A New Biography of Benjamin Franklin's Early Life(newcriterion.com) |
A New Biography of Benjamin Franklin's Early Life(newcriterion.com) |
He apparently lied about his religious upbringing, claiming a Presbyterian youth, when in fact, he'd been raised Congregationalist. Sounds like this was a bigger thing in the 1700s than it would be today, but still...
Today, Franklin would probably be a Redditor, with a side of Anonymous hacktivism.
And how that would change people's impression of them, especially considering how social norms have changed.
But also, Freemasonry has always been cyclic for various reasons. It experienced a huge decrease in membership in the 1800's because of an anti-Masonic thread that was going through the country at the time (there was even a whole political party--the first third party in the US in fact--whose platform was to banish Freemasonry). This is where most of the conspiracy theories about Freemasonry come from.
It has started to cycle back a little in the past 8-10 years. I'm seeing more and more younger guys interested in joining.
The average age of a mason largely depends on the area. In my particular area, the vast majority are men in their 30s and 40s, and our lodges are very healthy. Our lodges tend to focus more on the esoteric sides of Freemasonry.
In other nearby areas, we've seen lodges completely die out or merge with us, as the membership passes on.
I think that in metropolitan areas, your lodges are generally going to be more healthy and "younger" (30s-40s). If we once again experience a lull in membership, you might watch us all die out once again in a few decades :-).
The overall concept of brotherhood, networking and civic engagement at the local level is appealing to me. The Elks always seemed like an interesting organization too in that sense (they sponsored my scout troop growing up). So I'm not sure how much the esoteric side of things would appeal to me, but that's probably just because I have no idea what that entails.