[i习作temp] issue36【0906背水一战三月小组】第四次作业 by yuxin thanks zsychbzf [复制链接]

周禹馨
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电梯直达

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发表于 2009-3-9 00:14:55 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

In the statement, the speaker claims that only those who live after individuals can decide their greatness rather than their contemporaries. From my point of view, the descendents may make evaluation of an individuals more objectively, however, under some circumstances that the greatness being appraised in one generation was regarded not so much but mediocre, but
the nature of
greatness will not changed forever.

To begin with, with the limit of the knowledge, the contemporaries may ignore the individuals' greatness, since most of the outstanding idea of the figures may be too complex and hard for the common people to believe. For supporting examples one need look into no more than the concept of Continental Drift, offered by Wegener in 1912, which seemed ridiculous in most of the contemporary geologists' eyes, for they ask for the explanation of how a continent can drift as a prerequisite. Until 1950s, the idea was widely accepted for the more scientists on the grounding that they find ways to explain the
movement of continents. The greatness of Wegener was recognized almost 40 years later. In addition, Bruno, who was the supporter of Heliocentric Theory unfortunately, challenged the Ancient Rome Church, and in the end, Bruno was executed as a heretic. Centuries later, when it, about the mysterious cosmos, is acknowledged universally, Bruno's greatness has been recognized sufficiently. In brief, since the value and knowledge will develop along with the society moving forward, the contemporaries can less accurately decide the individual's excellence than the descendents.

What's more, in a sense, those who live after the individuals regard the achievement of the figures in a view of relative objectiveness while some contemporaries may judge a person's excellence according to their interests. On the one hand, the contemporaries may treat some seeming outstanding companies' leaders (the ones who largely working on exploring the petroleum)as the great people, for their contribution to the national economy through increasing the national economy, especially when they help to increase the employment rate. This is relevant with the interest of the contemporaries, and clearly wins most of the contemporaries recognition. However, in the later generations' eyes, they
pay respect to these significant tax payers, at the same time, they criticize
or even distain their action about living on the future's resources. Besides, it is as well the same when comes to the brilliant philosopher Aristotle whose perspectives were accepted by most of his contemporaries. Some has regarded him as a deity, and his greatness was brought to the highest development at his time. Nevertheless, the descendents
would evaluate his achievement in a more objective way, combine his great contribution and his errors together.

However, it is unfair to judge a person's greatness merely according to the masses' evaluation, no matter the contemporaries or the those who living in the later eras. the individual's greatness should be decided due to whether they made a contribution to the society. Take Bill Gates as an example, his dedication to the computer career, has brought the people to a totally different period. People enjoyed the dramatic convenience. Even decades or centuries later, the people live in the future, ridiculing his Dos and Windows system, his greatness should exist forever. While in some cases, people in different eras may judge the greatness of individual with different result, since the standard may be various with the development of society. For example, when architectures of Baroque style was prevailing in Europe since the late 1700s, and to its highest development in 1800s, but since then, this style had been out of date. The primary reason is that the people later distained its overcomplicated decorations, and focusing too much on flamboyance. And thus, they emphasized less on the excellence of the great architects who represented the Baroque, although they were spoken highly of previous, due to their works. However the greatness of the Baroque style architects’ greatness cannot be changed, since they make contribution to the people in 1700s and 1800s.

In sum, the greatness of an individuals cannot be changed with people's evaluation, sometimes they may ignored by the contemporaries, or recognized by the descendents, and it is their contribution to the society will determine their greatness.