ISSUE36

TOPIC: ISSUE36 - "The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."

 

In the contemporary society, which is speeding up everyone's feet, there is a controversial issue which has generated heated debate: is the greatness of an individual determined by people spending lives after him or people living concurrently with him? Different people tend to hold different opinion over this issue due to their diverse experience and conflicting values. From my perspective, notwithstanding, the issue is so complicated that the final judgement should depend on a case by case analysis.

 

When it comes to the field of art, the recognition of artistic greatness does not necessarily call for a rear-view mirror. Surely, it might take quite a long phase for an artist to complete a piece of work like painting, sculpture or drama. But, immediately after his work is done, the value of the work would be appreciated by the ordinary audience and judged by the critics of his time, and in that way his greatness is objectively decided. Neither does the work necessitate further improvement by the artist’s newly-gained knowledge, nor does it call for future refinement by new techonology. In a word, as to art, the contemporaties are identied as major contributor to the judgement of a person’s greatness.

 

In considering science, on the contrary, hardly could scientific greatness be identified without historical retrospect. Noone could gain consciousness whether a theory is universally right or not when it is initially declared. The fresh theory has to endure vigorous test and experiment in order to become a widely accepted and mature one. Even a theory proves to be applicable in all the possible conditions at present, there is no still guarantee that this theory is utterly accurate for it is likely that future experiment or observation would completely overthrow the currently well-established theory. Due to this uncertain proof or disproof, substantiation or suspicion, critics or praise in the approaching future, the contribution of a scientist, mostly in forms of theories, would not be revealed and could only be revealed days or even centries after his publication of the theory.

 

Finally, when it comes to the business arena, the understanding of this issue turns out to experience even more complexity, ambiguity and difficulty. In some cases, it seems that accomplishment gains immediate awareness, while in other cases it does not. For instance, Henry Ford invented the assembly line approach in the manufacture of cars and helped to produce affordable cars to the masses. But his contribution, to the American economy even the modernization of the whole world, was not popularly acquainted at that time and remained ambiguous until many years later when a great multitude of people benifited from cheap vehicles. On the other hand Bill Gates, founder of the renowned Microsoft Cooperation, is mainly responsible for bringing the American economy out of the doldrums in the 1970s and restoring America to the status of ecomonic powerhouse and techonology leadership of the world. He almost earned his fame as soon as he established the monopoly position of Windows.

 

In a nutshell, the issue of an individual’s greatness recognition is too complex to allow for a simple and certain conclusion. In the filed of art, it is the contemporaties who are the determinant judge while in science the offsprings. In the realm of business, in certain cases it is the contemporaties playing a crucial role in the process of evaluating individual attainment, while in other cases the offsprings. Though it is likely that the public would never achieve consent on such a controversial issue, the public awareness of the various dimensions of the issue discussed above would contribute to the more thorough understanding of this problem.