Undeterred by the unseasonably warm October weather, I saunter to the nearby Franklin Museum, another Philadelphian ode to Ben. It is not a small museum but it’s not massive. I like it. I like the signs that read “Please Touch.” I like the Franklinian whimsy: the friendly squirrel named Skuggs who directs you to various exhibits; the animated videos, colorful and campy, like something from a Monty Python skit.
I am rounding a corner when I hear a distinctive moaning sound. That’s Ben, I think, and worry that the moans, growing louder, are the sounds of him mid-ecstasy during one of the dalliances he may or may not have had. I am relieved to discover it is the soundtrack from one of Ben’s amusing but G-rated bagatelles. Called “Dialogue between the Gout and Mr. Franklin,” it opens with Franklin confronted by his own gout, a debilitating form of arthritis that plagued him for years:
The Gout scolds Franklin for his gluttony and sedentary lifestyle until, finally, Franklin agrees to eat less and exercise more.
I don’t have gout, not yet, but I find the dialogue relatable. I’m considering conversing with my IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), a condition I’m convinced is brought on by stress and, like Franklin in his later years, insufficient exercise. It would be a one-sided conversation, with my IBS doing all the talking and me listening and nodding in chastened agreement.
Franklin’s humor often swerved toward the bawdy and scatological: “The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is oblig’d to sit upon his own arse.” And this doozy: “He that is conscious of a stink in his breeches, is jealous of every wrinkle in another’s nose.”
Flatulence appears surprisingly often in his writing, sometimes as an aside and at least once as the main subject. One year, the Royal Academy of Brussels put out a call for scientific papers on some esoteric topic. This annoyed Franklin. Why not solicit practical solutions to real problems—like the “fetid smell” of flatulence? Forcibly restraining this natural impulse was neither possible nor healthy, Dr. Franklin said. What the world needed was a drug that, when mixed with food, “shall render the natural discharges, of wind from our bodies, not only inoffensive, but as agreeable as perfumes.”
It’s not so far-fetched. After all, Franklin explained, some foods, such as asparagus, alter the odor of our bodily discharges. Why not do the same with our wind? Such a breakthrough would contribute much to human happiness and restore natural philosophy to its rightful, practical place. Converting farts into perfume would mark a milestone in scientific achievement and render the discoveries made by the likes of Aristotle and Newton, “scarcely worth a FART-HING.” Is the essay brilliant or sophomoric? Yes. And should such a miracle flatulence formula be invented, I’d be first in line to buy it.
When the delegates at the Second Continental Congress were casting about for someone to draft the Declaration of Independence, they considered Benjamin Franklin. It made sense. Franklin by that time was an accomplished writer and a highly respected statesman and philosopher. He had won several election campaigns (to the Pennsylvania Assembly) and knew how to sway public opinion. But the delegates nixed the idea. They were afraid he would insert a joke.
The story is almost surely apocryphal, but it gained traction because it sounded plausible. Inserting a joke into America’s founding document is just the sort of thing Franklin would do—not out of disrespect, but to lighten a perilous historic moment and to encourage ordinary Americans to read the document. Humor makes us pay attention.
We don’t take humor as seriously as we should. It is not taught in our schools or celebrated in our academies. There is no Nobel Prize for humor and, with few exceptions (Art Buchwald, Dave Barry), humorists don’t win Pulitzer Prizes—ironic, given that Franklin’s visage appears on the medallion Pulitzer recipients receive.
As usual, the ancient Greeks are to blame. They were suspicious of laughter and humor. Humor hijacked reason, Plato said, and easily veered toward malice. In his ideal republic, humor would be tightly controlled and “left to slaves and hired aliens.” Aristotle was a bit less uptight, but not much. Wit was an important part of good conversation, he conceded, but laughter was to be avoided. “Most people enjoy amusement and jesting more than they should… a jest is a kind of mockery.”
Ben Franklin thought otherwise. He cherished humor. He used it as a billboard, an entrée, a shield, a diversion, a balm, and a weapon. He used humor to conceal his shyness. He used humor to make a point without offending and to air serious differences without losing a friend. He used humor to expose harsh truths, and perhaps most of all, to relieve unbearable tension. It’s impossible to laugh without exhaling. For Franklin, humor was a means to an end, not an end in itself—in other words, useful.
Ben’s humor ripened during his fertile Philadelphia years, but the seeds were planted much earlier in the Boston of his youth. While still a teenager, he laid out his philosophy of funny in an open letter to readers of the New England Courant, his brother’s newspaper. In it, he bestows humor with an almost divine power to calm agitated minds and soothe troubled souls. “Pieces of pleasancy and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumors of our spirits, and to make a man forget his restless resentments,” he writes. “They have a strange power to tune the harsh disorders of the soul, and reduce us to a serene and placid state of mind.”
That is an astute observation for a sixteen-year-old. It also represents a rare instance where Franklin openly acknowledges life’s dark side. Who did he have in mind when he wrote of “tumors of the spirits” and “harsh disorders of the soul”? Was he writing about himself, a passing storm of adolescent angst, perhaps—or something more? Maybe this model of perfect sanity was a bit less perfect and a bit less sane than I’d been led to believe. I hope so. Perfect sanity is as annoying as perfect teeth. Both conceal the genuine person behind the blinding smile. I am drawn to people who, like me, possess neither perfect teeth nor perfect sanity.
