Was Benjamin Franklin a fraud?

Summary

---

NO SUCH THING – “Was Benjamin Franklin a Fraud?”

Podcast: NO SUCH THING
Host: Kaleidoscope (Manny, Noah, Devin)
Guest: Dr. Claire Aubin (Historian, Yale; This Guy Sucked podcast)
Episode Date: March 18, 2026

---

EPISODE OVERVIEW

Main Theme:
The trio of friends and journalists—Manny, Noah, and Devin—unpack the provocative listener question: Was Benjamin Franklin a fraud? Was he a grifter with a genius for PR, or a genuine founding father? With insights from friends (a Franklin hater and a Franklin fan) and expert historical context from Dr. Claire Aubin, the episode explores the myths, truths, and uncomfortable realities behind Franklin's outsize legacy.

---

KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. The Origins of the Debate (Timestamps: 02:47–10:43)

• Listener Prompt: (03:11) Kelsey, a Philly resident, argues Franklin was “a grifter with a great PR team,” questioning the sheer number of innovations and his persistent local celebrity. She compares him to “an Elon Musk kind of fraudster: the ideas guy with a big checkbook.”
• Counterpoint: (06:43–09:26) Rich, a self-described history buff and Franklin fan, defends Franklin: “You wouldn’t send him around to all these high-stakes positions if he’s a fraud...he used [celebrity] to his cause’s benefit.”
• Hosts’ Synthesis: The panel notes that Kelsey’s frustration is with Franklin's “innovation” legend, while Rich focuses on his nation-building and diplomacy—two lines of argument not necessarily irreconcilable.

2. Enter the Historian: Claire Aubin Breaks it Down (13:09–61:00)

Claire’s Framework for the Franklin Myth

• Not Mutually Exclusive: (15:12) “The two arguments—that he's a fraud and that he's important—are not in opposition...one could be a fraud and also important and memorable at the same time.”
• Big Questions Explored:
  1. Did Franklin have haters?
  2. Would he have been taken more seriously if he’d been president?
  3. Did he steal credit for inventions?
  4. What’s actually bad about Franklin?

What Did Franklin Really Do? (16:35–21:34)

• Franklin credited with: diplomacy (especially the French alliance in the Revolution), working on electricity, drafting foundational documents (Declaration, Treaty of Paris, Constitution), inventing bifocals, fire departments, postal service, etc.
• Myth vs. Reality (17:42–21:33):
  • Franklin often popularized or formalized ideas, but was rarely the sole inventor.
  • Example: The lightning rod and electricity theories were in development across Europe; Franklin’s specific contributions fit into a much larger, international scientific conversation.
  • “The lone genius scientist guy...isn’t real; that’s not actually how science or innovation works.” (19:19, Claire)
  • Historical education and mythmaking—especially elementary curriculum—tend to oversimplify.

Renaissance Man, or Normal for His Time? (23:35–26:22)

• The “Jack of all trades” myth is partly true—that was actually less remarkable in Franklin’s era: “The way we conceive of sciences and the humanities as separate is relatively recent...an educated man was interested in all these things.” (24:11, Claire)
• Comparison to modern specialization in youth sports: We now narrow expertise much earlier.

On Inventions (27:14–29:05)

• Bifocals: Franklin “perfected an idea that had existed; he made something people had been thinking about into a thing.”
• Fire departments, insurance: Franklin didn’t invent these concepts, but helped formalize or popularize them in the American context.
• Even in his own time, figures like John Adams were frustrated by “mythmaking” and Franklin’s outsized credit (31:04).

Did Franklin Have Haters? (31:37–34:06)

• Political peers (like John and Samuel Adams, and Jefferson) sometimes privately expressed annoyance at Franklin’s celebrity, but there wasn’t a “hate movement.”
• British officials disliked Franklin for his revolutionary effectiveness.
• “There was already frustration...at how people were engaging in myth making around him.” (31:04, Claire)

Franklin and Slavery: The Uncomfortable Truth (34:13–41:41)

• Abolitionist Pivot: Franklin shifted toward abolitionism late in life, leading a public group by the 1780s, but, crucially, “for most of his life...he owns slaves, profits from them, and refuses to condemn the practice.” (36:03–37:03)
• Franklin used his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, to make money from slave ads and runaway notices.
• Even after his “conversion,” he only freed his last slaves upon his death—and both died before they could benefit (36:19).
• “He benefits enormously from enslaving people. That should be part of the conversation.” (40:09)
• The “normalcy” defense breaks down: “Of the Founding Fathers...a little over a quarter were not slaveholders. If you can say it’s normal to be an enslaver, also normal not to be.” (38:58, Claire)

Other Problematic Legacies (41:41–42:24)

• Expansionism: Franklin espoused taking Western lands from indigenous peoples—less violently articulated than some peers, but still part of settler-colonial project.

