issue36

lestouUID: 2260126

TOPIC: ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
WORDS: 516          TIME: 00:42:54          DATE: 2007-12-4 15:59:08

As far as I concern, this assertion contain two specific meanings: (1) greatness of individual is determined by their descendants. (2) Contemporaries can not decide whether individual's work was beneficial or detrimental. I agree with both of them , and that the most essential and direct criteria in deciding individual's activities lies in how much contribution he/she did to the development of society.

For one thing, as time goes by, the actual value of ideas or theories may wear out, however, the influence that they exerted will never be effaced. For instance, lots of theories and ideas of Aristortles are proved by his descendants to be wrong or inaccurate, but his greatness never fade away in that his ideas lead all those live after him. Again, even Newton's theory system has been challenged by Einstein as only appropriate within a narrow framework. But not for their marvelous talent and efforts, which pave way for all those coming after him/her, we will not been able to stand on the ground where we are today. Time serves as a merciless filter, only those ture and effective theories can survive. Such feature granted that, it is relatively easy for us to judge the greatness of the figure in the past.

For another thing, however, when the ultimate correctness of theories is still out of our reach, or whether they can bring about benefit is still up in the air, what shall adopt as the key criteria in deciding the greatness of an individual? This has been a thorny question. Yet some principles still available to us, that is whether it can benefit our society contemporarily or in the long run. For instance, Giordano Bruno, the martyr who would rather burned himself rather than giving up his own beliefs, and finally won the veneration of all? That is only because what he believed may considered to be nonsense or even evil, but may become golden ruls for his future generations. Therefore, it is harmful to determine one's achievement only by the contemporaries, in that we are not only preventing our selves from objective and  justice, actually, we are jeopardizing the potential benefit that they may bring about in the future which can be predicted by none of our current generations. And any golden rules must undergo dozens, hundreds, thousands of years or even longer before it is widely accepted.

Then, question comes out, what criteria shall we taken as the prevalence criteria in deciding the greatness of individual’s theories activities and theories in our contemporary life. As I have stated in the beginning, the key point still lies in society itself. When we meet with problem in our study or work that we can not resolve and looking for a guidance of the theories from others, we should judicious enough to judge whether we can take advantage of it to do contribution of our society.  

For life is a paradox: it tells us to take advantage of all kinds of theories deriving from others, on the basis of which we can enlarge our eye sight as well as smooth the thorny roads ahead of us,  but it never allow us to believe all of them without our own analysis.

兰子UID: 2404184

TOPIC: ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
WORDS: 516          TIME: 00:42:54          DATE: 2007-12-4 15:59:08

As far as I concern, this assertion contain(contains) two specific meanings: (1) greatness of individual is determined by their descendants. (2) Contemporaries can not decide whether individual's work was beneficial or detrimental. I agree with both of them , and that the most essential and direct criteria in deciding individual's activities lies in how much (many 可数的)contribution he/she did to the development of society.

For one thing, as time goes by, the actual value of ideas or theories may wear out, however, the influence that they exerted will never be effaced.(查了韦氏的电子辞典，可以用wear out 和efface，收回再103中的砖头) For instance, lots of theories and ideas of Aristortles are proved by his descendants to be wrong or inaccurate, but his greatness never fade away in that（还是不理解这个that的意思） his ideas lead all those live after him. Again, even Newton's theory system has been challenged by Einstein as only appropriate within a narrow framework. But not for their marvelous talent and efforts, which pave way for all those coming after him/her, we will not been able to stand on the ground where we are today. Time serves as a merciless filter, only those ture and effective theories can survive. Such feature granted that, it is relatively easy for us to judge the greatness of the figure in the past.（组长的意思是我们能评价前人的功绩是因为经历了时间的考验，我们更容易判断他们理论的正确与否，但举的两个例子，我觉得确实在强调尽管亚里士多德和牛顿的理论有局限性，但他们仍然做出了伟大的贡献，感觉例子没有支持论点！）

For another thing, however, when the ultimate correctness of theories is still out of our reach, or whether they can bring about benefit is still up in the air, what shall adopt as the key criteria in deciding the greatness of an individual? This has been a thorny question. Yet some principles still available to us, that is whether it can benefit our society contemporarily or in the long run. For instance, Giordano Bruno, the martyr who would rather burned himself rather than giving up his own beliefs, and finally won the veneration of all?（为什么是问号，打错了吧） That is only because what he believed may considered to be nonsense or even evil, but may become golden ruls （rules）for his future generations. Therefore, it is harmful to determine one's achievement only by the contemporaries, in that we are not only preventing our selves from objective and  justice, actually, we are jeopardizing the potential benefit that they may bring about in the future which can be predicted by none of our current generations. And any golden rules must undergo dozens, hundreds, thousands of years or even longer before it is widely accepted.（这个例子觉得很好，十分切题，也很游说服力）

Then, question comes out, what criteria shall we taken as the prevalence criteria in deciding the greatness of individual’s theories activities and theories in our contemporary life. As I have stated in the beginning, the key point still lies in society itself. When we meet with problem in our study or work that we can not resolve and looking for （前后时态又是不一致的）a guidance of the theories from others, we should judicious enough to judge whether we can take advantage of it to do contribution of our society.  

For life is a paradox: it tells us to take advantage of all kinds of theories deriving from others, on the basis of which we can enlarge our eye sight as well as smooth the thorny roads ahead of us,  but it never allow us to believe all of them without our own analysis（个人意见，最后一段很不切题，给人一种没有写完的感觉，没有再次强调主题！）
思路不错，先解释为什么我们可以评价前辈，在解释为什么同时代的评价会有谬误，在总结出评价的标准到底应该是什么，但是，我觉得组长的作文还显得有些单薄，论证并不是十分有力，再添加一些内容，不失为一篇优秀的issue