Benjamin Franklin
Curious & Pragmatic
Benjamin Franklin was a boss. Recently I’ve been reading his biography, Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, and Benjamin is quickly becoming one of my role models. Many of us remember him as a founding father of the United States, but to say he was just that is to do him injustice. Throughout his life, before he was a founder, he was a printer, author, scientist, essayist, Colonel, and so much more. As I read through his biography, I wanted to see what enabled him to be so influential. He was, for example, a very smart businessman and a great writer, but I don’t think these things by themselves were what helped him become influential. These are a result of a more fundamental trait that he had within him, which was his pragmatic curiosity, specifically in people and ideas. He was keenly social and a brilliant writer, and he extended his curiosity beyond theory into practice. Benjamin Franklin was incredibly pragmatic, and when he coupled it with his curiosity, it allowed him to be the influential man he is remembered as.
Distinctly Human
Curious of human behavior patterns, Benjamin Franklin keenly observed the people around him. Early on in his life, after seeing how excommunication can hurt a person that physical pain cannot even come close to, he observed something distinctly human: in a little essay he began it with “Man is a sociable being”. Little did he know that this phrase would resonate through all his actions throughout his life.
In one instance, Benjamin Franklin was able to win the favor of a political opponent through a cunning psychological effect. In fact, this psychological phenomenon is called the Benjamin Franklin Effect due to this famous story. Before I explain the effect, imagine someone that you like. You want to do nice things for the people that you like right? Now think about someone that you don’t like. You probably don’t want to do nice things for them. It seems logical then that your views affect how you treat someone. The Benjamin Franklin effect, however, asserts the reverse. Benjamin Franklin learned early on in his life that people grow fond of those that they do kind things for, and hate people that they hurt. It’s your actions that affect how you view someone else, more so than the other way around.
So when met with disagreements and a political foe, here’s what Benjamin Franklin did:
I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”
Benjamin Frankin’s Autobiography p.113–14
Benjamin Franklin’s curiosity also informed him of how to present himself in front of others. I found this to be incredibly useful wisdom, in the meritocracy we call Silicon Valley. If someone becomes powerful, whether physically, mentally, or financially, then it’s going to be increasingly easy for people to make enemies and accrue resentment. Pride, Franklin noted, was an extremely volatile human trait, and he knew that if he was going to be powerful and successful later on in life, he had to devise a way to avoid hurting others’ pride. This is what he discovered:
A secret to being more revered than resented, he learned, was to display (at least when he could muster the discipline) a self-deprecating humor, unpretentious demeanor, and unaggressive style in conversation.
Benjamin Franklin, An American Life; by Walter Isaacson. p.42
Coupled with a Socratic style of argumentation and his ability to feign naivety, Franklin was able to win arguments with others without crushing their pride. I once heard it said that it’s important not to win the argument, but to win the man. But Benjamin Franklin was able to both win the man and the argument, and it allowed him to build useful and mutually beneficial relationships throughout his life.
Writer
Benjamin Franklin was a pioneer of fantastic writing. His prose is seasoned with wit and humor, a timeless style that has influenced the likes of people like Mark Twain. The hand that later would sign the Declaration of Independence and Constitution was the same one that penned this delightful excerpt:
(Context: Benjamin Franklin listening to George Whitfield preaching)
I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.
In this little excerpt, I got the sense of a playfully stubborn boy not wanting to give up his money. With each sentence I can feel the oratory wooing him, when finally he is so sufficiently seduced that he gives up all his money. Remember, Benjamin Franklin was not a Protestant, but instead a Deist, but he could appreciate beautiful oratory, probably because he was a master of words as well.
The root of Benjamin Franklin’s great writing comes from the books he read. Although he had a small selection of books to choose from, they were quality books from virtuous writers. Among them were Plutarch’s Lives, Defoe’s An Essay upon Projects, and Cotton Mather’s Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good. He voraciously read books, often sneaking them from the other apprentices he was working with, reading them through the night, and then returning them in the morning. He was an incredibly curious 12-year old boy, and since he didn’t receive a formal higher education, his books were his way to both learn and satisfy his curiosity.
As Franklin read, he would learn to write in creative ways to express his ideas. When Franklin was sixteen, he created a pseudonym called Silence Dogood, a wry and sassy woman who would speak her mind. Franklin submitted these Silence Dogood essays and they were an huge success. Here is one of his writings under Ms. Dogood:
(Describing how a minister made her his wife)
Having made several unsuccessful fruitless attempts on the more topping sort of our sex, and being tired with making troublesome journeys and visits to no purpose, he began unexpectedly to cast a loving eye upon me… There is certainly scarce any part of a man’s life in which he appears more silly and ridiculous than when he makes his first onset in courtship.”
It’s amazing how Franklin was able to write so convincingly as a sassy young lady, and with such a playful and conversational tone too! He would then go on to write as other pseudonyms, one of his most famous being Mr. Poor Richards, who wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac. Poor Richard’s Almanac was like a book of Proverbs for the common colonial man. It offered practical wisdom, a calendar, and even mathematical exercises. This is distinctly different from the philosophical works of his contemporaries, such as John Adams or Thomas Paine. While their work was theoretical and academic, his was practical and conversational. It was widely read by middle class (pre)Americans, and one would be hard pressed to say that it didn’t shape the American culture of individualism, shrewdness, and industriousness that carries even to this day.
Reflection
People and ideas, these are two foundations of life that Benjamin Franklin spent his whole life building and building upon. The time he spent strengthening these foundations by means of a pragmatic curiosity would serve him benefits of a thousand fold. In his early years, he was a influential writer. Then he became a influential printer. Then he became a influential public servant, later to serve as a Colonel and then be one of America’s founding fathers. He didn’t just stay as a writer or printer his whole life. He had so curious about people and ideas, but even more so he honed his curiosity into tangible and useful ways. Whether it was in dealings with business leaders, jockeying for power with political figureheads, or even just in writing whimsical essays under pseudonyms, the great pragmatist found ways to put his curiosity to use. That, I believe, is why Benjamin Franklin was able to be so successful. He wasn’t just curious, consuming idea after idea. He had a curiosity that allowed him to contribute in multiple spheres of life. His curiosity was useful.
This gives me a piece of encouragement. I’ve always been a curious person, so much so that I felt that my curiosity was crippling me. Now in a time of unemployment, I realize how imperative it is to both stay curious and mature my curiosity into useful things. This is why this blog exists. I love reading, observing people, and then constructing frameworks to figure out why I think things are the way they are. But for me to just construct them in my mind isn’t helpful. By writing, I am forced to use words to pin down what I really mean. Then, by sharing online, I open my ideas and opinions to the rest of the world, in hopes of both offering valuable information to others and opening discussion to further sharpen my thoughts.
I don’t think Benjamin Franklin would have believed it if someone told him he was going to be a signer of two of the most momentous documents in world history. When he was 12, he was just a humble printer’s apprentice, but he was curious and pragmatic, allowing him to apply the things he was constantly learning to the benefit of those around him. Thus, Benjamin Franklin’s life showed that not only is curiosity a virtue to steward throughout life, but that a pragmatic curiosity can open up opportunities beyond imagination.
-K