Why Wasn’t He President? (44:50–46:50)

• Franklin never served as president, largely because he was very old during founding events (81 at the Constitutional Convention; Washington was 55).
• His delegate/diplomat status gave him more time—and less direct responsibility.

Franklin: The Celebrity Archetype, “Kooky Genius Guy” (48:08–50:58)

• Is there a modern equivalent? Maybe a mashup of diplomat and tech billionaire, but none quite fit.
• Franklin also “on brand” as an eccentric:
  • Wrote “Fart Proudly,” encouraging the scientific study of flatulence (50:22).
  • Penned explicit letters about the virtues of marrying older women: “As in the dark, all cats are gray...the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and frequently superior.” (51:33–52:30)
• “Every historical figure, if you look hard enough, you’re going to find something crazy.” (53:43, Claire)

Why Don’t We Scrutinize Franklin More Today? (55:28–58:16)

• As a non-president, Franklin avoids the status scrutinized for presidents like Jefferson and Jackson.
• He’s associated more with innovation than with wielding power.
• The enduring allure of the “kooky genius” archetype lets us overlook faults: “We love the interesting genius dude—that’s an archetype we’ve been working with for a very long time.” (57:57)

The Broader Problem: Historical Reassessment Avoidance (58:17–61:14)

• Re-examining revered figures is uncomfortable because it forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about our own social legacy:
  • “People are uncomfortable with having to reassess historical figures ... when we reassess the past, it makes you have to think harder about what you’re dealing with right now.” (58:46)
  • For most, it’s comforting to tell “one-dimensional guy” stories, rather than embrace complexity.

---

NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• On Franklin’s myth as “the sole genius”:
  “The lone genius scientist guy...isn’t real; that’s not actually how science or innovation works.” (Claire, 19:19)
• On his celebrity even in his era:
  “He was as close to a celebrity as you could get...using that to his cause’s benefit.” (Rich, 08:10)
• On education’s role in mythmaking:
  “It seems like he’s benefited from...the elementary school curriculum. The oversimplification happens because they’re teaching this to kids.” (Manny, 21:34)
• Franklin’s problematic legacy: “For almost his whole life, [Franklin] makes money off slavery and benefits enormously from enslaving people...that should be part of the conversation.” (Claire, 40:09)
  • “Even after his abolitionist turn, they both, the two that he names in his will, both die before he does. So they die still enslaved.” (Claire, 36:19)
• On the “kooky genius guy” archetype: “We love the kooky genius guy...that’s an archetype we’ve been working with for a very, very long time.” (Claire, 57:57)
• Franklin’s “MILF Letter”:
  “In the dark, all cats are gray...the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and frequently superior. Every neck being by practice capable of improvement.” (Claire reading Franklin, 51:29–52:30)
• On the difficulty of historical nuance:
  “All of these things are true at the same time. And also he sucks. And also he’s smart. You know?” (Claire, 61:02)

---

TIMELINE OF MAJOR SECTIONS

| TIME | SEGMENT/CONTENT | |---------|--------------------------------------------| | 02:47–10:43 | Listener calls (Kelsey, Rich); setting up debate | | 13:07–15:49 | Introduction of Dr. Claire Aubin; episode hand-off | | 16:23–21:34 | Claire discusses Franklin’s accomplishments, myth vs reality | | 23:23–26:22 | “Renaissance man” context & modern parallels | | 27:14–29:05 | Details on bifocals, fire department, inventions | | 31:04–34:06 | Franklin’s haters: Adams, Jefferson, British | | 34:13–41:41 | His involvement in/benefit from slavery, abolition | | 44:50–46:50 | Why Franklin never became president | | 48:08–53:43 | Eccentricity: Fart Proudly, MILF letters, “kooky genius”| | 55:28–61:14 | Why Franklin escapes scrutiny/one-dimensional heroism| | 63:23–67:24 | Reunion & reflection: Kelsey and Rich respond |

