WORDS: 430(644) TIME: 0:43:00 DATE: 2007-8-10
People usually try to decide the greatness of individuals, who lived before them and in the same time with them. When it comes to the decision of the greatness of individuals, there are always a host of different opinions held by different people in different fields.
Should the greatness of individuals be decided by those who live after them or by their contemporaries? Admittedly, mostly their contemporaries may not be able to decide it for some social influence.
However, even those who live after them may also make mistakes when deciding their greatness.
To begin with, people live in the same time period with individuals whose greatness they want to decide, usually have a biased attitude toward those individuals, not only because of the media, but also due to those people's ability to understand them. Common people always tend to be influenced by others' points of view as well as some social phenomenon. And many great individuals in history had such high competence and genuine capability that they surpassed the society of their time.
UFor example, Monet, one of the greatest novelists in history, wrote a large number of novels during his life, but unfortunately almost not a single of those novels was published by people in his time, for his novels could not be accepted by most critics, considered as the most insightful readers, let alone other common persons. Another example concerns Gogh, one of the greatest three post-impressionistic painters in history. As is well known that his paintings such as Sunflower and starry light that represented the most outstanding impressionistic works and are acknowledged by people all over the world today, were refused by all people of his time and Gogh was under such pressure, which drove him mad and committed suicide.U History is replete with such examples. In light of this, on many occasions, it is rather difficult for people to decide the greatness of an individual in the same time of them.
