Friday, March 16, 2012

42. Of Youth and Age

Central Argument: Bacon is saying that the young people are the 'thinkers' and 'doers' of society as their imagination is unlimited as they have not seen a lot of the world, and the old people are the people that manage the things that the young people do, this is because they have seen more of the world and have experienced more things.

Sir Francis Bacon writes in this essay about how society is affected by age, and how people's abilities and thoughts change as they grow older. He talks about how this change keeps balance in society and makes it thrive to move forward. He talks about the way the two collaborate and shape society and make it the best they possibly can. I believe that he is quite true and that his analogy, which is over two centuries old, still stands true today. He shows us examples from history to prove his points, but if we look at society today, we can see that there are people that are replicas in some way of his examples.

All of Sir Francis Bacon’s examples were of kings and conquerors. Society today is very different from society back then, when conquering a nation was far more common, and looks like it happened on a daily basis. These days with so many complicated international organizations, treaties, outside pressure, and on top of all those the threat of nuclear war keeps the chances of even a threat of war very minimal, so our world today was taken over in a completely different way, one that could not be imagined back then. In one word that way is called the Internet. The Internet was made famous by Google, which is literally the place where everyone goes to look of anything of any kind. The inventor of Google was only 20 years of age when he first launched the web site. This new revelation was all because of imagination and the unknowing of limitations. Bacon says that the young people are the imaginary ones and they don’t have boundaries, as they are inexperienced. No elder person would have thought of a website that can look all over the Internet to look for what you want. Google ruled the Internet for many years, and in some way still does, but now there is a new website where the whole world is, and that is Facebook. Designed by a man who was still in college at the time, Facebook has over 750 million members who have joined in the span of just eight years. One boy invented this company with his friend after he got back from the diner where he had just broken up with his girlfriend. Facebook is another example of young people’s will to do without thinking of the consequences, which is another thing Bacon highlights in his essay.

So as you can see that the world today is not taken over in an international border sense, but in a way that links every nation together with ease and no threat of war. If we look at the cause of unification now and back then we see it is the young people’s will and imagination of doing it. It they who thought about it, and went ahead and did it. If old people would have had the idea, they would have thought about it and said to themselves ‘cant be done’ but young people showed that you really decide that until you at least try.