[spellbanisher]

I found the noncompetitive attitude of Franklin to be refreshing. Reading Franklin reminds me of how far our own philosophies about information, knowledge, technology, and commerce have changed. Although, it could be said that Franklin was peculiar even for his time, so maybe his ideas are singular and not representative of his own times. But reading the U.S. constitution or other works of his time, I think there was a certain enlightenment ethic that Franklin shared with others of his time.

What I mean by a noncompetitive ethic is that Franklin did not see the world through a prism of winners and losers, of victors and vanquished. We can clearly see that in his debating style, or what would more appropriately be called his discussing style. This is how he debates:

“when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather 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; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that 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. For, 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 fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire.”

From this passage you can see that for Franklin the goal of any discussion is not to win the debate, as is taught in debating today, but in the exchange of information and knowledge. It is not just a tactic for subtly influencing or manipulating others; Franklin approaches a discussion with another not just to impart or proselytize, but to make a mutual exchange. This mindset is a far cry from the politics and cultural wars of today (although there were irreconcilable political divisions in Franklin's time as well) where political debate consists either of yelling or snide asides and where political philosophies are expressed in immutable and self-evident slogans. But this isn't a politics forum, so I will not go further into that.

I must reiterate, however, that Franklin's mindset was not unique to him, but a part of the times that he lived in. Even though he professed to not be a deist, it can be seen by the quote provided by WT Sharpe that Franklin had the beliefs of a deist. He denies being a deist, but that was for what he thought was more practical reasons, and I think in all things Franklin tried to be practical. He mistakenly interprets deism as moral relativism, when in fact deists believed morality, common decency, and kindness were eternal truths built into the structure of the universe. Thomas Paine, a self-avowed deist in the eighteenth century, says in the Age of Reason that the morality taught by any religion are “the natural dictates of conscience, and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot exist; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies.” Deist philosophy says that all knowledge already exists and was been created by the maker. Humans do not create knowledge; they are vessels through which knowledge is passed through, in the same way that a prophet is the vessel through which a god communicates truths to a people. Just as it is the prophets duty and responsibility to communicate the word of god to as many people as possible, a deist believes that it is the duty of men to share knowledge with all that they can. We see this principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution: the copyright clause gives authors and inventors control over their works for limited times only to promote the useful arts for the public gain. Most of the founding fathers did not see knowledge or information as property of the individual. Some time between Franklin's time and our own time our notions of knowledge and information changed, so that today we generally see a creation of an author as their personal property that they can do with as they please.

I cannot say for certain when or why this change occurred, but I can speculate. As I have already stated, deists believed that knowledge was universal. In 1886 the Berne convention established copyright as life of the author plus fifty years. The idea of this kind of copyright was that an authors work was his property, and therefore he should not only own it for his entire lifetime, but he should also be able to bequeath that property to his descendants (for up to two subsequent generations, estimated at an average of 50 years at the time). This new notion of copyright represents an important philosophical development, and I think it has to do with changing notions of property and knowledge in the nineteenth, and more specifically, with the emergence of Darwinism and atheism. Before the nineteenth century it was inconceivable that the world, and that people, could exist without some form of divine creation. The term atheist was a pejorative for those who had different worship practices than the norm, not for people who believed that there was no god. Darwinism, however, introduced the notion that man and society could have formed outside of a divine creation. This allowed for the emergence of atheism, because it provided the means for which man could have emerged without some form of divine creator. If man evolved and was not created, then it could also be argued that knowledge and information is not eternal, but something that is created by individuals, or that it could be something that forms through the process of natural selection. Since individuals created knowledge and information, it is not only a form of personal property, but also that individual has no obligation or moral imperative to share what he has created with others.

There were social darwinist undertones in the Berne convention. If natural selection was how species advanced (a misinterpretation of Darwin), then competition, and not cooperation, was the best way to improve and progress society. Whereas in the eighteenth century enlightenment it was believed that the free flow and sharing of universal knowledge was the best way to better mankind, in the nineteenth century industrial world knowledge was seen as a means for an individual to compete more effectively in society; essentially, knowledge became something to compete over, rather than something to share. Whereas the eighteenth century enlightenment approach to knowledge was, “how can I best share what I know with others,” the nineteenth century industrial mindset was, “how can I make the biggest profit off my works,” and for the consumer it was “how can I get creative works for as cheap as possible.” Thus, the interests of the producer and the consumer came to be mutually exclusive, one seeking to get the most, whereas the other seeking to give up the least. Whereas the eighteenth century perceived knowledge as a means of bettering all of mankind, the nineteenth century mindset was that the creation of knowledge is a competition in which an individual try to use it as a means to surpass others or move up in society.

Of course, it could also be argued that the belief that knowledge is personal property predates the Darwinist era. Indeed, publishing companies argued for perpetual publishing rights in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but I think that had to do more with the philosophy of privilege than it did with the philosophy of property, i.e., the prevailing philosophy that said that different sections of society had different rights and privileges bestowed by god. Publishers argued that it was their god given right to exclusive publishing rights, not that authors were owners of their works.

I think Franklin expresses the spirit of the enlightenment best in this quote about why he did not patent his stove: “That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”