On Ambition
- 1 day ago
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In the early 17th century, a Baroque printmaker by the name of Jacques Callot composed a series of etchings entitled The Seven Deadly Sins. In this series, Callot characterized each Deadly Sin in human form. One of the seven depicts a gaunt and disheveled woman clutching a venomous snake. It’s titled “Invidia,”meaning “Envy.”
Four centuries later, the world’s most successful semiconductors company was founded, with a market capitalization exceeding $4 trillion. The founders of this company struggled to figure out a name for this new company. They tried messy amalgamations of their names’ initials, but none of them aligned with their desired aesthetic. Finally, they settled on a name: Nvidia, an allusion to the Latin word “invidia” and a reflection of their great ambition. Where along this timeline did the narrative shift? Where did the redefinition occur and envy stop being a sin?
Often, the works of the Classical canon sharply denounce ambition, portraying it as vice over virtue. This could provide a solid starting place for the investigation of ambition's timeline.
In The Republic, Plato explains to the loud and domineering Thrasymachus that the best rulers are ones who accept the position of governance with reluctance. Even better, Plato says, if they feel compelled to take the seat of authority, for “the heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
Similarly, the prominent Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus criticized ambition. It is told that Epicurus lived in an isolated philosophical community called The Garden. Notably, the community lived according to an extremely simplistic lifestyle, and they condemned extravagance and unnecessary aspirations. Epicurus famously despised luxurious feasts and alternatively consumed only bread and water. He had an exception however, and that was for the occasional piece of cheese. In his mind, this small piece of cheese transformed an ordinary meal into a celebration.
Epicurus said,"direct every choice and avoidance toward securing the health of the body and the tranquility of the soul, since this is the goal of a blessed life." Evidently, lofty aspirations were excluded from the list.
Niccolò Machiavelli was one of the first to truly challenge the narrative of ambition. He sought to ennoble and dignify the pursuit. In his book, The Prince, Machiavelli writes, "Nothing makes a prince so much esteemed as great enterprises and setting a fine example." This spirit of ambition seems much closer to that of the Silicon Valley founders who redefined envy.
Aristotle provides a compromise on ambition. He describes the Golden Mean, the thought that virtue lies between two extremes in the Nicomachean Ethics.
"The intermediate relatively to us [is] that which is neither too much nor too little—and this is not one, nor the same for all."
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"Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at what is intermediate."
Rather than taking a all-encompassing approach, he defines proper ambition as a compromise. It rests between an extreme of deficiency and an extreme of excess. In a sense, it is bad to be lazy and unmotivated, but also bad to be motivated toward the wrong goals or unattainable goals.
Through this Aristotelian view, ambition becomes something that is not bad in itself. In fact, it's neutral. What it really depends on is the object which it aims at. It's a force that can be channeled for both good and bad.
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