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各位大虾,请拍砖
issue36
The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, but not their contemporaries.
To assess the greatness of individuals is actually a creative process, which is determined by creteria,social infulence, development of economy and feelings of people involved in the evaluation. Thus, the speaker's assertion that the greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them is too inflexible, neglecting some subjective factors such as creteria and individual fondness. In my opinion, both people living after the assessed individuals and their contemporaries can make approximately impartial conclusions in specific standards.
When it comes to deciding greatness of a person, we should first set standards for manipulation. Obviously, there is no all-inclusive principles to us. Different people focus on different aspects.Some of them tend to consider marality as the first and foremost factor while others may be incline to contemplate on social influence of a person prior to other factors. Generally speaking, someone who is authorative on his or her business is likely to be well appraised. But when he or she has morally done something wrong, the fame would be despoted at least to some extent. For those contemporaries, they get chances to directly examine the appraised person's behaviours and morality, they even gain access to feel the power of that person. Thus, appraisals of the greatness made by contemporaries are usually certain enough to trust. When the appraised person passes away, the next generations have to track his or her behaviours and morality by searching materials recorded, sometimes even by anecdotes passed from generation to generation. However,the fidelity of these materials is not always high, many people may be confused, let alone giving an appropriate assessment.
Another problem is that influences of individuals cannot be simply displayed in his or her era. Many famous people won their fame and became dominant in their era, thus, it is easy to measure influences of them and make objective assessments . For instance, Albert Einstain showed his talent when he was very young and was awarded Nobel Prize for his contribution. Bill Gates have accumulated incredible wealth in about 20 years and have gained widespread respection. No one denys their greatness. But there are many people who bring profound changes to the world after they die. For supporting examples we need look no further than Mendel, the founder of genetics. Mendel publicated his research results on plant hybridization and put forward his theory of genetics in 1865. But his thoery was not given enough notice at that time. It is not until 1900 that he became known to the world. Three scientists discovered his thoery again. Since then, genetics as a discipline greatly developed. Obviously, it is impossible for his contemporaries to give a proper evaluation on him.
At last, when we considering the greatness of individuals, social conditions must be taken into account. The level of science and technology affects our way of thinking very much. The deeper extent science and technlogy develop, the penetrating foresight we get. Scocial customs also play an important part in evaluation. Some individuals may be well adorned in his or her tribe or group, but not so respectable to other people because of their unfamiliarity to his or her customs. It is extremely easy to find cases in religion.
In summary, not only people living after the appraised person but also the contemporaries can decide the greatness of individuals. However, the results of them may be different. Concerning the standards, social conditions, fondness of individuals, these results could be approximately objective ones. When we
evaluate a person, we have to be alert to all these factors. Therefore, what the author claims is too consolidate. The author unessarily exclude the contemporaries. |
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