The boldness of American zeal is something to be championed at home and missed abroad, no matter what Europeans say about it.
I spent five months of my academic career in Vienna, Austria. During my time abroad, I visited many places and took home many souvenirs. My favorite among them was my rekindled appreciation for interminable American ambition.
It wasn’t that Europeans were lazy. However, they didn’t strike me as particularly ambitious either. They were perfectly satisfied with their station in life. While this can be an admirable trait, I found myself missing the “buzz” of the frenetic American way of life. I also noticed that Europeans let things happen; Americans make things happen. They refuse to accept their fate as unchangeable, and then seek to change it, for better or worse.
Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, witnessed this smoldering trait among the American people in the mid-19th century. In Volume 2, Part 3, Chapter 19, De Tocqueville observes that “revolution magnifies the ambition of men,” and that “ambition then takes on an audacious and grandiose character.” I can’t imagine a more fitting description of the American spirit and “buzz” I craved while abroad.
Tocqueville also observes that “there are no Americans who do not appear to be devoured by the desire to rise; but you see hardly any who seem to nourish very vast hopes or to aim very high.” I will admit that American ambition can be insatiable, and a society founded on the idea of equality seems to be directly opposed to an ambitious appetite inasmuch as it suggests that no man can rise above another. He then diagnoses the American plight, saying that “the taste for great fortunes subsists, even though great fortunes become rare, and you see taking fire on all sides disproportionate and unfortunate ambitions that burn secretly and fruitlessly in the heart that harbors them.”
De Tocqueville feared that democracy would breed a mediocre, restless class of people that lacked the capacity for greatness because the level playing field of equality would make it difficult for any one person to achieve lasting greatness. He thus reduced American ambition to the fruitless ash of revolutionary fire. However, I would argue that American ambition is an ember, exuding perpetual, internal heat. Restlessness is the very thing that keeps the potential for greatness alive. The ember of ambition burns until a spark of innovation catches fire; then, that flame rises high as it revolts against mediocrity.
Americans don’t just recognize opportunities for advancement; because of our avid “desire to rise,” we actually have the audacity to seize them. Ambition leads to disappointment. Failure is often the nature of striving for success, especially in a society where people are striving simultaneously. However, the burning of American ambition is not fruitless, and we have a long history of innovation and excellence to prove it. America was built on the back of audacious ambition, starting with the audacity of the founders to declare the United States as Free and Independent States. The constant grind of our society gets a lot of heat, but boldness is an acquired taste; many Europeans simply don’t understand it enough to appreciate it.
After going abroad, some Americans stare across the Atlantic and yearn for a taste of lackluster zeal; as for me, I couldn’t wait to come home to the great audacity of the American dream.