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36"The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
Who decide the greatness of those famous individuals? Their contemporaries or those who live after them? As far as I am concerned, it depends on the situations in which those famous individuals live.
In politics, many famous leaders' greatness is acknowledged by their contemporaries. Chairman Mao is a good case in point. Mao received people's great admiration after he succeeded in uniting China into a whole country and drove away the invaders. Since his great leadership and talent in military influenced the whole country a lot at his time, his greatness was acknowledged by his contemporaries. Another good example is Xiaoping Deng. He is also a successful leader in China and one of his most famous policies-- one country, two systems -- helped Chinese recover the possession of Hong Kong. His greatness is also acknowledged by his contemporaries, because his greatness exerts its effect even when he was alive. Therefore, the greatness of political leaders usually is decided by their contemporaries.
Unlike political leaders, the greatness of many scientists is decided by people who live after them. The theory of great scientists often goes ahead of their time; hence their contemporaries usually have some difficulties in understanding it. For instance, one of Albert Einstein great achievement is the theory of relativity, but this theory is so complicated that few people could truly understand it in his time. As time passing by, his theory receive more and more acclaims in science. The father of genetics is also a good example. When he first discovered the principle of genetics, he wrote many letters to those pundits in his time and tried to introduce them his theory of genetics. However, his theory is so advanced that those scientists could not accept it. Only about 300 years later, when other scientists repeated his experiment and discovered his principle again, could people begin to realize how valuable his principle is. From above two examples, we can see that many great scientists receive their acclaims from people who live after them, and one main reason probably is that their theories are too advanced to be accepted by their contemporaries.
While in arts, some great artists receive acclaim from their contemporaries, while other artists receive acclaim from those who live after them. The famous poet Li Bai is a good example for the former, and Du Fu-another famous Chinese poet- is a good example for the latter. Both of them lived in almost same time in Dang Dynasty, but their fates were quite different. Li Bai had been in the local government as a literary official for some time, and his poems received great praises from both people and the rulers. In contrast, Du Fu lived his life in a poor condition and most of poems had not been acknowledged until he died. One reason which can explain their difference is that the context of Li Bai's poem mainly focused on romantic things, while the context of Du Fu's focused on realistic matters with some criticism. Therefore, whether an artist could receive praises from his /her contemporaries highly depends on the context of his/her works.
All in all, in different fields, the fates of great individuals are different. To political leaders, it is easier to receive acclaim from their contemporaries; to scientist, they usually receive praise from those who live after them; to artist, both situation will happen according to whether their works are popular in that time. |
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