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TOPIC: ISSUE241 - "An individual's greatness cannot be judged objectively by his or her contemporaries; the most objective evaluators of a person's greatness are people who belong to a later time."
WORDS: 469 TIME: 01:05:03 DATE: 2007-8-18 下午 04:40:57
The speaker asserts that an individual's greatness cannot be judged objectively by his or her conteporaries; the most objective evaluators of a person's greatness are people who belong to a later time. Fundermentally, I agree with this claim. However, the evaluateors who belong to a later time are not warrented to be objective.
Although we humans are gifted with outstanding genius in creating new methods and theories, it is balanced by our extraordinary ablilities to be misleaded and misunderstand others. Consider, for example, the famous astronomer Copernicus. He created the helipcentric theory, which brought a big innovation to human's sense of universe. However, in the Middle Ages, when European theology ruled human's minds, his correct theory was regarded as full of fallacy. But now, his contribution to the human beings is admitted all over the world. Because of the limits of a time, whether in the knowledge or religions, people in a special time had impedements to understand the great thoughts in that time. As a result, a great individual such as scientist or philosopher was easily evaluated not objectively.
The quantum leaps in science and technology serve as a catalyst for we humans' abilility of understanding and innovations. The progress of human's recognition broaden their horizons, spark their inspiration in gaining original ideas, and the most important, explore their potential for understanding and evaluating. Consider, for example, wave theory and quantum theory which were thought to be incorrect and hard to be understanded in their original time, have been accepted by the modern society and are being used widely in every field of science. Einstein was regarded as mad after he advocated his theory of relativity. However, his theory is now being taught in every university's physics class. This did not only happen in science, but also in the field of arts. Van Gohe's paintings were abstract for his contemporaries. He even could not survive himself, but his works are now labeled with astonishing prices. And his paintings now gain an objective and correct evaluation by critics. Accordingly, an individual's greatness which exceeded the recognition of his time cannot be judged objectively. Only when human's recognition has developed to a certain degree, can his greatness be evaluated objectively.
However, the evaluation of people in a later time does not neccesarily mean objective, sometimes even more subjective and incautious. It is not rare for some people who want to gain popularity to criticize some famous works which was created befor them. Fortunately, the public regard this activity as a trick, and pay little attention to it.
In sum, I strongly agree with that an individual's greatness concerning the new ideas and methods cannot be judged objectively by his or her contemporaries. In contrast, people who belong to a later time can make a far more objective evaluation on it. |
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