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发表于 2006-2-11 12:35:40
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36"The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
个人的伟大既不是由同代人决定的,也不是由后人决定的,而是由他本身的行为和时间来决定的,后人只是可能在评价历史人物的时候比同代人更客观更准确罢了。
1,只有一个人自己的行为,以及他的行为对于历史和人类发展的影响才是决定一个人是否伟大的决定性因素,而当代人和后人只是通过事实来作出评价,是历史评价的载体。
2,后人由于比前人多了历史和时间检验后的结果,能够站在一个比较高的角度做出评价,会更客观更准确,那也是反映了历史对个人价值的裁定。
Who should be the judge of the greatness of individuals, the contemporaries or people live after them? As far as I am concerned, none of them are qualified to be the judge, but the history and time should be the best deciders according to the contributions made by individuals.
As an old saying goes, time makes the fair-minded judgment. The conduct and contributions to society and the influence in promoting progress and development of history are decided by time, which shows its judge silently by historical facts. No matter how people comment an individual, the truth would be exposed after the examination of time. In the long river of history, numerous of rulers and emperors forced their people to pay a tribute to their achievement which they had not accomplished yet or never did. But such glory would not last long, since history and time never stop judging them by facts that cannot be neglected or concealed. Therefore, any action aiming to deny historical facts is in vain. No matter how Japan put its efforts to beautify and sanctify the grade-A war criminals in Jingguo temple, history won't change its judgment, and the evil committed by them will never be swept from history records and people's memory. In the same way, the greatness of individuals judged by history and time decided can not be denied, either. The contribution to society, academy, art and other field made by those prominent scientists, artists, political leaders will always sparkling in the sky of human history. Although they may not be understood by contemporaries or their contributions did not reveal to the public for a comparably long period, people have ultimately concede their greatness after time displayed its judgment. Any comment made by other people has to base on the facts, thus these evaluation are merely a kind of reflection of historical truth.
Admittedly, the comment made by later generations would be much accurate and objective than that of contemporaries. This phenomenon is due to the limit set by time and history. As I mentioned above, history and time serve as deciders and judges of the greatness of individuals, thus the attitude and comment based on these evaluation are confined by time. For example, the first emperor in the history of China, Qin, who conquered other small countries occupied the areas in China and commanded to build the Great Wall, had been abominated by contemporary people who suffered the pain of departure from families and the seemingly never-ending laboring forced by the army, and it is a undeniable fact that countless people died. I guess few would have predicted the paramount importance of Great Wall in protecting their offspring and preventing the enemies, as well as the precious historical and architecture wonder left to modern world. And so does his achievement in firstly unifying the whole country. It is the lack of long enough time periods which examines and displays the greatness of this emperor that result to criticism without the affirmation of his contribution to history in certain time period, though his violence cannot be denied as well. What is more, the same situation can be found many in the history of art and academy. Many painters and scientists, who exceeded the recognition of contemporary minds and theories, were fiercely attacked by the majority, but after a period of time the facts changed people’s attitudes, and the comment turned to the opposite. So, according to the judgment made by history and time, people would draw more accurate and objective conclusion of one’s greatness standing on higher place seeing through those individuals compared with those people in the same era with the famous.
As a conclusion, it is the history and time who actually decide the greatness of an individual, and the more accurate and just evaluation made by afterworld is merely the reflection of the judge offered by time, therefore wiser than the comporaries. |
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