Certainly people do not seem less interested in success and what it can do for us now than formerly. Summer homes，European vacations, travel, BMW' s—such items do not seem less in demand than they did a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot admit their dreams as easily and openly as they once could, lest they be thought of as pushing, acquisitive, and vulgar. For such people and many more perhaps not so outstanding, the proper action seems to be, “Succeed at all costs but refrain from appearing ambitious.”The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles, while its public defenders are few and ineffective. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse, a quality to be admired and cultivated in the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean that ambition is at an end, that people no longer feel its urges, but only that since it is no longer openly honored, it is therefore less often openly professed. Consequences follow from this, of course, some of which are that ambition is driven underground or made devious.
