Pride, as Benjamin Franklin said in his Project on Moral
Perfection, is one of our toughest natural passions to subdue. He admitted that
he wasn’t successful in acquiring the Reality of this virtue; but merely had a
good deal with regard of the appearance of it. Probably when really
acquires the reality of humility, one would be proud of what he has achieved.
Originally, there were only twelve virtues listed in
Franklin’s project. His proud was still there when making his virtue list as he
didn’t count humility as one of the virtues until his Quaker friend kindly
informed him of the missing point. Yet
his perfection on this virtue turned out to be ‘intimating Jesus and Socrates’.
He forbad himself to the use of words like ‘certainly’, ‘undoubtedly’, etc. Instead,
he uses ‘I conceive’, ‘I apprehend’ or ‘I imagine’ a thing to be so or so. I
think this change of word is just something on the surface. The content
following ‘certainly’ or ‘I conceive’ could be totally the same. The change
just made Franklin sounded humble. But the other change he made as to the
response to something he thought an error, to me, is a useful tool that we can
learn from. Instead of immediately reputing, he began his answer by observing
that in certain cases or circumstances the seemly erroneous opinion would be
right. This is in fact an uncertainty of
what is right and wrong, a reserved way of engaging the conversation. Actually
I have been also using this strategy in the conversation and as a result I’m often
thought as a comfortable friendly guy to talk to. And when I made a mistake, I don’t
have to worry about the embarrassment because I didn’t put my opinion that
strongly as if it were the solid truth. Besides that, I find this technique
helps open your mind. If one does include ‘observing that in certain cases or
circumstances the seemly erroneous opinion would be right’ before judgment, one
can always find a proper case for that opinion and very likely, you probably
won’t think of that if you were put in the case you found.
But Pride is probably coded into our DNA. No matter how one ‘disguise
it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it’, Pride is still
alive, always there wanting to show itself. That’s why Franklin used an irony at
the ending: ‘Proud of humility’. But is it proper to put an irony here, which
made weak the point he made. The same question can be raised when reading his
irony about ‘the speckled ax’. A man who
wanted his surface of his ax as bright as the edge, yet finally gave up because
of the arduous work needed saying ‘ I think I like a speckled ax best’. I think
the reason for the ironies is that we are all common men. Franklin was an
uncommon common man himself. The moral perfection is a work against bad habits;
struggle to become a better man. It’s especially hard for being a human is
already not an easy thing. With humor, Franklin probably wanted to tell us not
to be too serious about it; we still need to get on with other people. Trying to achieve self-command is also compatible
with self-accepting. After all, this was intended to be read and learned by all
people after Franklin. This made the project of perfection more accessible to
common people. A perfect, flawless character can only be admired. It is just a
distant perfect man. Feeling closer to a common man like themselves, people
will actually be more confident to imitate or learn from him. And that’s the
function of the humor and irony I think in Franklin’ Project for Moral
Perfection.
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