Issue36 [清凉夏日2小组]

Amelia1214UID: 2228270

题目：ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
字数：485         用时：上午 12:45:00          日期：2006-7-26

Can a person's greatness be decided only by the offspring? As far as I am concerned, both people who live after the great figures and their contemporaries can recongnize the greatness of individuals. However, compared with the contemporaries, people who live after them have much more advantanges to judge the greatness of them.

First of all, in some areas, such as academia, politics, it is diffucult to identify a person's greatness by their contemporaries. For academia, once a new theory is presented, perhaps the technological  level at the time is too low to test whether it is correct or not. However, along with the development of science and technology, the theory's correctness will ultimately be checked out one day. What is be regarded as truth today may be detected to be a fallacy tomorrow; in like manner, what is thought to be preposterous now may be found to be a great discovery in the future. In retrospect of history, such illustrations are out of number. For instance, Copernicus and his Heliocentric conjecture, Darwin and his research result "Origin of Species", were both questioned at the time, which now are reverenced as the greatest intellectual revolutions of human history and earn their reputations as well. It is the similar in the realm of politics. In a word, the contemporaries usually don't have ability to accomplish such a mission that test the celebrities' greatness without slipping a cog, so the mission have to be handed down to offspring.

Meanwhile, as the great figures always go ahead of their times, they can't readily be acknowledged by their contemporaries. Monet, being considered to be a great artist nowadays, serves as a good example. His famous work "Impression: Sunrise" was not understood initially, since it seems peculiar for a large amount of blue was used as the major color for sunlight.  Hence he did not find acclaim in his life and even sufferd from extreme poverty. His greatness was recognized till several decades after his death. From this example we can learn that only time could assess a person's greatness, and evaluations made by the contmporaries often lead to mistakes.

Admittedly, the history of human being also is replete with the cases that the celebrities' greatness are admitted immediately, especially in the field of business. A current example involves the richest person: Bill Gates. Microsoft, which is founded by him, dominates the PC markets with its operating systems, such as MS-DOS, Windows and is the biggest software company in the world. His contribution is facile to be recognized immediately it is happening. Undoutedly, he will be on the scroll of fame. In short, under certain conditions, the greatness of a figure can be judged by their contemporaries, particularly in the business.

In sum, different realms, different environment may induce to the variant results.  Therefore, whether individuals' greatness can be decided by their contemporaries must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

helenlhhUID: 2127690

good job!
good luck with you!