issue36&241伟人谁能评价

我的马甲UID: 2177806

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

Issue241"An individual’s greatness cannot be judged objectively by his or her contemporaries; the most objective evaluators of a person’s greatness are people who belong to a later time."  

WORDS：575          TIME：0:44:11          DATE：2006-2-15

[限时结尾没写完，后经过简单修改和填补，可能还有不少单、复数类的错误没有改正]

In history, there have been emerging countless great individuals who contribute the human race myriads of greatness. Does the greatness only can be evaluated or judged only by the people living after it, as the speaker claims? Only via the personal experiences can we draw a conclusion that it is not the case. As a matter of fact, it should be through the case-by-case analysis, in the field of social life, arts and science.

In the realm of social life, most great individual's greatness can be recognized by the contemporaries. A universal reason accounting for this point is that the greatness of the social life is awfully related to the personal life. Consider the contribution of Mother Teresa. She dedicated the majority of her life to help the poorest of the poor in India, thus gaining her the name "Saint of the Gutters". The devotion towards the poor won her high honor throughout the world and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1797. Also, Martin Luther King, for example, fought for the equal rights of the black people in America, who also won the high respect in his life, till now. Hence, since people can feel their contribution for social life, these individuals' greatness can be appraised by in their era.

With respect to the field of art, certain artists' works can be acknowledged by the contemporaries, while other ones' cannot be praised at that era, and only have to suffer from the time perspective. For one thing, the oldest function of arts, many would insist, is to provide pleasure to the masses, and if people can feel the happiness the artists want to convey by their works, they of cause give their works high respect. Next, another role of the arts is directive, or say to educate people. Also, if the populace can understand the underlying theme of the works, these works can win a high honor. On the other hand, the buzzword of the arts is self-expressionism. It is via the works that artists express their own emotions, passions and desires. The works are most concerned about the artists' inner world rather than the society as a whole. In certain circumstance, frequently, the works offended the prevailing and traditional standards and aesthetical custom, and therefore cannot be accepted by the contemporaries. Like Beethoven's symphonies, when people heard them at his time, they often felt such music hurt their eras, how could they give Beethoven's music high honor?

In the field of science, the situation is just like that of the arts -- a mixed one. The course of reorganization the greatness is a psychological one, and it is inevitably confined within the cognition system of that period, like the limitation of the knowledge and technology, and based on the agreement of the people, especially the experts. In this sense, some contribution can be comprehended at that time, whereas others may not. For example, Newton’s theories, like the foundation of calculus, the law of gravitation and the three fundamental laws of mechanics, understood at that time, at least the experts of the field, won the high acknowledgement is his era. On the other hand, for certain great scientists, who own the ideas and thoughts surpassing that of others in their era, even those experts, their discovery or contribution cannot be accepted by the contemporaries. For instance, mathematician Cantor, whose theory of set unaccepted by the experts at that time, but now, is regarded as the founder of the new branch of mathematics-set theory.

In final analysis, coming across the question “who can verdict the greatness of individuals?”, people should not misled into a dilemma, forced to make a choice between the contemporaries and those living after them. So complex the condition is in various fields that people can hardly share a uniform and single answer for any field.[635words]


补个提纲：
观点，case-by-case
1、社会生活领域是当代。
2、艺术领域是混合。
3、科学领域是混合。

快考试了，考完回来一定补上！

[ 本帖最后由 我的马甲 于 2006-2-15 09:16 编辑 ]