, often when hard work is involved.Ambition by itself is neither positive nor negative. What you do with the drive, like all human drives, is what matters. As 18th century political theo rist, Edmund Burke posited, “Ambition can creep as well as soar.” If ambition causes you to cut corners ethics-wise so much so that you sacrifice integrity and values then ambition can be destructive. Conversely, if you channel your ambition into fulfilling organizational goals that build a stronger and better company and do it in ways that help employees and customers then ambition is a positive.。
