Issue36 求拍,有拍必回

小馨UID: 2220777

36. "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."

中文提纲：1.表明态度
          2.承认有些个人的伟大的成就当时就被承认了，举例说明
          3.有些人的成就是被后世的人发现的，举例说明
          4.不论是当代人还是后代人都可以对一个伟人的贡献作出判断
          5.最后再一次表明态度


This topic asserts that the greatness of individuals cannot be decided by their contemporaries, instead of it, it is can be assessed only by those who live afer them. While I concede insofar with the arguer’s assertion, to my attitude, both the contemporaries and the offspring can evaluate the greatness of one individual.

In the place first, a lot of people are admited the manifest contributions during their living time by their contemporaries, specially in the realm of the politics. For example, the Founding Fathers of the Unite State, Gorge Washington who has been respected by all the critens in Unite State at his living time. Mark Twain is another good example to illustrate it. At his time he is quite famous and had already been one of the best selling writer. Most of his work had a great effect on people who live at that era. There is no one can deny the great effect now that the Bill Gates contribute to the development of the economy nowadays. Hence, in fact some greatness of individuals can be decided by their contemporaries.

In the second place, compared with contemporaries the people who live after great persons have more advantage to evaluate the greatness of one individual. Since they live next genernation or many decades later, they can undertake an objective survey in judging greatness because they will not be influenced by the celebrities of that time. For instance, there in no one knows Van Gogh and his painting sunflower has no value in his time. However, the people who live after him found the great value of his artwork and gave highly appraisement about the painting that named sunflower. Subsequently the greatness of Van Gogh in art was admited. Therefore a lot of the greatness of individuals can be decided by the people who live after them.

At last but not least, both short-term and long-term judgement in evaluating one individual whether is great during the evolution of modern civilization is both important. On the one hand, contemporary people judge the celebrities have always made by their own experience. On the other hand, people live after the great persons have the opportunity to attain the more objective and complete views on the basis of all the efforts made by their forefathers.

In sum, the assertion of topic that one individual is whether great or not is decided by people who live after them rather than their contemporaries that are easily arguable. In my opinion, there may be some contributions by great people are acknowledged immediately, but others will need a long time. Therefore both contemporary people and the offspring are have the capability to decide the greatness of those great persons.

[ 本帖最后由 小馨 于 2007-7-19 12:28 编辑 ]