When I was growing up, "ambition" was a dirty word. Or at least television and film worked very hard to make it so. I cannot tell you how many times, in soap operas, melodramas, mini-series, sit-coms, prime-time TV hits, and feature films, the word "ambition" was used either as an insult -- it seemed to denote an unscrupulous lust for power -- or as a kind of warning, as in "Look out for Susan...she's ambitious.". I observed this phenomenon so many times that, when I became older, I began to wonder if it wasn't a deliberate act. If Hollywood, or rather the wire-pullers who run Hollywood, hadn't decided the best way to safeguard their position and power was to enure following generations regarded ambition as a crime.

The textbook definition of ambition is "a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work," and it has often been noted that tyrants, who rise by ambition, fear it in others and try to discourage it in the broad masses. But in politics, even non-tyrants are known for crushing ambition in those around them: witness such politicians as Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump, neither of whom could abide anyone whose personal desires rose far above licking their master's boots (or pumps -- whatever).

I don't know if Greek mythology is still taught to children today, but my own teachers seemed obsessed with it. To this day, I can rememeber the exhaustive thoroughness with which we studied the Greek gods and the Greek myths, and as late as high school we were still chewing through Homer. One of the most arresting stories, and one hammered into our brains repeatedly, was the story of Icarus. It may be remembered that Icarus was imprisoned in the Labyrinth, but given wings of wax and feathers that he might escape. However, having taken to the sky, he became exhilarated by his own power and flew too close to the sun: the wax soon melted and he fell to his death. More than one modern cultural anthropologist has made a point of telling us that Icarus stood as a deliberately chosen warning about the perils of, yes, you guessed it, ambition. Icarus wanted to fly higher than was better for him, and death was his reward. Indeed, most of those damned Greek myths seemed to be about punishing those who grew too big for their britches. The lesson was clear: the gods are jealous, they believe in caste systems, and punish without mercy those mortals who want more than they have or try to rise above their station.

I was a strange and difficult child, but I had a gift for seeing through smokescreens, and even then I recognized that the criminalization of ambition was not a beneficent act. Those teachers, preachers, parents and Hollywood types who encouraged us to aim low were doing so with the intention, the very conscious and deliberate intention, of closing our horizons. The child who believes ambition is a sin is not likely to threaten the power structure as an adult. And indeed, it was not until I was an adult that I learned the tale of Icarus as it was told to me was missing an important part. Deadalus, the designer of the wings and Icarus' father, did indeed warn his son not to fly too close to the sun lest the wax melt: but he also warned Icarus not to fly too low, lest the ocean soak his feathers. He understood the capabilities of the wings he had created and wanted his son to heed them, but the boy, being young and reckless, got caught up in the thrill of the moment. It was not ambition that leads to Icarus' destruction, it is simply a mistake in judgment.

Some time ago I had occasion to take umbrage with an actress who complained on social media that she did not want to be described as "aspiring" but simply as an actress, despite her lack of actual acting credits. I pointed out that she was indeed an aspiring actress, and that there was no shame in her aspirations: having a goal is the first step to achieving it. Why not own that and be proud of it? I don't regret what I said, because I am sick and tired of words like ambition and aspiration being used as code for hubris, power-hunger, Machiavellianism, or some species of greed.

I am an ambitious person by nature. I have hardly achieved all my ambitions or even most of them, but they are largely what keeps me going in the face of endless discouragements. I have a strong desire to achieve certain specific things and those things all require discipline and hard work. And I am not afraid of either one...provided they serve my ambitions. If they don't, it is very difficult to exert myself, and such exertions as I can muster leave me exhausted, bored and depressed. On the rare occasions I mention this I am often called selfish. Most people, I have come reluctantly to understand, not only inculcated the lesson that ambition is a character defect when not wedded to some one else's ambitions (e.g. "it's okay to have the ambition... to serve the company, church, country, etc...just not yourself personally"), but maintain a low-grade hostility to those who try to achieve their own. Perhaps in their hearts they despise themselves for giving up their own dreams. Perhaps the success of one who is personally ambitious threatens their decision to tuck their own interests away and play it safe. In any event, I no longer have time even to pay lip service to such gray and timid souls. Such people are inevitably on the sidelines when anything happens: always the spectators, never the performers.

In my studies of revolutionaries, it struck me that nearly all of them came from what could roughly be described as the middle class. From Hitler to Castro, from Lenin to Mao, from George Washington to Simon Bolivar, the men who spearheaded violent overthrows of existing systems hailed from the middle strata of society. Some were in the upper middle class, to be sure, but even Napoleon descended from very minor Italian nobility of paltry means. There is, of course, a very definite reason for this. If one accepts Orwell's theory that the human race can be divided into the high, the middle and the low, it naturally flows that the high, being high, have no ambitions but to retain their power, while the low are too exhausted by physical labor and hunger to try and achieve power. The high eventually stagnate, ossify and lose their vitality through decadence, while the low are too inert, uneducated and distracted to effect change, though they are a fertile source of cannon fodder for those who will. That leaves the middle, who have education, covet what the rich have, and fear what the poor are. Everyone knows that Marie Antionette said, "Let them eat cake," but it is seldom considered that those who baked that cake (and all the others) were neither poor nor rich, but in the lower middle class. And they were the same people who later dragged her to the guillotine.

Ambition is at the root of all change. In order for change to occur, one must conceive of a different situation for oneself than presently exists; then one must come up with ideas for how that situation might be brought about; and then, of course, one must act upon those ideas. Reality is a certain way; desire is another way. But reality bends to desire. This is the nature of ambition, and it is also what separates the sheep from the goats. And if I may bring this thought back to its start-line, it is in the nature of the high, those who have power, to encourage the sheep to be a sheep. Why not? Sheep do not threaten. They bleat. They herd. They give up their wool, their milk, and eventually, their lives if need me. Rams are a different story. They are restless. They challenge the fence. The yearn to roam and run free...and will fight if caged. Which is why the sheep-hearders try to cut off their balls.