By his own account, wise old Benjamin Franklin was something of a troll in his youth, "disputatious" and fond of direct contradiction and of voicing very positive opinions.
Eventually, he realized that all it did was increase argument and further disagreement; he came to realize he made better headway by Socratic questioning, and better still by modestly expressing his opinions and conclusions, in the form of, "It seems to me...," "I think that..." or even, "I feel...." (This is a very modern approach, sometimes described as "owning your own opinion" as opposed to stating it as some universal truth.)
His own biography shows him in adulthood as something of master manipulator, guiding group actions for what he believed to be the greater good -- and it worked, too; Franklin's efforts resulted in the first lending library in America and the earliest organization of volunteer firemen, institutions which were widely copied soon afterward.
So pay him a little heed: he stopped arguing with strangers (and friends) and managed to accomplish great things instead.*
And what did you do on social media today?
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* That said, and perhaps despite his own best efforts, Franklin was no plaster saint, entirely willing to use inside influence to further his own business and to reward family and friends with political patronage when he was in a position to do so. Both were pretty much SOP in his day, for whatever excuse that provides. On the whole, he nevertheless did far more good than harm
Alas (and I have been guilty of it too in my time, mea culpa), the method most in use on the internet is "sneer people to one's way of thinking"...and we see how well it is working out.
ReplyDelete"Franklin was no plaster saint..."
ReplyDeleteIn a college American Literature course I got an approving comment from the instructor in my paper on Franklin's Autobiography with the statement "The only one of his Thirteen Virtues he practiced consistently was Moderation, and that primarily in how he practiced the other 12 virtues".
Franklin was definitely a man for his times. He was also a major hound when it came to the ladies. His autobiography obliquely mentions the 'intrigues with low women' that were 'attended to at some expense'. And apparently when he was in France, he had quite the bevy of women fawning over him.
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