---

FINAL REACTIONS: Kelsey & Rich (63:23–67:24)

• Rich: Reiterates that Franklin’s fame was leveraged for diplomatic purpose: “Basically the Kardashian of the founding fathers.” Even just the French alliance would have made him historically significant.
• Kelsey: Expresses awareness that her “real beef” may be with celebrity culture, not Franklin per se. “I have some anger at the kooky little genius guy archetype…I live by [the idea that] nothing is original, the best things we do are together…so the idea that this one little guy could come up with all these things on his own…comes into sharp tension.”
• Both agree: The issues are less black-and-white than their initial positions.

---

CONCLUSION

The episode concludes with a nuanced, critical take:

• Franklin was neither an unblemished hero nor a total fraud.
• His legendary status is the result of real accomplishments, clever self-promotion, oversimplified education, and his particular timing in history.
• Serious flaws, especially his role in slavery and colonial expansion, complicate his legacy.
• “All of these things are true at the same time. And also he sucks. And also he’s smart. And also... we like a one-dimensional guy when we think about history.” (Claire, 61:02)

---

For More:

• Visit nosuchthing.show for links, research, and the full “Fart Proudly Manifesto.”
• Suggest new debates by emailing [e-mail].

---

Transcript

[Claire Aubin]

Kaleidoscope.

[Manny]

I'm Manny.

[Noah]

I'm Noah.

[Devin]

And this is Devin. And this is no Such Thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research on today's episode. Was Benjamin Franklin a fraud?

[Noah]

Founding father or frauding father? Try that one.

[Devin]

I might put that in there. Yeah.

[Manny]

A fraudulent father, mother. There's no. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing.

[Claire Aubin]

This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed.

[Noah]

Human tax season has arrived and doing taxes without the right help can feel overwhelming. Intuit TurboTax is here now to guide you through it with confidence. Match with a TurboTax full service expert who handles everything for you from start to finish. Your dedicated expert checks every single deduction and credit to help you get the best possible outcome so you can feel confident you're getting every dollar you deserve. And the best part? You'll see real time updates on your expert's progress right on your phone while you live your life. Plus, you get unlimited expert help at no extra cost even on nights and weekends during tax season. Visit turbotax.com only available with TurboTax full service experts. Real time updates only on iOS mobile

[Vital Proteins Ad]

app shake it up with Vital proteins, Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn [e-mail] we spend so much time

[Miraval Resorts Ad]

of our lives switched on. Scrolling, multitasking, reacting. Miraval Resorts is an invitation to unplug and be present. For over 30 years, Miraval has been a global leader in mindfulness and well being, helping people reconnect to what matters body, mind and spirit through meditation, yoga, time in nature, equine experiences and moments designed for true presence, Miraval offers practical tools you can carry into everyday life. Miraval meets you where you are and supports wellness that actually lasts. Discover more by visiting miravalresorts.com so today's

[Devin]

episode was actually inspired by a previous episode we did. Last year we did an episode titled can you change the mind of conspiracy theorists? And as part of that, we asked our listeners to call in with their favorite conspiracy theory that they believed. So as part of that process, we got a call from one of Manny's friends Named Kelsey.

[Kelsey]

I think that Benjamin Franklin was a grifter with a great PR team. I live in Philadelphia, so his image is everywhere to a degree I find suspicious. He's credited with inventing basically everything from electricity to bifocals to modern day fire insurance. And I don't believe that one little guy achieved all of this alone. He was never actually president, but was somehow always there as an advisor, An Elon Musk kind of fraudster. The ideas guy with a big checkbook. I just feel like it's extremely possible that everyone hated him and he was a bad hang, but his reputation has been scrubbed clean.

[Manny]

Wow.

[Noah]

I like that it's a bad hang. It's like everyone's hanging out with him. I feel like it'd be opposite where he's probably a good hang. Maybe not.

[Manny]

Yeah, I would imagine a lot of people wanted to be around him, you know, because of the reputation he had built, fraudulent or not.

