issue48 [jet小组] 第十次作业

ilabcUID: 2298724

TOPIC: ISSUE48 - "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."
WORDS:         TIME: 01:00:00          DATE: 2008-2-14 21:06:35

research on every one is no possible
some celeberites can be repersentive for a peroid of history(some dividual is not possible)
the public often be used by the government
the public trends push the history

Human beings have a history of over 5000 years. During such long time, many great events and heroes stand out as the landmarks of every period of history.  I agree that, to some extent, ordinary people also impact the human history. However, I believe that history needs heroes and it is more economical and effective to do the research of history based on celebrities.

Admittedly, history can not be created only by the minority of famous figures. Because the power of an individual is so limited, they need the force of the public to push the history moving forward. The war cannot happen with a large of soldiers, the demonstration and revolutions needs the voice of the public. In fact, you can see many ordinary people took part in every big event. It is their efforts that change history.

However, though the efforts of the public are the main force in the history, it is not economical to take research on every individual when we learn history. In the stage of human history, generations come and go. Most of them even do not let them name left in the record. It is impossible for us to take every one's information. Let alone such boring works would take so much time and energy. Furthermore, for most of the information of these nobodies, the value of them is low. As a biography of a farmer who cultivates corn in all of his life obviously cannot help us to have better understanding about the human history. So there is no use to take every individual's into account when we learn the history of human beings.

It is impossible to record every one in the history. So the best way to have a clear picture of human history is to study some typical figures. Because they are like the landmark and can be representative of most of the public during one period of time. For instance, when we discuss the philosophy of ancient Greece, we just need to remember three names: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.  They are teachers and students to each other and all spent their whole lives inspiring knowledge and wisdom. When we recall these famous names, their ideas such as importance of ration, the ideal of the republic and the basic knowledge of syllogism would naturally come into our brain.  Though it is not the overall picture of the philosophy of that time, at least, we grasp the main part of it, which is enough for most of people. Similarly, Napoleon stands for the revolution of France. Mao Zedong, the founder and the first president of People's Republic of China, can not be overlooked in the history of China. These heroes all have close relationship with their time. Their great achievements and their biographies are representative of the history.

Furthermore, when we observe the history in a deep level, we can find out that many times, the public is only the tools and used by government and other political force. Adolf Hitler is blamed to the sinner who caused World War II. He used his talent in public speaking to agitate people's patriotism and their angry towards other nations. When he controlled the regime of the Germany, he used the mass media to propagandize his desire of invasion. Unfortunately, he succeeded finally and the whole nation did not realize what they were doing is a huge mistake until their failure in the war. For ordinary people, they do not know much about the politics. It is common that under the control of government, domestic citizen would never know any scandal happens in the nations through mass media. Under such circumstance, they cannot find the truth. The history is always written by the victors. When we moved about the scarification of old people, we should have clear mind that many great stories have political purpose, which the main actor of the story would not know.

In sum, though the force of the ordinary people should not be neglected, it is impossible and ineffective to study every one’s information when we study history. Sometimes, the public can force even be used for some private purpose. So I still believe that the study of individual is the best way to learn history, which is more economical and more efficient.