Unit2 The Virtues of Ambition.docx

Unit2 The Virtues of AmbitionThe Virtues of Ambition Joseph Epstein 1. Ambition is one of those Rorschach words: define it and you instantly reveal a great deal about yourself. Even that most neutral of works, Webster's, in its seventh New Collegiate Edition, gives itself away, defining ambition first and foremost as " an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power." Ardent immediately assumes a heat incommensurate with good sense 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 these are precisely the ambitious people most to be distrusted. 野心是罗夏墨迹测验的字眼之一：给它下个定义你立刻就流露出你很多的内心世界。即使是最中立的著作，韦伯斯特的字典，新大学版第七版，也暴露出自己的观点，将“ambition”首先定义为：“追求官阶、名誉或权势的强烈欲望。”于是乎“ardent”这个词直接承受一种压力，与褒义和恒心不再不相称，而官阶、名誉和权势至少受到百年猛烈的抨击。毕竟是有人热衷于为民谋福利；为减轻民众的痛苦而奔走，为开发民智而雄心万丈，尽管有人说这些恰巧是野心勃勃的人，绝大多数不可信任。 2. Surely ambition is behind dreams of glory, of wealth, of love, of distinction, of accomplishment, of pleasure, of goodness. What life does with our dreams and expectations cannot, of course, be predicted. Some dreams, begun in selflessness, end in rancor; other dreams, begun in selfishness, end in large-heartedness. The unpredictability of the outcome of dreams is no reason to cease dreaming. 毫无疑问，雄心大志期望的是荣耀、财富、爱情、名气、成就、享乐、完美。当然，命运怎样对待我们的理想和期待不可预料。有些梦想，始于大公无私的初衷，其结果是积怨结仇；有的梦想，起先纯粹是出干自谋私利，但到头来却称善于人梦想结果的不可预见性决不是停止梦想的理由。 3. To be sure, ambition, the sheer thing unalloyed by some larger purpose 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 seems a sufficient cause for driving ambition under the counter. 诚然，说到野心，即使并不掺杂超过敢于向上爬这样目的的纯粹事情，也不会让人感到前程似锦。如同酒鬼之嗜酒，执着的人怀有野心使它声名狼藉。就像嗜酒如命一样，野心也总是欲壑难填。有些人不能控制野心；给他人带来灾难，这就不单单是野心人的问题。虽然如此，这当中似乎没有一点充分的理由将野心驱逐到见不得人的暗处。 4. What is the worst that can be said-that has been said-about ambition? Here is a (surely) 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 useful than it is today. The person strongly imbued with ambition ignores the collectivity; socially detached, he is on his own and out for his own. Individuality and ambition are firmly linked. The ambitious individual, far from identifying himself and his fortunes with the group, wishes to rise above it. The ambitious man or woman sees 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 those possessed by it into believing that what they want for themselves 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. 在人们数落野心的种种不是时，野心能坏到什么极至呢?兹列一份略带偏见的清单：首先，野心常常反社会，如今确实风光不再，它属于个人主义比今天更受重视和有用的年代。具有强烈野心的人无视集体利益：与社会离心离德，惟我独尊，我行我素。个人主义与个人野心紧密相连。心怀野心的人，完全不把自己和自己的命运与团体等同起来，只想出人头地。具有野心的男人或女人将世界视为战场：竞争是他们最重要的情感：世界提供了为数有限的奖项，他们也坚决要去摘取自己的桂冠。进一步说，野心就是狡诈；它能劝服心怀此胎的人相信，他们为自己所做的事情对每个人都有好处满足他们的私欲对国家最为有利。真正的野心家认为这是一个狗咬狗的世界，与众不同的是他们要成为吃狗的狗。 5. From here it is but a short hop to believe that those who have achieved the common goals of ambition-money, fame, power-have achieved them through corruption of a greater or lesser 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 risen as they have? 从这里来看，很容易相信凡是获得金钱、名誉、权势，即已经达到一般野心目标的人，他们通过小巫见大巫似的腐败手段谋取私利，绝大多数都是相当骇人的程度。因此，所有位居要职的政客，被人认为是野心勃勃，自己也是心知肚明，事实上，他们完全没有道德顾忌。他们怎么会有这样的顾忌在往上爬的途中是一个沉重的负担，何况负担也会随之上升呢? 