Issue36【四海一家】第二次作业

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Issue 36  The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries. 一个人是否伟大只能是由后人评定,而非他同时代的人

Can the greatness of individuals be decided only by those who live after them instead of their contemporaries? In my point of view, the answer to this question depends on the specific circumstances of each different individuals and many other factors including which fields they mainly work in, how famous their contribution is at that time, and the subsequent influence to the following period, etc.

Go through the human history, we can find that many celebrities have been very famous during their living period, espacially educators, philosophies, politians and artists, no matter in western or our country. For example, most acient poets in China have received pretty high reputation even before they achieved their own upmost height, such as the leaders in the field of literature and poem in each single dynasty. Bai Juyi, one of the most greatest poet and litterateur living in about one thousand years ago, enjoyed the same if not even higher status and popularity during his lifetime as today. It is recorded that not only Chinese people are all familiary with his poems despite of the age and occupation, but also minoraty people living aroud the border of Song dynasty can recite his representative works. Almost the same situation also appears in many other reamls all over the word, which indicats that the greatness of individuals could be recognized under sertain conditions, espaciallly when the works or contribution itself has a relative fixed criterion.

However, in other cases, the greatness of someone whose mind and achievement is far more beyond their period has been recognized long after their death. Limited by the time they lived in, most of them made a hard living when alive but were considered historically great by those who live after them. The most typical one is Copernicus, whose heliocentric theory led directly to his tragic fate at that time but was valued extraordinarily by following period. Thus, we can see that the limitation of the present government, the religion, the popular authority or the time itself could result in objection and therefore unfair judgement, which futher gives rise to a delay or missing to the recognition of some greatness.

From all above, the greatness of individuals would be judged by both contemporaries and those who live after them. Contemporaries’ opinion may be not always so fair and square as it should be, so the judgement come from the following period could amends people’s prejudice to some extent, which, as I see it, will be more comprehensive and thereby neccesary.



[ 本帖最后由 slx 于 2007-2-4 23:12 编辑 ]