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Can an individual's greatness be decided by their contemporaries or by their descendents? I think the author make a quirky conclusion. ConsiderConsidering the complex character of "greatness", I prefer to say that weatherwhether the contemporaries or the descendents should be decided case by case.
At the first,maybe, “first of all” or “to begin with” would be better I think it is necessary to define the word "greatness". When I say "greatness of an individual" I mean that someone has made some significant contributions to the nation, or to our society. Just as scientists, they bring us new technologies with which we facilitate our lives; or the artists, who make so beautiful arts with which we can live in a more colorful world; or the "heroes", without them we can not even have a peaceful world to live; and so on. The speaker says can we decide means that can we appreciate their contributions to us.?
To follow with the definition, I can see that in some cases the significance of individuals work can be decided only by those who live after them rather by their contemporaries. Just take the science realm as an example, Copernicus, whose heliocentric theory was acknowledged after his deaths. For the reason that it challenged the Christian’s believes that earth is the center. In the old daysancient times, much scientific equipment was very simple that in many times people did not believe the scientists. And in most times their believes are lies on superstition. So Copernicuserror! It is Bruno who war condemned to be burn to death was fire to death by the Christians while his greatness is recognized many years late by his descendents.
More overMoreover, it is also true in the art realms that the greatness of artists be confirmed after many years. In the past, it is more important for any people to avoid starveness than to appreciate the arts. Therefore, the person who can really comprehend arts was so rare that in many times the artists were considered to be cynical, while their works fully nonsense. A compelling example is Van Goth, when he was alive he could not even sell a photo, which lead to his death. may be “for supporting example, one only needs to see to Van Gogh, the Dutch painter who only sold one single painting during his life, however after his death nearly all of his works are ranked as masterpieces ” While in nowadays, any one who talked about him will say high of him and appreciate his significance to the world of art. It is the lack of acknowledgement of the art that blind the people to recognize the greatness of artists.
However, the case that contemporaries can decide the greatness of individuals also exists. The heroes, just like Martin Luther King, can be remembered by people both liveliving in contemporary society and nowadays. Martin Luther King, who struggled his life on the rights of blacksmaybe “who leaded the American Africans to struggle for equal rights as the white” would be better, brought the immediate beneficence to the blacks. Therefore, he was revered in his time and his greatness was realized by his contemporaries.
To sum up, it should be case by case to decide weather can the contemporaries or the descendents decide the greatness of individuals. The "greatness" contains a lot of things and people's level of appreciate this greatness are affect by many factors.
https://bbs.gter.net/viewthre ... &extra=page%3D1
[ Last edited by davidjacky on 2005-6-27 at 16:26 ] |
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