Ambition

Of Ambition

Ambition is both the sin of angels and the father of virtue. Sometimes praised, sometimes condemned, ambition is both a flaw and a gift. The enterprising youth raised up by his own bootstraps--whom we praise--is but a few years away from becoming a rasping, grasping, parsimonious Uncle Scrooge--whom we condemn.

Ambition has produced and destroyed civilization's great monuments. Look at Einstein's work on splitting the atom for an example of each. The ambition of Einstein and his colleagues brought us the promise of an inexhaustible supply of energy and the prospect of a nuclear war. The fruits of ambition's tree are like persimmons--sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter.

When given free reign, ambition is dangerous. When it's contained, ambition is deadly. Macbeth needed no spur to prick the sides of his intent to kill his king and succeed to the throne. He had in its place a vaulting ambition that overleaps itself. Macbeth was driven by ambition that drove him mad. Ambrose Bierce notes wryly that ambition causes us to be hated in life and laughed at in death.

After his stunning victory over the rival general Pompey in the eastern part of the Roman Empire (44BCE), Julius Caesar returned to Rome where he was welcomed by the people. As dictator for life and commander of the Roman army Julius Caesar was the most powerful man in the ancient world. His secret ambition, however, was to be crowned a King. The Romans had not had a king in 500 years. Rome was a republic, not a monarchy.

Republican patriots, who professed love for the republic as a convenient mask for their own envy of a peer who had ascended to a high place, assassinated Caesar. Brutus, Caesar’s friend and murderer, announced the assassination to the people. He cited Caesar’s ambition as the cause. People, senators, be not afraid. Ambition’s debt is paid.

At Caesar’s funeral Brutus defended his assassination of Caesar by citing Caesar ambition: As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him, but as he was ambitious, I slew him! There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death for his ambition. [Act 3. Sc.2].

In justifying plans to murder Caesar, Brutus describes the dynamics of ambition:

. ... lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But, when he once obtains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks into the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. [2.2.23--28]


The ambitious are servants to their benefactors. The ambitious are tethered to their benefactors as prisoners are to their wardens. If any can help or hurt the name, the reputation, the income or the prestige of the ambitious, that person is the master and the ambitious one is the slave. The ambitious have many masters. The ambitious wear many yokes. The bridle and the bit are taken gladly by the ambitious. Ambition is the offspring of envy and greed. It is nursed by vanity, reared by glory and driven by fame. Ambition is the house of many sins and the mother of many flaws.

Self-love makes people ambitious and competitive whatever the situation, and makes them greedily take on everything: they not only expect to be rich, erudite, strong, outgoing, pleasant and intimate with kings and leaders of nations, but they are discontented if their dogs, horses, quails and cocks are not the best at what they do. [Plutarch, On Contentment, p. 225]

Plutarch laments the plight of the ambitious

...who are dissatisfied with having obtained a portion of power or status among their compatriots, and who weep because they do not wear patrician robes; and if they do, then because they have not held military command at Rome; and if they have, then because they are not consuls; and if they are, then because when the announcement was made, they did not head the list. The only possible description of this is self-mortification and self-inflicted punishment.[ On Contentment, 222, 223].

The ambitious think they have fixed goals. They do not. What they seek is ever moving and always away from them. Like Ixion, they think they hold Venus when in truth they embrace a mere cloud of smoke. Their perspective on life is the perspective furnished by looking through the wrong end of a telescope. That which is near appears far away. And like a desert mirage, what is clear from afar disappears as they approach.

Old age cures ambition by substituting a worse malady: regret. While the young torture themselves by looking ahead, the old torture themselves by looking back. Over time, fulfilled ambition becomes regret. Unfulfilled ambition becomes more regret. All of ambition’s roads lead to regret. Ambition leads to misery, not happiness.

The ambitious may do different things but they all believe the same things. Plutarch describes their creed:

.... if we don’t have the advantages of both plutocrats and scholars, military commanders and philosophers, flatterers and those who speak their minds, misers and big spenders, all at once, we bully ourselves, are dissatisfied with ourselves, and despise ourselves as living deficient and unfulfilled lives. (On Contentment, 228).

On ambition’s ladder, each rung leads the ambitious person not to happiness but to another rung. When at last they’ve scaled the top, they find they’ve merely broadened their horizon. And what do they see in the distance: only people with higher ladders.

Revised March 29, 2008
920 words