41. The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their
contemporaries.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement
and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position,
you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how
these considerations shape your position.
Can the greatness of an individual only be recognized by those who live after them, other than there contemporaries, when retrospecting the history? In my view, the speaker makes the statement unfairly with some omission. In some areas, particularly scientific or academic fields, I agree with the statement because numerous hypotheses or theories will be demonstrated after years, then we can show our respect to the great scientists. However, in many other cases, especially the art field, that most achievements were recognized right after the work was published seems more convincing then the statement.
We do need a long time to scrutinize the work a scientist made to conclude that whether he made a splendid invention or discovery. On the one hand, the research results may have been confined by religions or aristocracies, both of whom feared that their status would be impaired if people thought the results were verified. It takes years to get rid of these fetters. Take Copernicus for example, his hypothesis that earth and other planets all travel around the sun has something against the Roman Religion’s sovereignty thus being persecuted all his life long. On the other hand, our eyesight and thinking is broadened as the technology develops rapidly, any foregoing theories may be proved not true when we know more. Just like the recent discovery that particles may be able to run faster than light. So in this case, the greatness of individuals ought to be evaluated by late-comers.
In the contrary, in many other fields or circumstances, say arts, the greatness of a person can really be witnessed by their fellow contemporaries. For there are no axioms or strict theories to be referred to, or any breakthrough in technology has something to do with arts, artists need not worry about the downfall of their work. If it is not so, how could Mark Twain be the reverent writer during his lifetime and his books were on the top of the best-sellers for that long? If it is not so, how could Lang Lang's talents in piano be acknowledged when he was just a small boy instead of years after his death? That is to say, there are still cases in which an individual's success can be decided by the people live in the same time with him.
However, to define the greatness of individuals, we should ignore neither aspects of the instant influence and the far-reaching influence. Both of which is indispensable to judge persons' achievements. If the greatness of an individual is merely decided by people in his own time, we cannot know that whether it will fade after years which in turn alleviates the greatness. While if it is solely decided by people live after him, the evaluation is not complete. Once we take both contemporaries' opinions and their descendants' ideas into consideration, can we fairly decide an individual's greatness.
In sum, the speaker overlooks many great individuals whose successes were widely recognized during their own time. Whether the greatness is decided by descendants or contemporaries cannot be constrained to just one stiff facet, considering that both of them play their specific roles in judging the achievement is much more comprehensive.
觉得挺挫的。。。刚开始写issue希望CD大虾们给点意见~小弟在此拜谢了！ | 
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发表于 2012-2-15 20:21:10
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