June 27, 1973

Franklin Method

Jean-Baptiste Greuze painting of Benjamin Franklin, 1777
courtesy of Wikipedia

Want to win an argument with your wife?  Sell an idea to your boss?  Write a persuasive editorial?  Represent your nation in a foreign capitol?

Long before anyone ever heard of Dale Carnegie's method of winning friends and influencing people Ben Franklin had figured out the formula.

The Great Patriot never realized the commercial possibilities of a system calculated to get others to embrace your point of view and love you while so engaged.  However, he used it to great advantage in conducting both his personal and public affairs.

I was impressed years ago with Ben's philosophy of dealing with people which he outlined in his autobiography.  I have discovered that when I practice what Franklin preached I score more points than when I assert myself.  Too many times, however, I realize belatedly that I've used the impatient Williams brand of public relations instead of the suave Franklin method I so much admire.  As the Holmes County Amish are so fond of saying.  "We grow too soon old and too late smart."

As you undoubtedly are not tricked by your temper, you will find the following passage from Franklin's book of considerable value:

"I was charmed with the Socratic method of rhetoric and logic, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer.

"I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it.  Therefore, I took a delight in it, practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.

"I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly he disputed, the words "certainly," "undoubtedly," or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion.  Rather, I say I "conceive" or "apprehend" a thing to be so and so; "it appears to me," or, "I should think it so or so" for such and such reasons; or, "I imagine it to be so;" or, "it is so if I am not mistaken."

"This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting.

"As the chief ends of conversation are to inform or be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power to doing good by a positive, assuming manner.  It seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us - to wit - giving or receiving information or pleasure.

"If you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention.

"If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fixed in your present opinions, modest and sensible men who do not love disputation will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error."

The effectiveness of Franklin's secret of success is attested by his conquests in the counting houses, legislative halls, foreign courts, fashionable salons and even an occasional boudoir.

Of all the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is my ideal.  He was a practical man with much common sense, humor and courtesy.  He was the forerunner at the turn of our own century and badly needed today.

He discovered electricity and invented a wealth of useful things such as bi-focal glasses, a coal-burning stove, daylight saving time and the harmonica.

He delighted in making up little homilies such as "Little strokes fell great oaks," and "He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas."

He was a prime mover in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Oh, yes.  He also was a publisher, editor and printer.

An example of his disarming way of dealing with those of contrary views is his "standing apology" which he published in his weekly newspaper "The Pennsylvania Gazette" in 1731.

"I request all who are angry with me on the account of printing things they don't like, calmly to consider these following particulars:

"1.  That the opinions of men are almost as various as their faces; an observation general enough to become a common proverb, "So many men, so many minds".

"2.  That the business of printing has chiefly to do with men's opinions, most things that are printed tending to promote some, or oppose others.

"3.  That it is as unreasonable in any one man or set of men to expect to be pleased with everything that is printed as to think that nobody ought to be pleased but themselves.

"4.  That it is unreasonable to imagine printers approve of everything they print, and to censure them on any particular thing accordingly; since in the way of their business they print such great variety of things opposite and contradictory.  It is likewise unreasonable, as some assert, the 'printers ought not to print anything but what they approve;' since this would thereby put an end to free writing, and the world have nothing to read but what happened to be the opinion of printers.

"5.  That if all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."

Author: Lindsey Williams