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, it must be widely shared; and it especially must be esteemed by people who are themselves admired, the educated not least among them. The educated not least because, 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 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 astride them. 假如野心被人看好，那么野心的回报财富、名气、生杀予夺必须要被人认为值得野心为之付出的牺牲。如果传统的野心有活力，它必须得到广泛的共识；特别要得到自己受到别人崇拜的人之尊重，其中尤其要有受教育的人。这是因为，与过去相比有过之而无不及，正是这帮受过教育的人窃取了公共讨论的讲台，在报刊、杂志、电视上滥用说话和写作的权利。是受教育的人以一种奇怪的方式宣称放弃野心作为一种理想，可笑的是也许他们往往是野心的最大获利者如果不是他们的话，那便是他们的父母或者祖父母。这里面有好多虚伪的东西；有一个案子是在马逃跑之后再关上马厩门可是马背上骑的是受教育的人 7. Certainly people do not seem 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 seem 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. Instead we are treated to fine pharisaical spectacles, which now more than ever seem 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 phases of life, whose 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." 当然，拿现在与以前相比，人们似乎不会对成功：口功成名就的生活方式不感兴趣。避暑别墅、欧洲旅游、宝马轿车别墅的地点、游览的地名和汽车的品牌会因时而变，但是与十年前或两年前相比，人们对这些东西似乎并没有减低要求。目前的情况是人们不能像以前那样大方公开地爽爽快快承认他们的梦想，惟恐被人认为是爱出风头、贪得无厌、粗俗不堪。与此相反，我们有幸看到精彩的虚伪景象，似乎现在越发是层出不穷：一位新潮的律师住进25万美金的曼哈顿豪华公寓；一位美国物质主义批评家有一座南安普敦避暑别墅；激进书籍的出版商在三星级餐馆进膳；鼓吹在生活的各个方面都要体现民主参与的记者他的孩子就读于私立学校。更多类似这样的人也许不是这样显山露水，正确的表达方式是：成功要不惜一切代价，但不要锋芒毕露 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 impulse, 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 prompting, but only that, no longer openly honored, it is less often openly professed. Consequences follow from this, of course, some of which are that ambition is driven underground, or made sly, or perverse. 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 obtuse supporters, and in the middle, as usual, the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life. 人们以不同的角度对野心群起而攻之；公开卫护野心的人少得可怜而且不成气候，可是他们却非常有吸引力。结果，把它作为一种健康的刺激、受人崇拜和向年轻人灌输的品质，与以往在美国流行的情况相比，对野心支持的调子已大大降低。这并非意味着野心日暮途穷，只是人们不再感觉到它的激动人心和激励作用，只不过社会不再公开对它表示敬意，人们也很少公开表白罢了。当然，由此产生的结果是，有些被迫韬光养晦，有些变成胸无大志，有些弄得蛮不讲理。野心可以被迫流于庸俗不堪，它见证了当代支持者故作姿态的空谈。于是，就形成这样一种局面：左边是愤怒的批评家，右边是愚笨的支持者，中间照例是大部分想努力成功的老实人 9. Many people are naturally distrustful of ambition, feeling that it represents something intractable in human nature. Thus John Dean entitled his book about his involvement in the Watergate affair during the Nixon administration blind Ambition as if ambition were to blame for his ignoble actions, and not the constellation of qualities that make up his rather shabby character. Ambition, it must once again be underscored, is morally a two-sided street. Place next to John Dean Andrew Carnegie, who, among other philanthropic acts, bought the library of Lord Acton, at a time when Acton was in financial distress, and assigned its custodianship to Acton, who never was told who his benefactor was. Need much more be said on the subject than that, important though ambition is, there are some things that one must not sacrifice to it? 很多人天生就不相信野心，觉得它代表了人类天性中难对付的东西。因此，约翰·迪安把他写的那本他在尼克松执政期间卷入“水门事件”的书命名为盲目的野心)，仿佛野心应为他的可耻行为负责，而不是构成他相当卑劣性格的素质丛。必须再次强调，野心是道德上的双边街道。说完约翰·迪安，另外一位是安德鲁·卡内基。他一生做过许多善事，当阿克顿勋爵陷入金融危机的时候，曾出面买断阿克顿勋爵图书馆，并将管理权转让阿克顿，然而此翁一直不知道谁是救命恩人。