Ben Franklin Continue

Apparently Benjamin Franklin's autobiography wasn't very appreciated in class Monday. People were bothered by his arrogance and self-contradiction. My previous post about the first part of the autobiography was about what I think the wisdom was from his life, which is obviously a positive attitude towards him. However, I did just skim those chapters. As I keep reading the rest the book, I have a mix feeling right now. Franklin's scientific contribution and his idea of writing and reading are crucial are certainly to be praised. Also, his intention of showing humility and his ethical point of view of virtue and utilitarian are something that I can defend him with. Some paradox came to mind after reading the book. First of all, I got the feeling that he uses a extremely arrogance tone through out the book, contradicting himself by not being humble, yet being condescending all the time. He seems to only want to bring up himself: everything he has done and all the achievement he had had. There's one part where his son died, he just briefly wrote a couple sentences and went on his writing about his printer shop. For me this is considered to be something that really effects one's life and therefore should be recorded with more details and personal feelings. However, Benjamin Franklin does symbolize the American dream. From a middle class, or even lower class family, he worked his way up and became who he had become, which should be praised greatly. Related to Cullen's chapter on The American Dream: the Upward Mobility, he pointed out that everyone can become who he or she wants to become through hard work. This is the American dream: to be able to use hard work to change be successful.