- 最后登录
- 2012-9-29
- 在线时间
- 105 小时
- 寄托币
- 8169
- 声望
- 1
- 注册时间
- 2003-12-21
- 阅读权限
- 100
- 帖子
- 12
- 精华
- 0
- 积分
- 3256
- UID
- 151948
- 声望
- 1
- 寄托币
- 8169
- 注册时间
- 2003-12-21
- 精华
- 0
- 帖子
- 12
|
"The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
Do the greatness of individuals can only be decided by the people live after them and the comments from their contemporaries are just useless as the speaker contends? I believe so, according to my personal observation, the contemporaries of certain individuals have little chance of making objective and just comments, which makes their ideas valueless. On the contrary, the people lived in a time later than the individual who is commented on are more likely to make meaningful and proper judgments.
To begin with, people lived at the same time have so many direct or indirect relationships between each other that their are connected in certain ways. When the individual that is commented and the commenter have benefits in common, he/she is undermost circumstances to be decided great. However, if conflicts existed among them, the judgment of the individual tends to be negative. For instance, no matter how well Bill Clinton had performed during the time he was in charge of the US goverment, his contemporaries of different political parties always want to find the mistakes and faults he made in order to prove him to be impotent to be an effective leader. When his sex scandal happened, these people overemphasized his mistake and want him to resign office, leave the Whitehouse. In fact, still a lot of people of that time believed Clinton to be a good president for the economic growth and the success of diplomacy. This case aptly illustrates that an individual's contemporaries are not qualified to make just and objective observation to offer unbiased comments on his/her greatness because of their relationships with him/her.
Secondly, the people live after the individual have another advantage to make just and proper decision on his/her greatness, that is, the effects and consequences of the individual's action and behavior are already there to help them make their judgments. To understand how this advantage works, one need look no further than the story of Neils Bohr. When Bohr was still a young scientist at about 25, he discovered several flaws of the established but not completed theory of Quantum Mechanics. He insisted on the idea that the electrons can exert mutual effect on each other regardless of the physical distance between them. Ironically, his idea was not accepted by the majority of the scientists of that time, including the giant of physics, Einstein. Furthermore, he and a few scientists who agreed him were even laughed at and were thought to be naive. But now, with the help of modern technology, especially the progress made in the field of communication, experiments have proved Bohr to be correct. Now the physicians give their most beautiful comments to him since they know he was right. From this case the advantage for the people lived after the individual to make just and proper decision on his/her greatness is clear and obvious.
To conclude, considering the relationships between the individual and his/her commenter and the advantage for the people who live after him/her to make their judgments, the right to make the best and most objective decision on the individual's greatness should better be left for the latter.
516wors 44mins, just in time ,pp3. |
|