Ben and Me_ From Temperance to Humility - Cameron Gunn [68]
For Ben, Moderation, like politeness, was a method to personal gain. Don’t aggravate anyone too much. Don’t make too many waves. Steer the middle course in the waters of social contact. I’m not sure that it is the most altruistic of Ben’s virtues, but judging by his achievements, it served him well.
Not everyone appreciated it. Again according to Houston, John Adams described Franklin’s Moderation (having seen it in action in France and having himself failed at a more extreme tact) as an affront to good manners and decency. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, having the same advantage of observation, recognized Franklin’s amiability as a method of persuasion. In the end, the French loved Ben and hated John Adams.2
Regardless of Franklin’s view of this virtue as a method of persuasion, it is at least more striving than my style of Moderation.
So how, then, could I achieve Ben’s virtue this week? Ben’s autobiography holds a key. Franklin described how over time he modified the way he engaged in discourse. First, recognizing a tendency to argue for argument’s sake (and the inherent dangers of that tendency), he, upon discovering Socrates, took up the ancient philosopher’s method of persuasion. It worked well, to a point. Though he was able to use it to trap others into concessions, he was, at the same time, losing their favor. Thus, he resolved to further modify his style of conversation and developed a habit that he described as a great advantage to him. He adopted a temperament of “modest diffidence,” whereby he avoided words “that give the air of positiveness to an opinion.” Rather he would 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.”
Essentially, as it appears to me (see I’ve learned a thing or two), Franklin had adopted the position of never taking a position. In debate or conversation, he became a centrist. Avoid the extremes and hug the middle of the road. Maybe he was Mr. In-Between.
Well, that was a style of Moderation that might prove useful. I have a habit of arguing for sport. As momentarily engaging as debate may be, it does seem to have the distinct disadvantage of annoying people. Thus, in my week of Moderation, I resolved to try to be moderate in my positions, diffident in my expressions, and unassuming in my arguments. It had potential. I could see myself, confronted with some statement of monumental ignorance, biting back a caustic slur and instead asking, “That’s interesting. How did you come to that conclusion?”
Sounds kind of smarmy, I thought, when I said it like that. Oh well, I had a week to work on it.
I was not letting myself off the hook on the other aspect of Moderation. Chris Levan had thrown down a gauntlet against my style of Moderation and cried for a little Dylan Thomasesque railing against the dying of the light. Interestingly, this virtue came on the week in which I was to celebrate my thirty-ninth birthday (more on this later). How ironic that a virtue I may have mastered to the point of stagnation arose in the middle of my life (the last time I checked, the life expectancy of a male in my locale was somewhere in the vicinity of seventy-eight—that made me quite literally middle-aged). Perhaps this was more than irony; maybe this was the subtle hand of fate (guided by Ben and Chris) pushing me to evaluate more than a particular virtue. Was I being goaded into evaluating an entire life? Had my middle-of-the-road choices been the right ones? Had my Moderation served me well? Should I have been a risk taker?
{ He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.}
Two roads in the woods diverged, and I took the one clearly marked on the visitor’s map.
So as I followed Ben to Moderation, I would simultaneously race away from it. I was destined to meet myself somewhere in the middle.