issue36 FLY AW第十八次作业

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Throughout the recorded history, most great individuals, who excelled in intellectual, creative, leadership, artistic, or specific academic fields, have lived an obscure life, and the values of their achievement are usually neglected or even rejected unless decades after their death, reviewing and reassessing their works make posterities discover, fathom and then treasure the values lying in the works. Plausible as the issue that only later generations could decide the greatness of individuals seems to be, the statement goes far extreme. In my view, the functions of contemporaries should not be overlooked since they could also play a critical role in comprehending and evaluating the achievements of those individuals, thus provide the instantaneous response and establish a common standard at their times.
History can provide endless examples showing the great individuals suffering from obscure and even abject lives because of their exceptionally high abilities during their holistic lives. Most of them gaining their fame and reputation after their death, and thus their greatness can only be judged and valued by their posterities. After all, the great idea or work, as outstanding it is, is invariably beyond the common sense and comprehensive abilities of most people. In the field of art, Holland painter Van Gogh's hard life can best mirror the quirk phenomenon. Since most of the contemporaries can hardly understand his strong sense toward the great beauty of nature, thus they cannot figure out why the colors used in his works seems so direct and so thick without being diluted . Yet the later generations decided that his works had served as the landmark in the development of art. Also, one of the heralds of Inpressionism, Claude Monet, received lots of ridicules and misunderstanding toward the unacceptable style of his works. However, the greatness hidden behind the seemingly unplausible works is then discovered and realized by later generations, thus the attainments of those great persons are ultimately recognized and recorded in the history.
Still, in academia field, the practicality and feasibility of a specific scientific research or theory, which has a vague result and potantial use toward the society at that very time, are often questioned by contemporaries. It takes a span of era to understand marvelous idea lying in the specific work. The miraculous accomplishment of Galois in the group theory were rejected by contemporaries, even cannot be understood by the coeval outstanding mathematician. Hence the value of the research cannot be objectively decided, or even received misunderstanding and seriously criticisms from the public. Though the effect of one’s contribution may not be tangible in a few years, after thourough evaluation over years people would eventually judge its usefulness in specific fields and then put it into pratical use. In this way, the greatness of the individual can be ultimately decided after a span of era.
Given that most great persons' values toward the society and humanities cannot be recognized during their times, at the same time we should be circumspect with the fact, by looking back in the history of the science and art, that the greatness can also be decided by contemporaries. Some brilliant individuals received their reputation and fame from their contemporaries when living. The Reform and Open Up policy put forward by Xiaoping Deng serving as the designer of development of China, were excellently performed by the government, and led to the rapid development in economy as well as average people's living conditions. The Pope recognized Michelangelo’s artistic greatness, then later confirmed, while Einstein’s theories of relativity and photoelectric effect are accepted in ten years after proven by experiments. And the Milan Kundera became a best-selling author and household name during his lifetime. Therefore, to some extent the speaker unfairly generalized. The areas of science and art are replete with examples that the significance of contribution is judged by the contemporaries.

In conclusion, on balance, as it stands, the greatness of individuals is usually decided by those who live after them. Nonetheless, the speaker unnecessarily extends this broad assertion, and hastily generalized the exclusive effect of the descendants, overlooking many great individuals whose achievement were broadly recognized as great during their own times.