Thirst for Knowledge.

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course Number
Date
Excessive Thirst for Knowledge as the Means of Self-Destruction
Knowledge has always been treated with caution as a major source of power. While knowledge itself is not dangerous, but often potentially helpful in avoiding danger, thirst for knowledge, if excessive, can be damaging because it either causes a person to rationalize everything (subsequently destroying their morals) or creates additional anxiety within them that affects their entire personality.
The word “knowledge” here can be understood in two dimensions: knowledge as competence (a high level of awareness in a certain field) or as awareness of certain facts that clarify the situation making it more objective. The thirst for knowledge in the first sense is generally positive because it serves as the means of self-development. For instance, it you couldn’t live a day without learning a word, in a few years, you would be able to master the entire language. But it is a relatively “innocent”, personalized example. On a bigger scale, thirst for knowledge helped men discover new lands and create cures for deadly diseases. Every single day it drives them to better their lives by creating and employing new technologies. However, the downside of that is that while these creations can be useful, they are not necessarily safe. Frankenstein’s tragic fate is a testimony to that.
Having acquired forbidden knowledge (transforming an inanimate object into animate beings), he violated the laws of nature and evoked chaos that could only be stopped by elimination.

For him, the world was “a secret”, which he “desired to divine” at all costs (Shelley 43). He was not content applying his own subjective understanding to it, he had to know “the truth” and was prepared to use both love and rage to achieve his goal. In other words, his feelings became nothing more than the “fuel” for satisfying his desires subsequently weakening his morals. Having solved an intellectual riddle, he couldn’t deal with the ethical consequences of his decisions. Due to the fantastic nature of the novel , the tragedy is additionally emphasized through personification – the newly created monster feels “solitary and abhorred” because it belongs nowhere (Shelley 156). And this is the fate of any such experiment that dares to cross the borders established for human safety and sanity.

The second, more trivial meaning of “knowledge” is also capable of negatively impacting a human’s mind. Whereas it is wiser to be fully aware of the situation before taking any action, sometimes it can transform into overthinking and severely damage a person’s confidence. Job application can serve as a good example to that. If you’re too self-conscious about your flaws you might never acquire the courage to present yourself. Alternatively, it is known that after an interview you can expect either an approval or a polite rejection, but never a full list of your failings. On the one hand, it is a dubious strategy as it does not offer any means of improvement other than through self-reflection. However, a closer look would reveal that the inherent aim of that approach is to lessen the damage that might be inflicted by criticism. So whereas, a full package of facts might offer us objectivity, it might also create a disharmony because objectivity does not always coincide with our feelings and emotions.
To conclude, whereas thirst for knowledge can lead to life-changing revelations, if not balanced properly with an emotional side, it can all too easily cause harm to a person’s morals (when gaining of knowledge is prioritized over following ethical principles) or their self-image (when additional knowledge provokes unnecessary stress and strains a person’s ability to move forward). Work Cited
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Collector’s Library, 2004.