6 Responses to “talk amongst yourselves… i’ll give you a topic”  

1. 1 Pinkhammer Jun 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm

   There are a lot of things going through my head at the moment. If by morally neutral you mean ambition could not be either positive or negative, I am not sure I agree. I think it can be either. I would define ambition as “doing whatever it takes to get the job/task/assignment done.” negatively speaking this could mean that an “ambitious” person would step all over people and act immorrally and unethically in order to get the job done. In a positive light, however, it would mean that the person is persistant and has followthrough and does what they said they were going to do.

   That said, I think this term has been cast in a predominantely positive light. Kinda like the word “driven.” And yet, God does not call us to be ambitious or driven since at the heart of it, both terms have to do with preservation of self. I think our culture has cast these terms in a positive light because as a whole, success (translate material or financial success) is lauded and desired above all.

   I used to consider myself a very driven/ambitious person and was proud of it. Now I do not wish to have those terms describe me.

2. 2 Liz Jun 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm

   I think the concept of ambition may be morally neutral while not attached to some specific ambition, but once it moves beyond an idea and into a value or trait of a person it can no longer be morally ambiguous. Either it is an ambition towards a good purpose (with the possiblity of being positive morally) or it is an ambition towards a morally negative purpose. And given the fallen nature of humanity, the negative almost always seems to rise from ambition. Even those things that begin for a positive reason can fall into the trap of having it be all about the person who is ambitious and not achieving an admirable ambition.

3. 3 jledmiston Jun 23rd, 2008 at 6:29 am

   Hmm.

   What Liz said. I know ambitious people who want to earn more and more money even taking excessive, semi-despicable steps to do so. And I know people who have change-the-world ambitions. So maybe it is neutral. It depends.

4. 4 The local MD Jun 23rd, 2008 at 9:39 am

   I have picked this up and put it down three times but I can’t leave it alone because of the picture.

   Imagine that the bear has two cubs to feed. Her ambition is not so different from that of the salmon: Suvival for herself and her offspring. In nature ambition is morally neutral.

   For humans, in our attempts to master life, ambition becomes distorted.

5. 5 carol howard merritt Jun 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 am

   I always thought that ambition was negative. But, then I had to wake up to the fact that I’m a very ambitious person. I had to embrace the shadow side.

   As a woman, I am frustrated by the fact that men make more than women, and they get much better jobs, especially in our profession. I want women to have equality.

   But the problem is–that won’t happen until we start having a strong desire to achieve it. We are going to have to start wanting the dirty stuff–power and money–because no one’s going to hand it over to us until we start asking. Some women are going to have to get ambitious, for the sake of all of us.

6. 6 Keith Jun 23rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm

   I just did a century ride this weekend, averaging 15 mph. Hopefully I’ll ride 145 miles next time, and average 16-17 mph.

   I’d like to finish the novel I’m a third of the way through. I’d like it to be better than the previous ones. I want it to sell. I want a large advance.

   The negative aspect of ambition is pretty obvious, but isn’t the positive also?

Leave a Reply