第一篇issue 48 求拍
There is an element of truth in the speaker's statement, but, from a certain perspective, one can hardly say for sure whether history is created by great figures or ordinary people who deserve more attention in history book as the speaker expects--The implicit rationale behind the speaker's expression seems to be that groups of people who have not been remembered have much more impact on historical development. To observe this issue all-around, in my view, it is not reasonable to underestimate the influence made by either kind of the two groups.
First of all, no one will doubt that there are a great deal of individuals who contributed remarkably to the world and society. The events they participated in or for the most time in which they played the leading roles had made them not but or lack elements of the long river of human history. One of the strongest examples is Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader. Just set a hypothesis of a world without Dr. King. Then, whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would have been passed in history remains a question; whether the Civil Rights Movement would have been nonviolent and well organized remains a question; whether Rosa Parks (or someone else) or Dr. King gained permanent reputation remains a question; whether there exists a world-known masterpiece--I have a dream, a prominently historical remark both for art and literature, remains a question. So from this respect, we should not ignore the profoundly significant roles that the great individuals played in forming history.
Meanwhile, the study of history emphasizing on individuals provides a terrain for moral contemplation. Figures in special situations in the past created stories of history who, in most cases, owned specific characteristics of great appetite for knowledge, awareness of interaction and communication, keen to think, amazing fortitude, decisiveness and carefulness, being humorous and energetic. Studying these stories allows a student of history to test his or her own moral sense, and can produce guidelines for the student against some difficult settings. What's more, the outstanding heroes in history are always taken as a child's models during his or her growth. Such as Chairman Mao, Armstrong, Mother Teresa, etc.
Secondly, I strongly agree that ordinary people make inevitable part of history. As the Marxist Theory recommends," The people's masses function decisively in the procedure of creating history." No ordinary people, no material wealth. No ordinary people, no spiritual wealth. No ordinary people, no revolution. This is clearly represented by the Long March and Reclaiming land in South bay of mud in Chinese history. 25,000 m made the Long March an everlasting miracle and Chinese citizens had become world-famous for incredible persistence. The vitality of South bay of mud created by the working people saved most lives of soldiers and common people, showed that how greatly influent to history the ordinary people could be. Like the great individuals written in history, ordinary people provide lessons in courage, diligence, or constructive protest.
Finally, as for the claim” the study of history places too much emphasis on individuals”, I suspect it is an illusion resulted from the feeling of a reader caused by the history's writing path. An individual has his or her name and distinguishing personalities thus making it easier to be described, and always more vividly. On the contrary, ordinary people are remarked as a group or masses, which will be unavoidably forgotten. Imagine a scene of the children crossing a road. A crowd of kids walk across the road, noisily, happily, or something alike. You get the fact of crossing but you hardly remember even one of the kids. But when there is only one child. It may leave you an impression of what color of its cloth or even its special facial expression. So is it in the occasion of historic study.
From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw the conclusion that both individuals and ordinary people deserve the emphasis placed by any of us. Looking down upon or neglecting either of them will surely damage the integrity of history. When give place space to the great figures, the study of history should also do plenty of work to let the voices of the tendentiously forgotten groups, and maybe in a more creative way.
