Issue36

36"The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries."
(488 words)
It's what he had done leads to a single person's greatness, not what kind of person he himself was. We define a person as "greatness" always due to the impact his action made on society, the influence his idea add to other people, the moving his experience took during the periods. Moreover, what the great man thought and did was often refered as odd and ridiculous. As for this matter, people in their same time can't understand the things those great men did. On the other hand, those people who did many wrong, or even cruel things may be rewarded as a hero by their contemporaries.There are many such examples in political realm. During the 4000 years of China, the nation's empire always changed. According to the tradition, the post of empire was always given to his son or other relatives, by generation to generation, until a man in a different family took the position, that's how a new dynasty began. As an old Chinese proverbs said: Winner takes it all, while loser stands small. Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once wrote: "History is writen by victors.". Another example is Maozedong, the former president of the P.R.China(PRC). Admired by people all around the China before his death, Mao was blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution after his passing away. It's only after Deng Xiaoping, completely unlike Mao, subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives, that living standards have seen extremely large improvements, and freedom continues to expand for much of the PRC's population.As in arts field, many artists and author died poorly, while the value of their products was recognized by later generations, and became popular all over the world, some of these products were remained for thousands of years as classics. Van Gogh suffered from non-recognitoin of his art and the subsequent poverty and mental derangement. Yet today, Van Gogh's paintings, especially those done during his poverty, are pursuited by many crazy collectors.When it comes to the scientific territory, this point is still suitable. Giordano Bruno,the man who challenged the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church by altering the accepted theory of the earth's position in the universe, was burned at the stake as a heretic. Another scientist, Galileo, a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, had played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. Although as the "father of modern observational astronomy" and the "father of science", Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentric theory and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition.In sum, although the contemporaries can judge a man as great or not in experience, yet the definitoin of the "greatness" comes from whether the things he had done had a great function in the history, only by this, we can find out one's true position. Above all, history is the ultimate judge.