Issue48 【Persistence 小组】第十七次作业，补的

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48. "The study of history places too much emphasis on individuals. The most significant events and trends in history were made possible not by the famous few, but by groups of people whose identities have long been forgotten."


The speaker claims that most significant events and trends in history are possibly made by groups of people rather than individuals, and therefore the study of history should focus on and emphasize the former instead of the latter. Some other persons, especially some experts in history, argue that studying key historical figures can give us significant clue in the study of history. However, there are two sides to every icon, and it is hard to conclude which statement above is better than the other. From my perspective, both famous historical figures and common groups of people in the history deserve our attention on the research of history.

To begin with, as the speaker has claimed, common people in the history played vital roles in the evolution of human civilization and their efforts should not be ignored in the study of history. Firstly, only if the most common groups of people participated, involved in or were influenced by the events or trends can we take these historical events or trends as great significances. Secondly, it is the efforts of a large number of common people that make it possible for those few key individuals to achieve the significant change in the progress of human society. For instance, most historical revolution which aimed at overthrowing the obsolescent government are made by the large number of common people who have engage themselves in these revolution with great braveness or even bloods, though we can probably only remember the few leaders of them.

Though the few elites only take a small number in the historical events, they are the only people who have the further understanding of the contemporary social condition and provide visions of the future, visions that groups ultimately bring into realities under the leadership of the elites. The key historical individuals, who were usually well educated or possess the capability to lead a large scale action, made it possible to share their features and incite the common groups. In most significant historical events, these famous figures can represent the contemporary people and the only difference between key individuals and common groups is that the former have more conscience and courage than the latter. Therefore, by studying the speeches, behaviors and works of these famous historical figures, we can get to the essence of those historical events more quickly.

However, placing too much emphasis on few individuals undermines our understanding of the history and has adverse effect on the comprehensive study of history. Learning about the famous figures in the history enables us understanding the situation of contemporary society in a general point of view, but not every aspects of that society. Most significant events were caused by few problems which intensively hampered the interest of the common groups of people. In order to avoid bias and gain complete information, historians who conduct the study of history should overemphasize the few famous historical figures and then get more comprehensive knowledge, sometimes the very details, about the history.

In the final analysis, constructing a balance on the research of both historical key figures and groups of common people is important and necessary for us to understand the history completely. Overemphasizing or ignoring either of them, we take a high risk of conducting a bias on the study of history.