单项选择题

If ambition is to be well regarded, the rewards of ambition must be worthy of the sacrifices on ambition’s behalf. If the tradition of ambition is to have vitality, it should be widely shared, and it especially must be highly regarded by such people as the educated, who are themselves admired. However it is the educated who have claimed to have given up ambition as an ideal. What is odd is that they have perhaps benefited most from ambition, though the ambition may be more that of their parents and grandparents than of their own.
Certainly, people do not seem less interested in success now than formerly. In fact, the signs of success such as summer homes, European travel and BMWs have never ceased to be sought after. What has happened is that people cannot confess fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be thought to be aggressive, materialistic or vulgar. Instead, what has often confused us are those fine hypocritical spectacles. the critic of American materialism in possession of a Southampton summer home; the publisher of radical books who takes his meals every day in five-star restaurants; the journalist promoting participatory democraey in all phases of life, who sends his own children to expensive private schools. For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional, the motto is, "Succeed at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious."
Ambition has been attacked from various angles; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, though they are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse, a quality to be admired by the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean, however, that people are no longer ambition-driven, but only that, no longer openly honored, ambition has become something smartly concealed. According to the passage, in order to keep the vitality of the tradition of ambition the successful people themselves must ______.

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