Ambition Has Been a Greater Influence for Good than Evil (Against the Motion)
Good Morning. Respected Chairperson, judges and my worthy opponents. Today I stand before you to speak against the motion ‘Ambition has been a greater influence for good than evil’.
What is the foundation of ambition? It is man’s eternal quest for happiness that is self gratification. Our minds are rarely content with happiness that has turned it into a drug. Once we achieve a certain level of happiness, we are rarely satisfied with it. We think that we can achieve a higher level of happiness and we become more and more ambitious in order to achieve that level. It reaches a point where it factually kills a person from within. He becomes soul-less, blighted and greedy, he does anything to full fill his ambition. This is where ambition influences evil as it never has the good fortune to satisfy us and its extravagance inflames an unappeasable desire.
The evil that exists is the intense feeling that we must have something that you don’t have or don’t have enough of, whose domino effect is a pre-meditated decision that grows into ever escalating and harmful action. Thus the core of evil is the ‘want’ and not the thing. Money is not the root of evil. Undoubtedly being spoiled leads to evil and the conjecture that everything must be ours and ours and only. We try to blame outside influences like money, life or a host of other catalysts but the initial thought and final decision to act arises within us. It can be rightly said that ambitions truly leads to evil. They turn out to be so destructive because ambition is a lust that can never be quenched but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.
The Essay on Evil From Morals God Good Moral
Evil From Morals By textbook definition, evil is 'What is morally wrong, what hinders the realization of good' (Webster). If that is evil, then what is good? It's 'what is morally excellent, virtuous, well behaved, dutiful.' (Webster) Philosophers have argued over what evil is and why it exists for thousands of years. They have raised questions like 'How can there be a God if there is evil?' These ...
History has a lot of instances to prove this fact. Over the past two thousand years, we have witnessed thousands of leaders. Apart from the great ones who are still looked up today, there are the infamous tyrants who had reigns of horror. What was their ultimate motive behind this? It was their ambition. What did Genghis Khan’s ambition to conquer Asia lead to? Where did Adolf Hitler’s ambition to create a pure Aryan race controlled territory guide him? How did Joseph Stalin’s ambition to usher Russia to an age of industrialization affect the country? It just resulted in the tragic and ruthless massacres of millions of innocent people and endless wars as they would stop at nothing in order to accomplish their ambitions.
Even a nation’s ambition which gradually changes to greed leads to terrible consequences. The arms race between the Axis Powers and The Allies during the World War II and between US and USSR during the Cold War lead to the development of the nuclear and hydrogen bombs. That time everybody went gaga behind that as it was the ultimate form of power and nothing could compete against it. What has that lead to? The deaths of thousands in Hiroshima & Nagasaki. What light does it throw on the human nature?
The desire to gain more and the greed to be more powerful has turned man of today into the most dangerous life forms residing on the planet. We are the worst enemies of ourselves. What has the uncontrolled influence of ambition done to the human race? The signs around us stress the fact that the good influence of ambition has been overshadowed by its evil counterpart. Wars, genocide, poverty, terrorism, corruption, all forms of crime and violence and the list go on. How much money has been spent in order to achieve these pointless ambitions? How much of human resources have gone down the drain? How many more lives need to be lost? We have endangered the existence of not only ourselves but also of every single creature around us. Once again ambition has been the culprit. Our endless pursuit for money, power and fame has ruined us all as we are incapable of controlling our emotions. We have been destroying the prevailing, slow natural rhythms of the planet because of our ambitions. It is time that we wake up from the deep slumber and open our eyes. Our ambitions need to be carefully analyzed and we need to control our happiness. I would like to conclude my speech with a quote by Joseph Conrad,” A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than him. The first one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.”
The Term Paper on American Colonies And In England War Men Man
If we compare the present with the past, if we trace events at all epochs to their causes, if we examine the elements of human growth, we find that Nature has raised us to what we are, not by fixed laws, but by provisional expedients, and that the principle which in one age effected the advancement of a nation, in the next age retarded the mental movement, or even destroyed it altogether. War, ...
Thank You
