The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.
There is a long-lasting common discussion about whether the greatness of individuals can be decided by their contemporaries or only by those who live after them. In this essay, I claim that contemporaries can decide whether someone was great or not for three reasons. First, greatness is about average people doing great things and about heroism. Second, what should be decided is whether an action was great or not and not the whole individual. Last, those living after may introduce anachronism in their judgments, changing the actions meaning.
In this debate, the first point we need to address is what does greatness means: is it something related with heroism or it can be achieve by average people? The meaning attributed to the word is important to decide what point of view makes more sense. In other words, I believe that if we understand greatness as heroism and huge achievements the post-mortem assessment is more germane. However, if we understand greatness as ordinary people improving their communities, finding and solving problems, helping vulnerable people and enhancing a better world, it is more appropriate to believe that their accomplishments can be evaluated by their peers. In this essay, I argue that greatness can and should be pursue by average people. And, therefore, individuals behavior and attitudes can be evaluated by their contemporaries.
The second aspect that we might discuss is why contemporaries can decide whether an individual is great or not. In this point, I claim that individuals greatness is not inherent to their nature, but it is related with their actions, attitudes and behavior. In addition, an individual greatness, if truly great, can be seen in concrete actions with concrete impacts and results. What I am saying is that we don’t need to wait the death of an individual to attribute a symbol of greatness, because we don’t care about the personal issues of that individual. It is important to assess their actions and the consequences those actions can achieve. For instance, let’s imagine an individual who helped the whole community by doing a project against poverty. For the argument sake, let’s say the poverty indicators, after the project, improved and the quality of life in that community was substantially increased. Now, let’s imagine that, after doing this magnificent project, the individual was involved in some personal scandals, such as having an affair. Should this fact change the assessment of the project he conceived? I argue that no. And, additionally, I believe that this is a perfect example of why we should assess people’s actions and not individuals itself.
Lastly, another point to be made is that greatness would always be a subjective indicator. What is great for some people might not be great for another group. Having the subjectivity in mind, the claim that only those who live after an individual can decide about their greatness is flawed. This is because the argument assumes that people coming after would have a better ability or perspective to evaluate somebody’s greatness. Conversely, I believe that people are always going to evaluate in a subjective way, putting their contexts, experiences and values in the evaluation process. Therefore, people living after may include some anachronism during the evaluation.
To sum up, I argue that greatness is not related to heroism, but it can be achieved by average individuals. In addition, I continue the argument by claiming that individual greatness is a result of actions and not of personal traits. In this sense, it is impossible to assess an individual greatness for his or her personal traits, because people are extremely complex. Nobody is perfect. Nevertheless, it is totally possible to evaluate the actions and the practical results of the actions taken and this can be done either by their contemporaries or by those who live after.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-18 | JENIRSHAH | 50 | view |
| 2020-01-18 | JENIRSHAH | 50 | view |
| 2020-01-08 | stevewang1007 | 58 | view |
| 2019-12-06 | chapagain08 | 58 | view |
| 2019-12-05 | Dipper | 50 | view |
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 709, Rule ID: SHOULD_BE_DO[1]
Message: Did you mean 'pursued'?
Suggestion: pursued
... argue that greatness can and should be pursue by average people. And, therefore, indi...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 141, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'individuals'' or 'individual's'?
Suggestion: individuals'; individual's
...eat or not. In this point, I claim that individuals greatness is not inherent to their natu...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 499, Rule ID: IN_A_X_MANNER[1]
Message: Consider replacing "in a subjective way" with adverb for "subjective"; eg, "in a hasty manner" with "hastily".
...hat people are always going to evaluate in a subjective way, putting their contexts, experiences an...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 578, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...temporaries or by those who live after.
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, conversely, first, however, if, lastly, may, nevertheless, second, so, therefore, for instance, in addition, such as, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 42.0 19.5258426966 215% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.4196629213 193% => OK
Conjunction : 26.0 14.8657303371 175% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 11.3162921348 194% => OK
Pronoun: 75.0 33.0505617978 227% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 58.6224719101 121% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 12.9106741573 77% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3310.0 2235.4752809 148% => OK
No of words: 632.0 442.535393258 143% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.23734177215 5.05705443957 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.01394158123 4.55969084622 110% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.98477952766 2.79657885939 107% => OK
Unique words: 253.0 215.323595506 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.400316455696 0.4932671777 81% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1026.0 704.065955056 146% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 15.0 6.24550561798 240% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 6.0 4.99550561798 120% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 3.10617977528 193% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.77640449438 113% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.38483146067 251% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 33.0 20.2370786517 163% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 23.0359550562 82% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 47.4663285035 60.3974514979 79% => OK
Chars per sentence: 100.303030303 118.986275619 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.1515151515 23.4991977007 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.48484848485 5.21951772744 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 7.80617977528 51% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 10.2758426966 156% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 5.13820224719 136% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.83258426966 207% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.472933309481 0.243740707755 194% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.132770043048 0.0831039109588 160% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.132367777521 0.0758088955206 175% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.313950875075 0.150359130593 209% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0881943767579 0.0667264976115 132% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.1392134831 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.8420337079 107% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.1743820225 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.11 12.1639044944 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.88 8.38706741573 94% => OK
difficult_words: 132.0 100.480337079 131% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 11.8971910112 67% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.2143820225 86% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.7820224719 68% => The average readability is low. Need to imporve the language.
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.