Ambition: for Good or Ill
...ningful work, is it because one is lacking ambition? Maybe so, but one should not feel the need to find blame for one's lack of ambition because it is a learned human attribute and one's s fortune, good or ill, depends entirely on the parenting skills of one's family. This seems to be the assumption one may make reading the prologue to Doctor Faustus. Doctor Faustus is not from a family line of heros nor kings. The reason for making this fact known in the prologue is known only by Marlowe, but this may be a determining factor for the eventual demise of Faustus. He was born in Rhode, Germany, and later throughout his learning years is more or less raised by kinsmen in Wittenerg. Eventually he earns a doctorate in theology, but all is not well for Faustus is filled with cunning and self conceit. He wants more and apparently is prepared to turn to magic to satisfy his ambition (269). It seems Faustus has reached his goal, but under whose guidance and direction? Throughout the play, Doctor Faustus, there is no mention of parental influence; Faustus is guided only by the metaphysical world; the bad angel encourages him to fulfill a childish ambition while the good angel tries in vain to keep him righteous. Of course, one must assume that Doctor Faustus is really human with real human attributes, after all, Faustus was created by a real human whose imagination allows him to view a metaphysical world with anthropomorphic souls having human attributes. Though one may be able to examine the wayward journey of the ambitious Doctor Faustus and conclude that ill ambition is personified by the bad doctor one must look at ambition in its greater context. Everyone has ambition, but how it is applied in one's journey depends on individual perceptions of reality; what one sees in the meaning of existence. Ambition may be the prime passion of humanity, and ambition can be good or bad. Doctor Faustus and his passion to reach beyond human boundaries is the focus of his life.Ambition can drive a person to heights beyond imagination. Inventors, scientists, philosophers, and warriors at times will do things with such intensity that what they accomplish seems beyond belief. Albert society seems to benefit in the longer term, though the perpetrator of ill ambition faces dire consequences. Everything that humans do reflects the nature of reality and what humans do, including thinking, has an impact on reality. Ambition is simply a word used to describe how one does something. Unfortunately, it labels humans as having some practical purpose in life or serving no useful purpose. Perhaps the bad Doctor Faustus felt his role as an educator to be of little significance. Perhaps Faustus' perception of ambition needed extrinsic rewards. In any case, ambition by its present meaning is without virtue and implies material gain; something tangible like social status, financial rewards, ownership and power, which without one might be said to have no ambition; lazy. But this is not true; it is more true that humanity, a collective unit, has ambition and for good or ill, all things benefit society in the longer term. At the same time everyone should feel their existence is based on the ambitions, good or ill, of others, living and dead. Of course, not everyone has the same ambition, nor of the same intensity, yet it is possible that everyone can benefit from the ambitious production of the few who excel in their aspirations. If it seems that some people get less than others, perhaps individual principles and values negate any disparity. But there are extremely poor people throughout the world. Is it possible that people exist on the fringes of eden? Cultural groups which have survived for thousands of year, seemingly, without the one human attribute which would be able to guide them into a different reality; a new way of thinking. One would tend to think that this may be true, because some of these cultural groups have leaders educated in western society and these cultural groups are at the mercy of their leaders. These despotic rulers have ambition that serves only their own isolate destinies. There is absolutely no possibility that this kind of ambition could give rise to any virtue, nor be of any benefit to anyone. Like the ambition of Doctor Faustus, whose ambition was self- serving and only created grief for himself and all those who had the misfortune to know him, people living in a reality of poverty and grief under the personal whims of a despotic ruler will inherit nothing but more poverty and grief. Ambition in its greater context of meaning is a phenomenom that cannot be explained with a few descriptive words; ambition is a human attribute that is guided by the principles and values of the individual whi...