本帖最后由 艾羽暄 于 2010-7-22 21:15 编辑
Who can decide the greatness of individuals?
The first test of a truly man is what he does. In some cases, greatness can be recognized by the contemporaries. In other areas, however, it may take a long time, sometimes even longer than one's lifetime, for greatness to be tested and confirmed.
There is no denying the fact that the greatness of some individuals is identified only by those who live after them. Looking back to history, we find many great men whose excellence is recognized only after their death and whose contributions to the society are judged by people who live after them. In the realm of science, it is usually difficult and sometimes even impossible to identify greatness without the benefit of historical perspective. After all, theory must be tested in practice. In this way, any scientific theory of today might be disproved tomorrow, or might survive years of rigorous scientific scrutiny and server as a springboard for later advances. A case in point is Alfred Wegener, a German scientist and geophysicist most notable for his theory of continental drift, was at first laughed at by his contemporaries for his "foolish" idea about floating continents. Though having mostly circumstantial evidence, Wegener was unable to demonstrate a mechanism for continental drift, which meant that his hypothesis was not accepted until the 1950s, when numerous discoveries provided mass evidence of continental drift; and his greatness was finally recognized 20 years after his death. This clearly illustrate the point that some discoveries and achievements made by individuals in science and other areas may not be well judged and understood by their contemporaries--perhaps only by those who follow them.
While the greatness of individuals can be evaluated objectively by people who live beyond their time and their society, these evaluations unfortunately lag behind the time and contribute almost nothing to the development of the society at that time, thus may be lack of significance to some extent.
In some cases, however, greatness can be recognizable in no time. When it comes to contemporary writers and singers, we do not require a rear-view mirror to recognize the popularity of a book or a song--it can be well assessed at face value by the writer's or singer's contemporaries. To demonstrate this point clearly, here's a case in point. The famous song MY HEART WILL GO ON by Celine Dion, which has really taken the public's fancy, has a legendary recording experience. When recording the song and Celine Dion just sang the song from the beginning to the end for the first time, everyone in the recording studio was completely amazed and deeply moved by the holy and melancholy strain of the song as well as the most beautiful and charming sound they'd ever heard--some of them were even moved to tears. It is said that MY HEART WILL GO ON is the only "one-time recording song" that has ever been made in the world. And as with the recording studio, the whole world was fascinated by the heavenly harmony of the song. Celine Dion's success fully demonstrates that some greatness can be identified immediately, for there's nothing to be later tested or confirmed.
In final analysis, while some great achievements of individuals, as with scientific discoveries, are to be testified and identified by later generations, there are other successful individuals whose attainments are widely recognized as great during their own time. What's more, it's the achievements of individuals, rather than the evaluations from others, that make the society to develop and flourish. And that is what greatness is all about.
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发表于 2010-7-22 21:13:33
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