The Ego of the Founding Father
By: David Arakelian
Tags: Self Improvement, Religion, Ego, History, Self-awareness

When I was reading Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” where he quotes the ethical writings of Benjamin Franklin to illustrate his theory(would recommend reading if you’re interested in origins of Capitalism), I made a precise decision about what to read next. It appeared to me that Benjamin Franklin was the representation of the spirit of capitalism and reading/studying his autobiography became my next goal.

My habit of scrolling through reviews of the book before reading it to have a better idea of what to expect from it turned to have an unexpected output. While scrolling reviews of “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” by Benjamin Franklin, I was surprised to find that most of the negative comments were closely tied to the point that Franklin is “ ego-centric”, “too much in love with himself” and so on.

So did he have an ego bigger than the planet Mars or the frustrated readers misunderstood the Founding Father?

Of course, I read the entire book with thrill and greatest pleasure to find out that critics might be right, but what they forgot was that the autobiography was not about a pop artist or famous football player who scored a few goals and is suffering from ostentation and frivolity.

What book seems to me is a short fraction of Colonial America’s history, focused around the early years of one of the Founding Fathers. It was the life of a person who did more to his state and country, to humanity with advocating and highly affecting the spread of immature capitalistic ideas than anyone else, as far as I’m concerned(the list of the things that Franklin did or invented might be twice as long as the shopping list of a middle-class American household on Christmas).

Universally human beings have biases that define and differ us from anything else. The characteristics that are derivatives of having a neocortex. Particularly I love to deduce them with the framework of 7 Deadly Sins. It’s hard to think of a greedy teapot or an envious ant, right? Those are features of a human being. You might never believe me but even Founding Fathers are human beings.

Remarkably, Franklin starts his book with humility and sane ideas which might address the concerns of angry commentators:

“And lastly (I may as well confess it since my denial of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity [by writing this]. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, “Without vanity, I may say,” but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of his life.”

One reading this article might feel that the author is hypocrite bringing this quote. Though it illustrates the opposite. This shows the level of self-awareness and self-acceptance that Franklin has. He is not denying his vanity, nor is he suffering to pretend that he is holly.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

1 John 1:8

The idea behind writing an article is not to propagate Deist ideas or to protect Benjamin Franklin’s public image(which is of no way in need) but to remind, once again, that discussing historical figures in stand-alone and out of context manner, without truly researching the era when he lived and worked, might not be the best way to trigger a dialectical discussion.

The best conclusion would be the Biblical quote:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged.”

Luke 6:37

Disclaimer!!

The author is an atheist and does not belong to any confession. The only purpose of the article was to spread a common sense(or what the author thinks is a common sense). It was not meant to hurt feelings but rather to smooth the path for a dialectical discussion.