[i习作temp] Issue36 wanwp 第十一次作业 [复制链接]

wanwp
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发表于 2007-8-10 14:37:22 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

TOPIC: ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
WORDS: 473 TIME: 00:45:00 DATE: 2007-8-10 11:24:33

With the development of society, lots of great people did contribution to the world. The author's assertion that only those who live after them, not their contemporaries can decide the greatness of individuals is too extreme. In fact, we will find that the greatness of individuals can be decided by both of them.

There is no doubt that those who live after them can decide the greatness of individuals. Someone does contribution to the society but sometimes it can not get praise in a short time. We need time to evaluate the achievement. For example, Confucius is a great ideology and educator. He is also the founder of Confucianism. His theory of leading people by virtue can not be well comprehended by his contemporaries. But thousands of years passed, his idea still inducts people who live in the modern society to do in a right way. His greatness is based on his idea. However he never got praise from his contemporaries. We who live after him put him in a high place. Time gives us chances to take his theory into practice while his contemporaries just lack time to evaluate his greatness. So in some degree, their judgment is more objective.

However in some area, the judgment of the greatness of the individual must be decided by contemporaries because of the contemporary social circumstance. For instance, in the politics and economics the success of a policy can be better decided by the contemporaries because all the policies are published to solve their problems. Roosevelt's New Deal dealing with the great Depression in 1930s worked well and the economy of America recovered rapidly in the coming years. Thus, President Roosevelt was considered one of the great leaders in American history not only by historians nowadays but also by his citizens at that very time. People lived at that period will have a deeper understanding of his contribution to the society, so they can assess achievement better.

So in many cases, the greatness of individuals can be decided by those who live after them. Because they are more objective and have enough time to prove the achievement. But in some special case, it is more meaningful to assess the greatness of individuals by the contemporaries. The contemporaries live with the great people and can comprehend them from the temporal situation, even if sometimes the evaluation from the contemporaries is too subjective. To better assess the greatness of the individuals, we must combine the two-side opinions and draw the final conclusion.

To sum up, in many cases we can not simply assert that the greatness of individuals can be decided by those who live after them or by their contemporaries. Both of them can give out their own opinions from their own angle. We must defer to the fact and give the individuals an objective judgment.

[ 本帖最后由 wanwp 于 2007-8-10 14:39 编辑 ]