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issue36. The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, but not their contemporaries.
Can the greatness of individual be decided only by those who live after them, rather than their contemporaries? The speaker claims so. However, to my viewpoint, the speaker unfairly generalizes because he overlooks the complexity of evaluating person’s greatness. Some person’s greatness may be recognized by the people in same era , while some may be left to evaluated by those who live after them due to their contemporaries’ limitations of knowledge, understanding and things so on. And even more, there are dispute between generations or different groups in some cases.
We must acknowledge that there are quite a few brilliant minds exceeded their contemporaries’ understanding and tolerance so that their greatness can only be proved by the posterity, especially in those periods the human being have not been highly developed and civilized. New and unfamiliar theories change people’s cognition of the world and undermine their sense of security.Most,however,react to fundamental challenges to their knowledge system by resistance or outrage, consciously or unconsciously.Moreover, if the new ideas violate the vested interests of authority of that time, they often be granted unequal criticism, and be inhibited to be popularized. Galileo challenged the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church by altering the accepted theory of the earth’s position in the universe, and was burned as a heretic. This is an example,though extreme, of the natural reaction to one great man’s propositions.The importance and significance of many scientific achievements underwent years,even centuries, to be validated and verified by scientists after the extensive accumulation of data and proof.
Except scientific research, in the field of art and literature, a lot of great artists receive reputation and respect only after their death. The name William Blake was unknown in Victorian times;Emily Bronte and her poems were despised by her contemporary critics; Van Gogh suffered from non-recognition of his art and the subsequent poverty and mental derangement. It is no wonder why O.Henry wrote a story about an artist winning fame and fortune by feigning his death to satirize the phenomenon. Fortunately their works win the tests of time and show their greatness in their enduring influence to those of later generations. In short words, due to some intellectual and political considerations, the greatness of certain people are difficult to receive the honor that they deserve in their own time.
Cases mentioned above contribute to the speaker’s assertion in certain degree. But consider these people In history: Newton and Einstein, Most famous scientists who already known in their own era; Mozart, approved of his music talent at early age; Picasso, the one first developing cubism and loved by people in his period; Lincoln or Martin Luther King, public officials respected by their people for fighting against slavery. From science to art, from polity to economic, there have been people whose greatness was decided by ones living in their own period. Besides, with the progress and development of human being civilization, we now have more objective and unanimous yardstick to evaluating one's true worth. So, many great achievements are recognizable immediately. The variety of Prizes, like Nobel Prizes, Academic Award and things so on are set to encourage someone’s extraordinary works.More convincing is the field of business: the name such as Bill Gates, Max Welch are eminent in our modern societies because they are models for our era and fulfilled the dream of most people who want to earn a big money out of nothing.To sum up, the greatness can also be recognized by contemporaries during their own time.
Actually, deciding the individuals' greatness is not a simple and easy process.Different people with various backgrounds of era, knowledge, religious belief, and race may draw all kinds of evaluation or even totally reverse results. Consider Hitler-who is notorious for his fascism, once gain the advocate from the majority of German people during his time. So, we can not follow the speaker’s simplified conclusion.
All in all, the greatness of some must depend on the achievement he create, and then evaluated or judged by others. A normal person would never be regarded as great no matter today or in the future.Thanks to different standard for evaluating or judging, as well as knowledge limit, descendants are superior to contemporaries in this decision of greatness. And with the fast development of human beings, more and more people with greatness would be recognized at his own era..
[ 本帖最后由 lys0209 于 2007-2-13 10:24 编辑 ] |
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