Issue36 ScorpionSky--Hamming组迎拍砖

ScorpionSkyUID: 2273954

36. "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
一个人是否伟大是由后人评定的而非他同时代的人。
时间先后

说者认为对一个人伟大的界定是靠后人，而不是他生活的时代的人。这种说法有正确的地方，但总的说来，太过绝对。首先，同时代人评定一个人，总是有一些困难，尤其在过去，或者被认识能力所局限，或者被某种势力所左右，甚至有的伟大人物在世的时候不回避名利，后人的看法更客观，更全面。但是更多伟大的人物是被及时认可，并始终保持了他们的声望，尤其在当今信息社会，大众对大人物的评论比我们的前辈做的更及时，更准确。

1，同时代的人去评定一个人的成就，往往有很多困难，一方面：确实有很多伟大的人物被时代压制—被统治者，或者被愚昧的观念，历史上，有大量被现在人看作的伟人在他们生活的时代命运悲惨，不能得到及时的认可。比如：
2，相对来说，但是有更多的例子证明，大部分伟大的人物可以被及时的发现，并且被载入史册
3，特别是今天，现代社会科技发达，信息传递极快，人们思想独立，不易被外界左右，所以，大多数有作为的人还是可以被社会认可的。
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The speaker asserts that a proper judgment with a great man only could be made by the people who live after him or her. Although this assertion has some facets are merit, indeed, it is too absolutely at the verdicts within the big figures. No one can deny the fact that it is really hard for the contemporaries to judge a famous individual rightly, which relatively could be done by followings humans easily. On contrary, people also could not ignore the undeniable fact that there are more cases of individuals, who with certain achievements, could be known in time, especially, in modern times.

It is difficult to identify greatness without checked by a long period. Many people, in a certain times, always failed to give a right view upon an influential person, who live the same time with them. Often, they confined by their limited information, or misled by the rulers or authorities at then. Consider the example of the German, during the period of World War Two, who misled by the ruler Hitler. The whole country lost its direction  and began to discriminate against the Jewry severely. Then, those people could not recognize what a man of Hitler was actually, even followed him as a great ruler. Nowadays, most German realize that Hitler is a crazy autocrat and historical sinner. There is another example reflected the difficulty of people to judge figures at their era, say, Cao Xueqin(Cao Zhan), the author of the single greatest masterpiece of Chinese fiction, Hong lou meng, which published until almost 30 years after Cao death. Obviously, lacking instant communication,  public even hard to know those great men instantly.

More often than not, however, individuals, who acquired certain great achievement, could be found and loaded in historical works. As leaders George Washington, during the Revolutionary War(1775-1783), Martin Luther King, during the Civil Rights Movement (1950S-1960S), had been respected of publics then and there. More, Thomas Edison, Newton, Einstein, and numerous laudable huge figures had been praised and recorded by human beings at their times.

Especially, nowadays, we could say that it is hard to conceal both great achievements and foolish scandals made by those public figures. To search for the reasons, it should owe to the rapidly change of technologies, such as TV, Internet, Mobilephone, etc. In addition, human civilization is more full developed than ever before. Consequently, the way of individual’s thinking is becoming more and more independent, along with sound information in the media, it result in a more accurate decide to a great figure. For instance, Bill Clinton. His talent economical strategy brought about the longest economical increasing period in American history. As a response of his excellent job, public gave him a considerable high supporting ratio, even when he undergoing some disgraceful scandals.

In sum, even if the speaker’s assertion has some facets are merit, it seems over absolutely. I concede the fact that it is hard for the contemporaries to decide a famous individual. Whereas, most times history could give those distinct figures a judgment in time, particularly in our era, in which advanced communication contribute much more to such things.

[ 本帖最后由 ScorpionSky 于 2007-1-27 15:37 编辑 ]