歷年考研英語閱讀理解2000年05
[00:03.69]2000 Passage5
[00:07.72]If ambition is to be well regarded,
[00:10.74]the rewards of ambition--wealth, distinction, control
[00:14.68]over one's destiny
[00:16.29]--must be deemed worthy of the sacrifices
[00:18.82]made on ambition's behalf.
[00:21.24]If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality,
[00:24.46]it must be widely shared;
[00:26.57]and it especially must be highly regarded
[00:29.10]by people who are themselves admired,
[00:32.13]the educated not least among them.
[00:35.15]In an odd way, however, it is the educated
[00:38.07]who have claimed to have given up on ambition as an ideal.
[00:42.60]What is odd is that they have perhaps most benefited
[00:46.03]from ambition--if not always their own then
[00:49.66]that of their parents and grandparents.
[00:52.69]There is heavy note of hypocrisy in this,
[00:55.61]a case of closing the barn door
[00:57.53]after the horses have escaped
[00:59.65]--with the educated themselves riding on them.
[01:03.65]Certainly people do not seem less interested in success
[01:07.08]and its signs now than formerly.
[01:10.21]Summer homes, European travel, BMWs
[01:14.14]--the locations, place names and name brands may change,
[01:18.57]but such items do not seem less in demand today
[01:21.90]than a decade or two years ago.
[01:24.51]What has happened is that people
[01:26.07]cannot confess fully to their dreams,
[01:28.79]as easily and openly as once they could,
[01:32.12]lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar.
[01:36.22]Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical spectacles,
[01:40.26]which now more than ever seem in ample supply:
[01:44.10]the critic of American materialism
[01:46.32]with a Southampton summer home;
[01:48.63]the publisher of radical books
[01:50.41]who takes his meals in three-star restaurants;
[01:53.35]the journalist advocating participatory democracy
[01:56.15]in all phases of life,
[01:58.37]whose own children are enrolled in private schools.
[02:02.32]For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional,
[02:06.37]the proper formulation is," Succeed at all costs
[02:10.51]but avoid appearing ambitious."
[02:13.73]The attacks on ambition are many
[02:16.06]and come from various angles;
[02:18.38]its public defenders are few and unimpressive,
[02:21.80]where they are not extremely unattractive.
[02:25.69]As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse,
[02:29.83]a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of the young,
[02:33.55]is probably lower than it has ever been
[02:36.28]in the United States.
[02:37.79]This does not mean that ambition is at an end,
[02:40.92]that people no longer feel its stirrings and promptings,
[02:44.56]but only that, no longer openly honored,
[02:47.87]it is less openly professed.
[02:50.61]Consequences follow from this,of course,
[02:53.43]some of which are the ambition
[02:55.35]is driven underground, or made sly.
[02:58.97]Such, then, is the way things stand:
[03:01.90]on the left angry critics,
[03:04.12]on the right stupid supporters,
[03:06.63]and in the middle, as usual,
[03:08.87]the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.