Franklin didn’t force his humor. It was reflexive, “as natural and involuntary as his breathing,” observed one contemporary. While composing type for his newspaper, he’d occasionally add a quip or joke. Compiling a dispatch from Boston on the death of a famed lion—“the King of Beasts who had traveled all over North America by sea and land”—Franklin added, “Like other kings, his death was often reported, long before it happened.”
Franklin possessed what one contemporary, a lawyer from New York, called “a great share of inoffensive wit.” Inoffensive is key. Franklin always punched up, never down. The target of his upward jabs included pompous British ministers, overzealous preachers, and, in his later years, defenders of slavery.
Satire is asymmetrical warfare. The satirist strikes his target with a glancing blow that seems to come out of nowhere. Stunned and disoriented, his victim is immobilized, unable to retaliate. Best of all, the satirist’s bite leaves no teeth marks. There is always plausible deniability. It was just a joke. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.
“Rattlesnakes for Felons” is a good example of Franklinian satire. The British were sending convicted criminals to the American colonies. Not surprisingly, crime rates in places like Philadelphia spiked. Franklin, writing under the pseudonym “Americanus,” suggested the colonists show their gratitude by sending hundreds of rattlesnakes—“felons-convict from the beginning of the world”—to Britain. “Rattle-snakes seem the most suitable returns for the human serpents sent us by our Mother Country.” It’s no problem at all, Franklin continued; Americans would happily send thousands of rattlers and generously distribute them among the gardens of London’s nobility and even the homes of ministers and members of Parliament. It’s the least we can do, Ben said.
“Rattlesnakes for Felons” was the most vicious anti-British satire to date and was reprinted in several colonial newspapers. Afterward, these newspapers changed how they reported on crime, noting when an alleged criminal was an ex-convict dispatched from Britain.
Franklin’s satire was always biting but never cruel or capricious. Like his lightning rod, it always had a point and used misdirection to diffuse powerful forces. Humor, at its best, is disruptive but not destructive. One of Franklin’s favorite targets was… Franklin. He poked fun at himself. He poked fun at his weight (“Dr. Fatsides”), at his sartorial choices, at his French grammar. He also poked fun at his editorial blunders.
In a 1729 edition of his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, he fessed up to an embarrassing error. He had reported that a royal governor, Jonathan Belcher, had “died elegantly” at a popular London tavern. “The word died should doubtless have been dined,” Franklin noted wryly. He then used the mistake as an opportunity to publish a collection of infamous printers’ errors, such as the Bible that omitted the word not from the Seventh Commandment, leading the faithful to wonder why God Almighty would command “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Franklin’s readers no doubt chuckled at that blunder and forgave the one he had made. Humor diverts.
Franklin’s contemporaries marveled at his ability to deploy the perfect joke or anecdote at precisely the right moment. He “had wit at will,” conceded John Adams. From behind his Poor Richard mask, Franklin took aim at gossips (“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead”) and doctors (“There’s more old drunkards than old doctors”) and lawyers (“A countryman between two lawyers, is like a fish between two cats”).
Franklin’s biggest target was the British. He relayed a story about a lone Irish soldier who captured five British troops by surrounding them. His 1775 satirical song, “The King’s Own Regulars,” also mocked the cowardice and incompetence of British soldiers: “For fifteen miles they follow’d and pelted us, we scarce had time to pull/a trigger/But did you ever know a retreat perform’d with more vigour?” Not only did the song deflate British morale, it also accomplished a feat many thought impossible: it made George Washington laugh.
Humor, like electricity, is a powerful force, and must be deployed judiciously. A little is good, but too much is harmful, like oversalting a meal. Ben worried about getting the proportions right. When, as a young man, he embarked on his self-improvement plan, he did so, in part, “wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning and joking.” Humor can heal. Humor can also harm. Misused, it “inflicts a wound that rankles in the heart and is never to be forgiven.”
I hear you, Ben. I know the power of humor, and I know I sometimes misuse it. I regret the times I have rankled hearts. Whenever I find myself in an uncomfortable social setting—in other words, any social setting—I resort to humor. It is my default mode. Sometimes this is useful. Sometimes it backfires. I intend no harm, but Franklin wouldn’t want to hear excuses. He cared about results, not intentions.
My teenage daughter often calls me out on this. “It’s not funny, Dad,” she says whenever I make light of a subject. Rather than heeding her words, I double down and perform a monologue, a one-man show when there are two of us in the room. I ramble rapid-fire, doubling down on a lame routine. I repeat the same joke, waiting, hoping, for a reaction. I am, as comedians say, dying out there, but even death can’t stop me.
Why do I dig myself into such an unfunny hole and, despite the flashing red lights and alarm bells, continue to dig? I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with my fear of silence. I rush to fill the void with something, anything, and a joke seems like the best filler. Humor is my way of relieving unbearable tension. Humor is how I bond with people. It is my love language. At least I thought it was. I’m beginning to suspect it is the opposite: a language I speak to avoid intimacy.
What would Ben do? He’d remind me I have a choice. Humor may be like breathing, but breathing is one of the few bodily functions that is both involuntary and voluntary. We can’t control whether we breathe, but we can control how. Do we take long, deep breaths or frantic, staccato ones? Do we breathe mindfully or mindlessly? Ben would also remind me that usefulness is relative. What works in one situation doesn’t necessarily work in another. I need to look and listen. See the world through the eyes of others. Wear a mask if necessary.
He’d also suggest I lighten up. My over-joking has done no permanent harm. It is just another erratum. I can correct it and release a new, better edition of myself—perhaps in paperback, with a nice Franklinesque cover.