考研英语历年阅读理解真题精析--2000年part5 .pdfVIP

考研英语历年阅读理解真题精析--2000年part5 Part Five If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition - wealth, distinction, control over ones destiny - must be deemed worthy of the sacrificesmade on ambitions behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it must be widely shared; and it especially must be highlyregarded 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 bookswho takes his mealsin three star restaurants; the journalist advocating participatory democracy in all phases of life, whose own children are enrolled in privateschools. For such people and many moreperhaps not so exceptional, the proper formulation is, Succeed at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious. The attacks on ambitionare 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 admir