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John Sanchez

Ms. Lori Brown

1501.5

26 February 2010

Humans are interesting intellectual creatures always on the search for new knowledge,

new beliefs, and a realization of the answer to everything. Humans in the theatre of society,

whether modern, post-modern, or ancient, are always on the search for a way to be wiser, to be

smarter, to have obtained that high establishment of wisdom that would even taunt the steps of

Solomon. This is where Bacon begins to step in with his ultimate search of wisdom as well. A

brilliant man, he was on the search for wisdom untainted by his belief of the Four Idols that

plagued the Ultimate search. These were the Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Cave and Idols of the

Marketplace. To Bacon, the Idols corrupted the Ultimate search for a better whole. In current

society they still exist too and cause a stagnation of modern activities and thoughts.

Idols of the Tribe exist in modern day people. If people admire someone, love them and

raise them to be their own idol, they will begin to subconsciously and consciously pick up the

traits of the one they admire. They will absorb both the good and bad traits of the individual they

follow, leading to a corruption of self identity. One clear example of this that occurs often is in

advertising. If people see a personal idol, say like Tony Roma declaring that “Eating at Pizza Hut

is the dinner of a champion”, people that strive to be like him would be subconsciously

compelled to eat at Pizza Hut, subconsciously thinking that they will be one more step closer to

being like Tony Roma. Idols of the Tribe clearly lead to a debasement of the individual mind and

lead to a corruption of self-preservation.

Idols of the Cave exist in the normal day individual. People, who look too far in the

future or look too far in the past, fall victim to the ill actions of their personal idols of the cave.
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They absorb themselves with the possibilities of the future or with the past and fail to realize

what is occurring now. This leads them to be unprepared for what’s happening or possible even

fail to realize that what they strove for in the past is already occurring. Many people are guilty of

this sin. I myself was guilty of this. I felt that I was trying to plan too fun of a weekend coming

up to make up for a bad week, when I could’ve instead spent time actually fixing up my bad

week and living in the present. Idols of the Cave lead to a distortion of what is actually

happening and a disillusion of what is really craved for.

Idols of the Marketplace cause misconceptions to occur in society as words are purposely

used in the wrong context over and over. Everybody, meaning everybody has fallen prey to this

idol. No one has correctly spoken using correct words without meaning something else. People

have used slangs from “crap” all the way to “dumb-…”, well you can imagine. These words by

themselves mean something all too different. Crap is a pile of feces; calling somebody that

doesn’t really mean calling them a pile of feces. Instead, it lends connotative properties that

person is like a pile of a poo. This is way too abstract when really pondered on and actually has

lead to the corruption of the word “crap” and with what the person really means. Bacon actually

considers all words to be too abstract, that to define one, one would have to use more words to

define that in an infinite recursion of thought. Idols of the Marketplace lead to way too much

abstract meaning without the concrete definitions of substance.

Idols of the Theatre are probably the most persistent and most widely seen idols in the

modern world. They are the political framework of society and the religious culture of society.

This idol manipulates the masses and corrupts millions of lives with the beliefs of the few. Now,

not saying that I don’t believe in God, but in my personal opinion I think that the Bible has been

tainted by the word of men. It was published during a time of great corruption in the Catholic
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Church; to think that it not be tainted with the word of Man is to say that the people in charge of

its release were completely out of sin.

All of these idols have corrupted society, demising it to a lesser being, a greater step from

the Utopia that all Men crave. Men corrupt themselves, their science, their family, their beliefs.

From nowhere is there safety from the Idols that Men adore.