Franklin’s counsel still valid

Like little kids turned loose in a candy store with enough sweet choices confronting their undisciplined souls to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, the more excitable Democrats in Congress are salivating so at the prospect of nailing President George W. Bush and cronies for something – anything – they often resemble actors in an outlandish “Saturday Night Live” spoof.

Not that the president and his administration haven’t given them ample cause to come publicly unglued in such an unseemly manner, understand. And not that Republicans wouldn’t be acting in precisely the same way if the shoe were on the other foot. To the election victor belong the salivation rights. If you can believe what you read, it’s just one thing after another with the Bushies these days, although I suppose that depends upon which spinmeister’s spin a reader takes as gospel in any particular crisis du jour.

To listen to the raucous political discourse it provokes on the cable television shout shows is to greater appreciate the observations of Benjamin Franklin, that jolly old Founding Father, philosopher and all-around Renaissance man who was so perceptive in sizing up the species.

Franklin’s “Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion,” published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1750, apply equally well today. Long ago, a friend gave me a copy of the rules “by the observation of which, a man of wit and learning may nonetheless make himself a disagreeable companion.” I recently rediscovered the classic on the historycarper.com Web site.

If you would succeed in becoming a successful disagreeable companion, Franklin counseled, “Your business is to shine. Therefore, you must by all means prevent the shining of others, for their brightness may make yours the less distinguished. To this end:

“1. If possible, engross the whole discourse; and when other matter fails, talk much of yourself, your education, your knowledge, your circumstances, your successes in business, your victories in disputes, your own wise sayings and observations on particular occasions, etc.

“2. If when you are out of breath, one of the company should seize the opportunity of saying something; watch his words, and, if possible, find somewhat either in his sentiment or expression, immediately to contradict and raise a dispute upon. Rather than fail, criticise even his grammar.

“3. If another should be saying an indisputably good thing; either give no attention to it; or interrupt him; or draw away the attention of others; or, if you can guess what he would be at, be quick and say it before him; or, if he gets it said, and you perceive the company pleased with it, own to be a good thing, and withal remark that it had been said by Bacon, Locke, Bayle, or some other eminent writer; thus you deprive him of the reputation he might have gained by it, and gain some yourself, as you hereby show your great reading and memory.

“4. When modest men have been thus treated by you a few times, they will choose ever after to be silent in your company; then you may shine on without fear of a rival; rallying them at the same time for their dullness, which will be to you a new fund of wit.

“Thus you will be sure to please yourself. The polite man aims at pleasing others, but you shall go beyond him, even in that. A man can be present only in one company, but may at the same time be absent in twenty. He can please only where he is, you wherever you are not.”

Talk about great shelf life of product. If old Ben could emerge from the mists of time to write that today with television shout show hosts and many of their hyperactive guests in mind, he wouldn’t have to change a thing. Where human nature is concerned there is nothing new under the sun.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may contact him by e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.