issue36

littlemouseUID: 191059

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

The speaker asserts that individuals' greatness cannot decide by their contemporaries but only by those who live after them. As far as I concern, I fundamentally agree with this statement for the following reasons.

In the first place, only by those living after the individuals can get enough information and materials to decide the greatness of those individuals. As we know, real great people have much more insightful ideas and thoughts than the ordinary people of their time; most of them are out of step of their time. As for this reason, the majority of their contemporaries could no hold enough knowledge to understand the ideas of the greatness. Only after some time, when people receive more knowledge about the great individuals' area can people understand their ideas and see how great those are. Another factor can support this point is that most great individuals are separated form ordinary ones so the contemporaries can not know much about them; as a result, only the people living after the great individuals can find more materials about those great people then judge the their status in history.

The second reason why I agree with the speaker's assertion is that the greatness of individuals needs time to attest. Real greatness must stand by the attest of history; if the behavior of individuals can only be perceived as great by their contemporaries not by the after people, we cannot see these individual are great ones. We can take the development of economy for example. In modern society, economical condition is a very important factor to justify political leaders. In order to develop the economy condition, there are some political leaders permit some factories to set up without considering the pollution of environment. The living condition of people may improved by the affect of those factories, then the people may ascribe the improvement to the leaders and consider them as great ones. Are the leaders really great leaders in this case? The people living after them can give us the right answer. When the environment is severely polluted even makes the lives of people in a dangerous condition and needs much more money than the factory makes to improve, people will find the leaders are not great at all for they did not see the affects in the long run. In a word, only the greatness of individuals that can stand by the test of time can we considered as real greatness.

Finally, I admit that there are some people whose greatness can be judged by their contemporaries. For example, if a person saves another in the water, we can consider him/her as great one. However, we should also admit that these examples are very few and we need time to justify the greatness of individuals.

To sum up, from all the factors I discussed above, we can draw the conclusion that the real greatness of individuals must be justified by people living after them, or we may make some mistakes in the process of cognizing of greatness.

real_vcUID: 195631

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

The speaker asserts that individuals' greatness cannot decide by their contemporaries but only by those who live after them. As far as I concern, I fundamentally agree with this statement for the following reasons.

In the first place, only by those living after the individuals can get enough information and materials to decide the greatness of those individuals. As we know, real great people have much more insightful ideas and thoughts than the ordinary people of their time; most of them are out of step of their time. As for this reason, the majority of their contemporaries could no hold enough knowledge to understand the ideas of the greatness. Only after some time, when people receive more knowledge about the great individuals' area can people understand their ideas and see how great those are. Another factor can support this point is that most great individuals are separated form ordinary ones so the contemporaries can not know much about them; as a result, only the people living after the great individuals can find more materials about those great people then judge the their status in history.

The second reason why I agree with the speaker's assertion is that the greatness of individuals needs time to attest. Real greatness must stand by the attest of history; if the behavior of individuals can only be perceived as great by their contemporaries not by the after people, we cannot see these individual are great ones. 这句话有点绝对，你下面还有让步的We can take the development of economy for example. In modern society, economical condition is a very important factor to justify political leaders. In order to develop the economy condition, there are some political leaders permit some factories to set up without considering the pollution of environment. The living condition of people may improved by the affect of those factories, then the people may ascribe the improvement to the leaders and consider them as great ones. Are the leaders really great leaders in this case? The people living after them can give us the right answer. When the environment is severely polluted even makes the lives of people in a dangerous condition and needs much more money than the factory makes to improve, people will find the leaders are not great at all for they did not see the affects in the long run. In a word, only the greatness of individuals that can stand by the test of time can we considered as real greatness. 最好例子能具体化一点，而且有点长

Finally, I admit that there are some people whose greatness can be judged by their contemporaries. For example, if a person saves another in the water, we can consider him/her as great one. However, we should also admit that these examples are very few and we need time to justify the greatness of individuals.让步有种草草收场的感觉，再充实一点，例子不太好，说服力不强，历史上有多少救落水者的人后代没忘记，还认可他的greatness
To sum up, from all the factors I discussed above, we can draw the conclusion that the real greatness of individuals must be justified by people living after them, or we may make some mistakes in the process of cognizing of greatness.