2000年的一篇阅读真题,以为绝妙。
If ambition is to be well regarded, the
rewards of ambition — wealth,
distinction, control over one's destiny —
must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices made on ambition's behalf. If the
tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it must be widely shared; and it
especially must be highly regarded by people who are themselves admired, the
educated not least among them. In an odd way, however, it is the educated who
have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal. What is odd is 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 case of closing the barn door after the
horses have escaped — with the
educated themselves riding on them.
Certainly people do not seem less
interested in success and its signs now than formerly. Summer homes, European
travel, BMWs — the locations, place names
and name brands may change, but such items do not seem less in demand today
than a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot confess
fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be
thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar. Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical
spectacles, which now more than ever seem in ample supply: 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 phases of
life, whose own children are enrolled in private schools. For such people and
many more perhaps not so exceptional, the proper formulation is, "Succeed
at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious."
The attacks on ambition are many and come
from various angels; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they
are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a
healthy impulse, a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of 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 openly
professed. Consequences follow from this, of course, some of which are that
ambition is driven underground, or made sly. Such, then, is the way things
stand: on the left angry critics, on the right stupid supporters, and in the
middle, as usual, the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.