The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.

The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by their contemporaries.

The view puts time verification and the greatness of individuals in a definite relationship, but the truth is the greatness of individuals can be found immediately or years ago. They are two completely different things.

One very typical instance to prove the given view is the debate about which one is the center of the universe. Out of common sense and superficial observation, people at that time roughly think that the earth is the center of the universe until a group of scientists retorted them with scientific observation and large number of testimonies that strongly supported their points of view. We should notice that, these people were not regarded as great pioneers at that time but to make it worse, they were mostly regarded as heretics and received severe punishments and oppression from the government and the society. It takes years of campaign with the earth-center believers that people finally realize the weakness of the explanations from them. When those leaders’ reputations are eventually justified, they were long gone.

But from a materialistic point of view, whether a man is great or not, noble or not is not decided by time or people. Greatness is the inherent feature of a great man, it only needs to be verified by time, the time could be decades later or even several years. When Einstein proposed his greatest theory——the relativity theory, it only take a few years that the scientific realm realized the genius of Einstein and how great his findings would be. Meanwhile, one’s true nature could also be exposed to the public in a very short time. One typical example is the notorious dictator, Adolf Hitler. Although, it’s not long before his lies and true nature being exposed and brough massive destructions to the Germany at that time, but we should never forget that Hitler is elected through complete democratic progress which means he’s chosen by his people, he was “great” in the eye of the people in his time, initially.

In conclusion, whether a man is great or not is defined at the very beginning of it. Time is only a tool to verify this truth. The time spent in this process doesn’t have an absolute standard, it could be long or short. So, whether the view given is right or wrong should be considered case-by-case.