Prompt:
Knowledge is power. In agriculture, medicine, and industry, for example, knowledge has liberated us from hunger, disease, and tedious labor. Today, however, our knowledge has become so powerful that it is beyond our control. We know how to do many things, but we do not know where, when, or even whether this know-how should be used.
Assignment:
Can knowledge be a burden rather than a benefit? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Essay:
Throughout our history of education in schools, the idea of “knowledge is power” has been drilled into the head of students, going as far as the 18th Century where Francis Bacon, himself, stated these specific words. As a society, we have always assumed that “brain beats brawn” and that good grades equate to a happy life, however, though knowledge brings power, it does not bring full power. Only the combination of knowledge, awareness of our current world, and physical endurance can truly bring a person power.
Though knowledge has liberated humanity from diseases, famines, and excessive labor, we fail to consider how knowledge has also brought about the atomic bomb. Knowledge gives power but that power is dangerous, and when left unchecked, may become volatile. This is why knowledge cannot immediately be considered synonymous to power because knowledge is also weakness. When the United States first developed the atomic bomb through the Manhattan Project, it initially increased its military power, however, in the long-run, the United States faced threats from the Soviet Union in the Ages of the Cold War. The development of the atomic bomb was a self-infliction on the United States.
Knowledge without application to your surroundings is knowledge left wasted, far from giving anyone “power”. Countless high schoolers graduate successfully from their school but fail in meeting the requirements they face as adults, unable to apply the knowledge they gained from education to heir reality. In addition, some even drop out of high school, these people decided that knowledge was not power at all, and yet, some like Bill Gates drop out of college and become billionares. Knowledge is the “key” to power; the unlocking of the door is left to the person holding the key.
Even so, a person cannot run on knowledge alone, for physical endurance plays an essential role in the “power” of a person. In a school environment where a student is expected to finish all of their homework from multiple AP classes, the student may need to cut down on some hours of sleep. I, as a student, have run on 4 hours of sleep at times and proceeded to finish my homework, but in the end, collapse inito a mess once at school. If a person does not have the physical endurance to get past obstacles in life, they will never be able to unlock the door to power.
Knowledge may seem to be power, but truly, knowledge is but the key to power, real power waits beyond the doors.