[Devin]

Yeah, you know, well, that was a very brief answer, you know, so I called up Kelsey to hear more of her thoughts. So as she mentioned, one big thing to note is that Kelsey lives in Philadelphia. So she is definitely, I think, seeing more Benjamin Franklin related things than we are. Because when we got this, I remember this when you were editing this episode, Manny, and I was like, I don't really think about Benjamin Franklin at all.

[Noah]

Yeah, that was my thought too. I was like, how would you even come up with this? Like, who's even talking about this guy?

[Manny]

Yeah, I had never thought about that theory before. So now I'm happy to hear more.

[Devin]

Well, we found out that you are on a group chat with Kelsey where she sends you photos every time she sees something Benjamin Franklin related. And I, you know, I spoke to her a couple of weeks ago now. So we have our own. It's not a group chat, I guess, because it's only two people. But she now sends me stuff that she comes across that are. That are Benjamin Franklin. And it is, it's a decent amount.

[Manny]

It's a lot. If you're in Philadelphia, it seems like, you know, walking around, you will run into a Benjamin Franklin.

[Devin]

And this is only the stuff she's sending. You know, I'm imagining she's not sending every single Benjamin Franklin thing that she's coming with. So two things Kelsey wanted us to get to the bottom of. It's number one. Why does it feel like Benjamin Franklin hasn't had a proper reckoning? So right in 2020, we were really examining historical figures.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And especially the presidents.

[Devin]

Yes, especially presidents. You know, Obama was being called a war criminal. We were talking a lot about George Washington. George Washington. So why wasn't Benjamin Franklin a part of that conversation? Yeah. And then she also wanted us to investigate just sort of the scope of what he's been credited with inventing.

[Kelsey]

I think just like the huge, like, broad brushstrokes of the things he's credited for coming up with or inventing. Feel, like, so categorically, like, all encompassing. Like, I've just heard, like, he invented the concept of insurance. And I'm like, what? Like, did any single person do that? And also like, that. That's like such a big claim. And then same with like, firefighting, like modern firefighting and like bifocals and electricity. Like, I'm sure he was maybe like a savant, like, genius guy who came up with some stuff. But, like, I think, like, the lack of specificity is what makes me suspicious. Or like. Yeah, it just feels so big.

[Devin]

So after that episode aired where Kelsey, you know, ripped apart Benjamin and Franklin, another friend of the pod, Rich was texting us because he's a big Benjamin Franklin.

[Noah]

He was sensed.

[Devin]

Well, which I didn't know, but, you know, Rich was so down for many.

[Noah]

No, but he's a history buff.

[Devin]

He is a history buff, but he was.

[Noah]

And a proud American.

[Manny]

Yeah, that's true.

[Noah]

He's a patriot.

[Devin]

He's a patriot. But Rich, he was very upset. So. No, you had a conversation with Rich to. Just to find out why he was so irate.

[Noah]

Yeah, he, you know, Rich, his main point was like, it's not fair to say, you know, Ben Franklin is basically what we would see as, you know, Elon Musk today. He was actually kind of doing this stuff. Mainly he's pointing to his diplomacy. He, you know, made the alliance with the French, which helped the American Revolution, of course. And, you know, just generally his. Rich's main point is like, you wouldn't send him around to all these things, these high stakes positions. If he's a fraud.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Like, he's got to be doing something.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Or at least be well liked and trusted in some sense.

[Devin]

A fraud would put themselves in those scenarios. You wouldn't be like, oh, yeah, you go, yeah, how the hell did you get here?

[Noah]

Especially he's not the president.

[Devin]

So it's like there's no reason to

[Noah]

just have this outside, you know, outsider figure, for lack of a better word.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

To do this, like, to trust that stuff with him. There's got to be something there.

[Rich]

I think the thing about Franklin that this caller Seemed skeptical of was his celebrity. I mean, like, the idea of a celebrity is kind of fairly modern, but in terms of the 18th century, he was as close to a celebrity as you could get. The thing is, is that he used that to his cause's benefit in some way. He was like a marketer of the American Revolution as much as he was a diplomat and a leading politician. He started arguing for colonial unity, like, decades before even the Declaration of Independence, which, by the way, he also helped Jefferson draft. So not only did he help draft the Declaration of Independence, he also helped draft the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war. So that set the terms for what the country was going to look like. And he also played an important role in the Constitutional Convention. So, I mean, look, he's there at the Declaration of Independence, the treaty that ends the war and helps establish what the United States is going to be, and then the Constitution. I don't know what more you could

[Claire Aubin]

want from this guy.

