Betraying Ambition

12,00

Written by Diego Agulló.

What if we were made to believe in ambition because ambition is something good? There is a mantra that tells us “be ambitious”, but, who dares to dissent from it? What if ambition would have been politicized and ideologized? The reason for writing this book is not to clarify what ambition actually means, but to unpack the ethical implications behind its different meanings. This book is divided in three parts corresponding to three different ethos or ways of living : being ambitious, not being ambitious and, finally, being ambitious and not ambitious at the same time.

51 in stock

About This Book...

INTRODUCTION

PART 1. DISSECTING AMBITION
Etymology of Ambition
Definition of Ambition
Ambition in the Ambience
Professionalism and Publicity
Desire to be the Chosen One
Self-Promotion
The Opportunistic Mind and Networking
Capitalism and Ambition
The Ambitious Artist
Levels of recognition
Parameters of Success

PART 2. NEGLECTING AMBITION
The Reason Why We Do Something
Exercising our capacities
Initiative
Side Effects
The cardinal virtues
Dilettantism
The Non-ambitious Artist
Artworks are more Important than Artists
The will to Affirm a Different World
Co-apprenticeship: Training the Political Body

PART 3. MISCHIEVING AMBITION
To Betray Your Own Ambition
Mischief: the Art of Swerving
Irony: Performing the Paradox
Practices of Infiltration
Anartism
Experimenting in the Art of Living

INTRODUCTION
What Moves You?

Nowadays, the term ambition is used indistinctly to name many different things at the same time. As a consequence, ambition has lost its specific meaning; it means everything and nothing: on one hand, it vaguely refers to any driving force that attempts to accomplish any kind of goal. “Ambition” is synonymous to challenging oneself in undertaking a difficult enterprise. On the other hand, there is a benevolent understanding of ambition coming from the context of innovation, creative industries and business. These optimistic rhetorics, supported by the dominant ideology of professional success, present a heroic version of a subjectivity that is in a constant process of self-improvement. On the contrary, the etymology of ambition reminds us of the pejorative connotations that ambition was characterized by from the beginning: vainglory, competitiveness, social comparison, eagerness for fame, excessive determination to achieve a position of power, just to name a few. A suspicious mind will immediately try to find the reasons behind such a benevolent understanding of how the word’s meaning was once negative. Why is the belief in the social construction that ambition implies convenient for dominant ideologies? What are the illusions, hopes and dreams behind ambition and why are they necessary to make people move on with their lives?

The premise of this book is that we are made to believe in ambition because ambition is something good. There is a mantra that tells us “be ambitious”, but, who dares to dissent from it? What if ambition would have been politicized and ideologized? The reason for writing this book is not to clarify what ambition actually means, but to unpack the ethical implications behind its different meanings.

The book is divided into three parts that correspond to three different ethos or ways of living in relation to ambition: being ambitious, not being ambitious and finally, being ambitious and not ambitious at the same time. At intervals, you, the reader, will find a series of exercises and instructions that invite you to bring these ideas contained in the text into play . The whole book can be understood as an exercise for self-examination to scrutinize oneself, returning to some fundamental questions that exists around the notion of “driving forces” such as: Why do we do what we do? What moves us? Where are the origins of our impulses behind our actions? How many different driving forces can we identify in us? Which ones are the most dominant? Is there struggle between these forces? Which driving forces are worth cultivating, knowing that the world will be necessarily affected by them? What really matters, where to invest our energy, and what is the responsibility we assume? What is worth initiating and what motivates us? How do our driving forces support the world to move and function in a particular way? How do we participate and engage inside the social sphere, and what motivates us? What are the reasons we make art? How do we perform the truth? How then, do we live our lives accordingly? How do we live the paradox?

So, what moves you?

Additional Information

Author

Diego Agulló

website

http://www.diegoagullo.com
http://www.diegoagulloworkshop.wordpress.com

Editing

Alice Heyward

1st edition

100 books / Soft Cover / 105 x 148 / English

Pages

81

Special Thanks

Agata Siniarska, Jorge Ruiz Abánades, Juan Perno.

ISBN

978-0-9569569-2-7