What most biographies forget to mention is that Franklin was also member of the Hellfire club, which is described as [1],
> Members would drink vast quantities of alcohol and gorge themselves on food. Drunkenness was a prerequisite of The Hellfire Club. They’d dabble in most of the seven deadly sins to be honest – with gluttony, greed and lust being regular activities. Add in a smattering of gambling, fornicating and blasphemy, and you get the idea of a night at the Hellfire Club.
And,
> When we say ‘poking fun’, they were all about dressing as monks, performing parodies of religious ceremonies and making mock sacrifices to Bacchus and Venus. Along with that there was huge amounts of boozing, feasting, entertaining prostitutes and sharing pornographic materials.
Fascinating. TIL. One wonders what we common folk would think of such activities. Would we treat Benjamin Franklin as some kind of modern Thiel-adjacent debauch who thinks himself far too smart?
Or would canceling old Benjy actually have created a better world? Perhaps a man moderated by a society more observant and inclined to police might have been even more influential? I suppose we will never know but it is entertaining to consider the counterfactual.
Thiel has completely different philosophy and believes. So, no, absolutely not.
Biographies forget to mention it since there’s no evidence of him belonging to any such club. Also those clubs reputation is probably highly exaggerated. Your main source is some London tourist guide -site, so doesn’t seem you did exactly stellar research here.
If you are interested in rich elites of the time doing strange and sordid festivitoes, I recommend studying the life of Peter the Great of Russia, who really was not very great at all as a person, but his drinking parties were literally insane and deadly. Empire and Rest is Hostory has great podcasts on him and there’s several good biographies available in English.
Yes, and?
These activities are still around today with all members of society.