What Ben Franklin Could Teach Us About Civility and Politics - Wall Street Journal
In 1750, when he was comfortably into middle age, Benjamin Franklin wrote a humorous piece setting forth “Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion.” Franklin specifically spoke of conversation, but the principles he notes will sound familiar to people who have suffered through an exceptionally disagreeable political campaign. The values that impelled the man who became America’s oldest major revolutionary and America’s first diplomat may still be useful to our troubled public life.
“Your Business is to shine,” Franklin advised his fictional subject, “therefore you must by all means prevent the shining of others.” Dominate the conversation, he recommends. If you run out of things to say on a topic, “talk much of your-self.”
Franklin particularly—perhaps prophetically—recommends as subjects “Successes in Business” and “Victories in Disputes.” If someone else starts talking, listen carefully, but only to find something “to contradict and raise a Dispute upon.” If (worst of all) another speaker says something impressive, ignore or interrupt him.
Self-absorption, contradiction, and interruption. All sound familiar today. But Franklin may have been thinking of himself. He had been an abrasive young man. Perhaps this was not surprising for someone who had been apprenticed at age 12 to his similarly headstrong older brother. He came to see conversation as an opportunity to prove people wrong. As he wrote in his “Autobiography,” his goal became “winning.”
Franklin, however, changed his ways. Growing into adulthood, he decided that simply winning arguments was not very useful. Respecting other people led to goodwill. Continued cooperation was better than grudging consent. Franklin determined never to contradict other people’s statements in conversations. He would instead present his opinions modestly, with due regard to others’ attitudes and feelings.
In developing his new self-presentation, Franklin drew upon ideals of politeness emerging during a time as troubled as our own, as bedeviled by disagreements about religion and politics. Politeness sought to escape the bitterness of continuing conflict. Instead of harshness, arrogance and anger, politeness encouraged sympathy, good humor and common ground.
Franklin’s contemporaries believed this vision of politeness applied to public life as well as private encounters. It seemed to promise a society that would not need authoritarian rulers. Leaders who showed respect for people’s concerns could avoid the harshness and demands of earlier governments. Franklin himself later attributed his hatred of arbitrary rule to his brother’s mistreatment. As an apprentice, he wrote, he had felt “demeaned.”
Franklin’s new attitudes played a major role in his extraordinary public career. Avoiding contradicting people and declining personal credit for his actions, he became a master organizer, convincing his community to adopt an impressive number of changes. His innovations ranged from street sweeping and a library in Philadelphia to the first learned society in the American colonies. His skills became even more valuable as he helped lead America to independence. Representing the new nation in France, he negotiated the aid essential to American victory.
Franklin had detractors. He was criticized for not speaking up for America’s interests abroad. John Adams, Franklin’s brilliant but less congenial colleague, thought he spent too much time socializing. Instead of standing up to French leaders and making American interests known, Franklin seemed to be sitting down to tea with them. He did not see the need to pick one or the other. Franklin often spoke about contentious issues, including arguing for American independence and, later in life, against slavery.
But Franklin did not believe doing the right thing always conflicted with the polite thing. He expressed pleasure at seeing important issues discussed “with decency and politeness,” “without party views, or party heat.” Such interchanges required what we call today “emotional intelligence,” awareness of other people’s attitudes and concerns.
Franklin praised impolite people in terms that may recall a now-common view of public leaders: While only one gathering can be pleased by the presence of the polite person, he suggested, many more can be pleased with the absence of the disagreeable one.
Mr. Bullock is a professor of history at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., and the author of “Tea Sets and Tyranny: The Politics of Politeness in Early America,” published this month by the University of Pennsylvania Press.
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