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

The author contends that people live after an individual can adequately see their impacts and influences and who live in the same time cannot examine their greatness from all points of view. This is the contention that I generally disagree with for the following reasons.

First, as advance of communication technology there is no need to pass a great deal of time to someone to be known in comparison with before. Several universal competitions are held every year in different fields of art and science. Talented painters, writers, photographers, chefs and moviemakers are introduced to the world frequently. Every scientific discovery or research should be submitted to particular related journals and pass the evaluation process and be judged by specialists as well. So with high speed rate of data transitions greatness of individuals is rarely overlooked.

Second, since nowadays widespread source of information is easily available, folk are less biased than people who only heard news filtered by authorities. The government power to lead the public perception is diminishing each day. Although terrestrial broadcasting (cable news) covers only some parts of world’s events, for example some wars never be reported, people can be aware of what is in fact happening via satellites or internet; therefore great and crucial decisions around the world can be acknowledged. While in the past people use to gage someone’s greatness partially because of their inadequate information.

However, what I mentioned in the two paragraphs in the body should not be generalized. That is some actions have impact to the future and it is needed to take some years to appear unavoidably. For instance, astronomers’ theories about how the galaxy is going to change cannot be examine by their contemporaries and some particular amount of years should be past to see if the theory is reliable or not. Also some politician’s decisions affect indirectly next generation who have the right to judge them.

From the above statements, it can be concluded that we can recognize most of our contemporary icons; while, there is a possibility to our great people will be found by those who live after us.