本帖最后由 melody-qu 于 2010-12-13 22:18 编辑
48"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."
The speaker asserts in the statement that instead of focusing on the populace who are the real contributors of our society, we pay most of our attention on the study of well-known individuals. I cannot agree with the speaker’s assertion. In my opinion, the history is made by the distinguished individuals as well as the groups of people. They correlate each other and both worth studying respectively.
Admittedly, outstanding heroes always play significant roles history events. They are usually chief leaders in a group whose decisions will largely determine the direction of actions. In other case, they may possess extraordinary ability and insights which are admired by the people. These heroes, because of their ranks and abilities, stand in a decisive position so that they can probably make history. Consider, for instance, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, the famous peasant uprising leaders in China’s history, whose brave actions led to a series of peasant uprisings nationwide and finally turned over the Qin destiny. They were ordinary soldiers in the army who marched to a military destination when an unexpected rainfall stopped them from being on time. On this urgent moment, the leadership of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang revealed, for they stand out and called for the fellows to fight against the tyranny of the Qin destiny rather than wait to die. Thanks to their courage and wisdom, these soldiers became the first group of peasants in China’s history to resist the central government to pursue a better living. The leaders of this movement, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, have also been written in the history to memorize their deeds. In this case, imagine that there aren’t key roles like they two, these soldiers may move back and be sentenced death, just as in most of the same situations, which is regarded as legal and right at that time. If so, the history will be totally different. It is the core people who played a crucial role and finally changed the history. Given their significance in the process and the possibility to record their deeds in detail, they without doubt become the focal points of the study and leave many sources about them.
However, the populace who constitute the majority of the population should never be neglect. Back to the previous case, apart from the subjective decisions made by the leaders, we should notice some objective conditions which made the event possible. Due to the tyranny of government, living condition of the people was terrible and they didn’t have any freedom in expressions of their opinions and choices of their religions. The anger and rebellion spread secretly in the people, which was a necessary background at that time to evoke a revolution. The populace, instead of playing a specific part in a historical event, usually forms a necessary trend, without which the outstanding individuals can never make a difference. The importance of the groups of people is obvious, however, because they are a large amount of people with some common identities, it is not an easy job to record them one by one in detail. More often, they are described generally as a group, but it doesn’t mean they are not important or we don’t value them.
To sum up, the history is made by both the famous individuals and the groups of people, who play different parts in the course of history, working together to push it forward. Though the way to record them is with respective way, the importance is without difference. Over-emphasis on either single part is not comprehensive enough to present true history. Instead, we had better combine the study of the two parts together so that the history study is complete and trustworthy. 感觉一般,求狠拍~~~~~~~~~~
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