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------题目------
The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.
------正文------
When we look back into the history, we'll see lots of examples of great figures being misunderstood by their contemporaries. Sometimes people may not judge the greatness of individuals of their same age. Moreover, bearing a historical view, posterities may evaluate the greatness of their forefathers more systematically and precisely. However, the speaker goes too far to an extreme in the statement that the greatness of individuals cannot be decided by their contemporaries, which I think is not the case.
In some situations, the greatness of some superior talented, genius people may far beyond common people's imagination and eyesight. They may achieve accomplishments far beyond their time. History like this mostly frequently repeats in the science and art field. When Einstein firstly published the relativity, few people understand him and even this small proportion cannot imagine how the theory has affected modern society. The great Chinese literate Cao Xue Qin wrote the "A Dream of the Red Mansions", a major masterpiece of high value highly admired by latter people, back in the Qing Dynasty hundreds of years ago. However, few people of his time had noticed how great his great work was and even fewer people had heard of it. The great literate was end up in poverty.
Further, we also see in history that due to the specific condition of certain times, some great people were intentionally debased by a few powerful persons and were greatly ill treated by the uncultivated public. Back in middle age Europe, while religion dominated the majority, the great achievements of scientists and other individuals against theology were intentionally made heterodoxy by the rulers, thus most people treat them as witches or demented freaks. There is no hope for the great figures of that severe time to be judged fairly by their contemporaries.
Additionally, as some thoughts and ideas of the great ones are so great that though people of the same age regarded them as galaxy, they are still not fully admired to the extent they deserved. Again in Ancient China, there once was a great man named Sun-Tzu whose great Art of War are highly admired by modern people. Nowadays not only in the pure military field but also in economy, business and other fields people find that his military theory is very practical. However, back to his own time, he was mainly admired as a great captain and his contemporaries people had no idea how great he was as a thinker and that his Art of War was not only applicable in battle fields.
Although I deem that latter people may do a better judgment of the greatness of individual, I cannot concede that people cannot rightly decide the greatness of the noble figures of their same time. There are achieves of some great people that can be easily perceived by common people of the same time. For instance, President Mao of China is admired as one of the greatest political leader of China and the main founder of the PRC. He successfully led his people through wars and pains and showed them the light of a new independent life. Other great political leaders as well as uncultivated peasants of his nation in his time spared their praises and admirations of this great man.
TO sum up, in some situation, people may not well understand the greatness of individuals of the same age while the later generation could fulfill the request. But still they have the ability to judge the greatness of some galaxy rightly based on their knowledge and experiences. |
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