Ambition vs. Knowledge

This speech was written in an attempt to argue that the value of Ambition, is more important that that of Knowledge. Someone else was assigned to write a similar speech proving that Knowledge is more important that Ambition. During the speech we were to cross examine each other by asking questions rendering the opponent wrong or or logically fallacious.




Hundreds of people wander the streets of a silent city, no one is alive, yet at the same time, no one is dead. People wander the streets with no purpose, no desire to live, and no desire to die. No sound of children's laughter, no sound of any happiness anywhere. The only rumor that lingers in this dead air is that of an apathetic, insensible, lethargic state of inescapable turmoil.

This is where would we be without a drive, a longing, an ambition? Knowledge and Ambition walk hand in hand, but the question is, which is more necessary to our survival, to our happiness, and to our protection. Without great amounts of knowledge, we would certainly be a less powerful and efficient species. But without ambition, the question becomes “Are we even a species at all?”

Knowledge is certainly one of the most important aspects of human life, ambition is just more important. According to Forbes business magazine, 946 of today’s billionaires made their fortunes from scratch, relying on grit and determination, not good genes. For example, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world and founder of the Microsoft Company, just recently received an honorary University degree in June 2007, he never graduated from college. He originally dropped out of Harvard to sell software. Ralph Lauren, another billionaire and clothes designer was also a college dropout. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers dropped out of Reed College when he couldn’t pay tuition. His net worth today could support nearly 40,000 students at Reed.

Now that we’ve established that ambition is used far more when it comes to success than knowledge is, what happens if there is an over abundance of it? The left side of the brain is geared more towards the logical, rational, and analytical thinking, whereas the right side of the brain is geared towards the intuitive, subjective, and creative thought process. Studies have shown that when one side of the brain is exercised the other side becomes lazy and loses its ability to work as well. If the human race was to focus all its attention on gaining more knowledge, the amount of creativity would plummet. Music, art, and literature would suddenly be dampened by our left brain’s activity. Knowledge is inert it is merely a storehouse, and it takes ambition to move it forward. The internet is a huge collection of knowledge, worth nothing without someone to analyze, synthesize and apply it to a goal. What if we collect all the knowledge there is to collect, would we have anything to search for, to question? We may have ambition, but nothing to investigate. We need a deprivation of knowledge, or our society will descend into passivity, without anything to look forward to, without anything to imagine, to spark, to live for.
Thank you