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TOPIC: ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
position:
A:我们该注意到一个人伟大与否在后世的评价中更加客观和公允
比之同时代的人,后世人不会与之产生利益冲突,这将使后人的评价趋于客观。举个例子来说,一个历史学家在评价帝王时,他有两方面顾虑,1首先我的话会不会招致他的愤怒?2然后如果我吹捧他我会不会得到某种好处?
这都将导致评论与事实分离。而后世的人显然不会有此种顾虑,which makes
B:更重要的是,if we define greatness as the contribution to the nation ;当涉及评价其greatness时,后世有一个决定性的优势-时间。,
C
不可否认的是,同时代的评价有客观的,especially in area such as ..
In sum,
Should the greatness of individuals only be decided by who live after them, just as the author asserts? Undoubtedly, compared with people living after them, the judgment made by contemporaries tends to be more subjective. However, the author goes to another extreme. For my part, people living after the celebrities tend to make more objective judgment on their greatness; but it doesn't hinder contemporaries from contributing to the right judgments
To begin with, viewing from the interests of individuals, the judgments made by people who living after them are more objective. One can only make fair judgment when his own benefits would not be affected by it. Unfortunately, celebrities are more likely to be authorities, who, in certain area of their lifetime, have decisive influence on the interests of others. Then, owing to the relationships of interests, the judgment of contemporaries is more or less affected by the celebrity himself, which lead the deviation from the reality. For example, when a historian is writing judgment about the king of his time, owing to human nature, two concerns are most likely to appear in his mind; one is "will my fairness judgment offend the kind and in turn incurs persecution?" and the other is, " if I exaggerate his feat, will he be pleased and give me some benefits?" Due to the authority of the king such concerns are not that easy to be wiped out and therefore the conclusion is dubious. But people living after them have no such worries, they dare to say whatever they think, and the only reason of his statements is based on reality and relatively rational deduction. Hence, we tend to view the greatness decided by them more reasonable.
Furthermore, if we define greatness as the benefits one contributed to the whole society, when judging the greatness of those prominent guys, people living after them have a decisive advantage--time. Firstly, just like filter paper can hold back all the dregs and just let water pass, time will dilute all those unimportant events and only make the significant ones exposed, which makes judging the greatness much easier. Secondly, some benefits can only be perceived in the long term, and the only witness of this kind is one who lives after them. For instance, when Copernicus published his theory, few of his contemporaries can tell what significant influences his theory would bring to the history of science, but as time went by, his work proved to have enlightened his successors greatly; leading the science to a relatively right way. So, owing to the great advantages brought by time, when judging the greatness of celebrities, people living after them tend to be more objective.
However, such significant advantage in judging the greatness of famous doesn't back up the deduction that contemporaries cannot offer an objective judgment. To witness, in realm of science, although there were disagreement and conflicts when ‘theory of relativity’ faced the readers, it still can not hinder Einstain from becoming the most famous scientist in his lifetime. In realm of education and culture, the consensus on the greatness of Chinese famous educator and philosopher Confucius has been reached ever since he was alive, and remained unchanged for more than 2 thousand years. Therefore, sometimes, especially when based on practice, the judgment by contemporaries can be quite faire.
In sum, when it comes to the judgment on the greatness of celebrities, the inherent advantage enables people living after them to view from a more objective perspective. But we should not ignore the wisdom of their contemporaries, sometimes their conclusions on the famous people can be tested by time.
[ 本帖最后由 norns 于 2007-7-21 16:59 编辑 ] |
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