[Rich]

Did he do some, like, flamboyant public image stuff? Yes, of course. But he was using that to his advantage. He was an interesting guy. I mean, like someone like John Adams, for example. People usually thought he was, like, boring, kind of goofy, annoying. But, like, with Franklin, people loved him.

[Manny]

And you can see easily how our two friends here, their ideas are in opposition to each other, but you can also see some areas where they're not necessarily like. I think Kelsey's main gripe seems to be all the things attributed to him in terms of, like, innovation, I guess.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

And then, you know, Rich isn't necessarily talking about that aspect of his life. He's just talking about how much of an integral role he played in kind of the founding of the country. I want to see how we can marry these two ideas.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And the personality of it, I think, is key, too, where that's definitely what led to him being iconic in the sense of being all over Philadelphia.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And then that also is what enriches telling, is what led to him being the one who trusted to kind of convince people to come to our side and that sort of thing, too. So, yeah, you know, like, you're saying they might not be as at odds as we think, as they think, even as they think.

[Devin]

So we are going to find out if Kelsey is right. Is Benjamin Franklin a fraud? Fraud? Or is Rich right? Is he our greatest founding father? After the break, we'll find out. Does Benjamin Franklin actually suck?

[Vital Proteins Ad]

Shake it up with vital proteins, collagen and protein shake. It's a high quality. Ready to Drink? Shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Learn [e-mail] this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out [e-mail] that's o d o

[Miraval Resorts Ad]

o.com we spend so much time of our lives switched on. Scrolling, multitasking, reacting. Miraval Resorts is an invitation to unplug and be present. For over 30 years, Miraval has been a global leader in mindfulness and well being, helping people reconnect to what matters body, mind and spirit through meditation, yoga, time in nature, equine experiences and moments designed for true presence. Miraval offers practical tools you can carry into everyday life. Miraval meets you where you are and supports wellness that actually lasts. Discover More by visiting miravalresorts.com

[Claire Aubin]

Foreign.

[Manny]

I'm Manny.

[Noah]

I'm Noah.

[Devin]

And I am Devin. We are joined in a studio by Dr. Claire Aubin. Claire is a writer and historian at Yale. She also has her own podcast which you may already know, called this Guy Sucked, which was named one of Apple Podcasts Best new shows of 2025.

[Manny]

In some great company.

[Devin]

In some great company along with you all.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, that's literally how we know each

[Devin]

other and we love this show because it's a show for haters and we love to hate on this show. Claire, can you give us just your elevator pitch for this Guy Sucked?

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, so every week I bring in a new scholar, a new academic. Occasionally we have like a comedian or do a collaboration with someone else, but I bring someone who is an expert on a person in to tell us why they don't like that person basically and why make an argument for the audience for why they shouldn't like that person either. So We've spanned, like, a huge amount of historical time periods. We talk about people who are very famous, people who are not famous but should be for bad stuff. The argument being that, whether you realize it or not, historical figures have negatively impacted your life today, and you should not like them, and that you can be interested in them without liking them also.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Manny]

That's good point.

[Claire Aubin]

Which we'll get into.

[Manny]

We're familiar with the concept people who should be famous but aren't.

[Devin]

Mm.

[Manny]

We're getting there.

[Noah]

Shoot an episode about us.

[Claire Aubin]

So, unfortunately, you don't want to be the subject.

[Devin]

Okay.

[Manny]

I would say.

[Claire Aubin]

I would say, you know, you. Come on. But that is actually, in fact, what's happening. Interesting.

[Devin]

All right, Claire, so to recap, we have you here because we chatted with two friends at a pod. Our friend Kelsey, who thinks Benjamin Franklin is a fraud. Our friend Rich, who thinks Benjamin Franklin is a national treasure, maybe underrated. So we're gonna hand off the episode to you at this point as our historian to sort of break down what's the truth about the Benjamin Franklin?