野心固然很重要，有些事情一个人不必为此做出牺牲，在这个话题上针对这一点是否需要深入谈一下呢 10. But going at things the other way, sacrificing ambition so as to guard against its potential excesses, is to go at things wrongly. To discourage ambition is to discourage dreams of grandeur and greatness. All men and women are born, live, suffer, and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about. 但是，以另外的方式来努力做事，牺牲野心以便防止其潜在的越轨行为，若照此办理则大锗特错。遏制野心就是遏止伟大辉煌和一生的建树。生、老、病、死，普天下的男男女女概莫能外；惟一能将我们区别开来的是梦想，是凡夫俗子的梦想还是超凡脱俗的梦想，以及我们为实现梦想都做了些什么 11. It may seem an exaggeration to say that ambition is the linchpin of society, holding many of its disparate elements together, but it is not an exaggeration by much. Remove ambition and the essential elements of society seem to fly apart. Ambition, as opposed to mere fantasizing about desires, implies work and discipline to achieve goals, personal and social, of a kind society cannot survive without. Ambition is intimately connected with family, for men and women not only work partly for their families; husbands and wives are often ambitious for each other, but harbor some of their most ardent ambitions for their children. Yet to have a family nowadays-with birth control readily available, and inflation a good economic argument against having children-is nearly an expression of ambition in itself. Finally, though ambition was once the domain chiefly of monarchs and aristocrats, it has, in more recent times, increasingly become the domain of the middle classes. Ambition and futurity-a sense of building for tomorrow-are inextricable. Working, saving, planning-these, the daily aspects of ambition-have always been the distinguishing marks of a rising middle class. The attack against ambition is not incidentally an attack on the middle class and what it stands for. Like it or not, the middle class has done much of society's work in America; and it, the middle class, has from the beginning run on ambition. 将其不同的许多因素聚合起来，说野心是社会的关键似乎非常夸张，但是这样说并不是危言耸听。若消除野心，社会之要素仿佛突然消失。与对欲望仅仅是心存幻想相反，野心意味着为实现个人或社会的目标而苦干和训练，类似我们这样的社会没有野心便不能生存。野心与家庭有不解之缘，因为男人和女人不仅仅是某种程度上为家庭工作；虽然夫妻相互之间常常希望对方出人头地，事业有成；但是双方都将深藏在心底的最热切的野心寄托在孩子身上。如今人们还在生儿育女采取简便易行的节育措施，通货膨胀是反对生孩子的绝妙经济论证这几乎本质上就是野心的同义语。说到最后，虽然野心一度主要是君主和贵族的思想范畴，时至今日，它已日益成为中产阶级的思想范畴。野心和未来建设明天的意识是不可分割的。工作、储蓄、计划这些便是在每天日常生活中野心的几个方面这始终是不断崛起的中产阶级的明显标记。对野心的攻击决不是偶然对中产阶级及其主张的攻击。不管你喜欢还是不喜欢，中产阶级做出了美国的大部分社会成果；并且中产阶级从一开始就雄心勃勃。 12. It is not difficult to imagine a world shorn of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: without demands, without abrasions, without disappointments. People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity. Competition would never enter in. Conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but purely celebratory in its functions. The family would become superfluous as a social unit with all its former power for bringing about neurosis drained away. Longevity would be increased, for fewer people would die of heart attack or stroke caused by tumultuous endeavor. Anxiety would be extinct. Time would stretch on and on, with ambition long departed from the human heart. 不难想象没有雄心和抱负的世界会是什么样子。它很可能是一个比较温和安逸的社会：没有要求，没有)中突，没有失望。人们有时间反省。他们所做的工作不是为了自己，而是为了集体。竞争不再闯入你的生活，冲突也将消失，紧张成为旧事，创造的压力也将终止。艺术不再是高深莫测，它的作用纯粹是为了欢庆和颂扬。家庭作为今社会的单元将成为多余的，它以前的束缚力已消失。长寿会增加，因为死于紧张、辛劳的工作所引起的心脏病与中风的人会越来越少。焦虑将不复存在 13. Ah, how unrelievedly boring life would be! 人类长期地摆脱抱负和欲望的压力，日子会过得越来越舒坦