Posted by smoke on October 11, 19102 at 02:37:01:
As the planet we are living on seems to be a more and more secular one, people are trying to make our mark and draw respects from our contemporaries, which is so called ¡°success is to be popular¡±, but from a broader view of the human history we will find, without any doubt, that the greatness of individuals can only be decided by the persons living after them. I will propose two main reasons to substantiate my views.
Firstly, when we are focused on the meaning of ¡°greatness¡± we will make us clear that only after a period of the scrutiny of the history can a human being¡¯s ¡°greatness¡± be called a real ¡°greatness¡±. Greatness is not a word that can be used anywhere, it refers to the contribution that an individual make to the human race, to be more concise, the history of the human race. Human history is just like a long series of TV show in which we cannot decide the ¡°goody¡± or ¡°baddy¡± from the first sight. So it is only in history that we can know whether an individual is really great or only a popular character.
Secondly, when we retrospect the passing history figures we will realize that to indicate a person¡¯s greatness by contemporaries¡¯ remarks is very ridiculous. Just take the example of Hitler, when he founded his Third Reich millions of Germans regarded him as the hero of the world and before the World War II even a lot of officials of England and France held the same opinion. But when the war broke out , scandals are poured upon Hitler from Western World. At the time, a third party will never know the true face of Hitler. Only after the world war had the public realized what Hitler did has no relationship with ¡°greatness¡± but ¡°wickedness¡±. This is the power of history which is the only rule that can measure the ¡°greatness¡± of a person. On the contrary, there are also some persons who were really great but couldn¡¯t be recognized by his or her contemporaries just like the famous scientist Galileo and a lot of artists. This furthers strengthening my position.
I admit that a lot of really great people are recognized by their contemporaries, as so many Nobel Prize owners are. However, a lot of mistakes can also be made. So when we come to the word ¡°decide¡±, we will consequentially choose the history , the men who live after the individual , to be our umpires .
In sum, from the meaning of the ¡°greatness¡± and human history can we lead to the same conclusion that the greatness of an individual can only be justified by the people who live after him.