[Claire Aubin]

So part of this is a little bit complicated because the two arguments that he's a fraud and that he's important are not in opposition to one another. So it was funny trying to figure out what the answer to this is, because, like, one could be a fraud and also important and, like, memorable at the same time and like a contributor in some other way. And I think there are plenty of historical examples and living examples that we have of that. So I think they're not actually arguing at cross purposes. Like, they're. They're. They're not against each other in this. They just have different conceptions of why people remember him.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

But I did come up with what I see as the questions that they were asking. I tried to summarize their questions and find answers to them. So questions are like, did he have haters in his day? Would he be taken more seriously if he had been president? Was he stealing credit from other people? Like, they asked a lot of, I think, really interesting questions that help us to figure out, like, how we think about celebrity and history and all kinds of stuff like that. And then the one that I found really interesting is, what are the bad things about him? Yeah, and there are some bad things about him.

[Devin]

You know, if we want to cancel him, what can we pull up?

[Noah]

Yeah, well, shouldn't we talk about the barriers? Talk about his accomplishments?

[Devin]

I feel like, yeah, maybe we should accomplish.

[Manny]

That's why we know him.

[Noah]

And then we get into the.

[Devin]

Let's start with what's real.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Well, what do you know about him as his accomplishments?

[Noah]

Flying a kite.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, sure.

[Noah]

Discovering electricity, Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution.

[Manny]

Yes.

[Noah]

He's at these things.

[Claire Aubin]

He's at the Constitution.

[Noah]

He's a diplomat.

[Manny]

Yeah, I didn't know that about the diplomat.

[Noah]

Like, he was building in France.

[Manny]

I talked to Rich.

[Noah]

So, yeah, he was. He was crucial in getting the French alliance, which helped back us up during the American Revolution.

[Manny]

Wow.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

On the. What is it? The 100 bill?

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. Pretty famously, like, all about that.

[Manny]

I've never seen one of those

[Noah]

smaller bills,

[Devin]

the penny.

[Manny]

I'm the one who's this.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. So most of these things at least have, like, a grain of truth to them. He definitely is, for example, instrumental in securing this French alliance. That's right. A lot of these things are true. He does work on electricity. But I will say work on electricity.

[Devin]

He didn't discover.

[Claire Aubin]

Well, no. So one of the things I find kind of interesting about this is the idea of, like, whether he was stealing credit from other people for his inventions or not.

[Devin]

Because he has a name.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. You know, the issue here is really just kind of like oversimplification. So, no, he doesn't steal credit from people, but, yes, his relationship to the things he invents and does and science are oversimplified. Sometimes he kind of fails to credit his collaborators on things in a sort of classic inventor scenario.

[Devin]

You know, who does that? Current day. This is.

[Claire Aubin]

I'm ready.

[Devin]

I don't think you would think this person would come up in this conversation. Travis Scott famously likes to pretend that he does everything by himself to the point where, when I worked at Genius, the music company, we would do these series where we talk to the collaborators of big famous people. Right. It's hard to talk to the big famous people. It's easier to talk to a producer or music video director. And he would threaten to sue us if we did videos. Like, they had to take a video down. Cause they worked with. I think it was either a music video he did or a producer. He didn't like the idea that the audience would see that he wasn't the only person doing everything.

[Manny]

Oh, my God.

[Devin]

He didn't like the idea of being seen as a collaborator. He wants to be seen as, like, the mastermind and a brainchild of the thing. Yeah, we had to take the video down.

[Claire Aubin]

That's a grand. Yeah, for sure. Currently also first time, probably someone has brought up Travis Scott and Benjamin Franklin in the same continuum type of guy. So, like, breaking new ground every day.

[Devin]

Scott and Benjamin Franklin.

[Claire Aubin]

This is what podcasts are for. Yeah, but actually, yeah, that does fit, in part because one of the issues around Franklin's legacy is that he gets credited with being the sole creator of things that are actually sort of transnational global ideas. So the idea of electricity and lightning being somehow related to electricity or predates him. He's not the person to come up with this, in part because, like, ideas don't exist in vacuums. The lone genius scientist guy who is like, I've invented electricity isn't real. That's not actually how science works or how innovation works.

[Devin]

No, we wouldn't figure this out if it wasn't for that one guy with the kite. No one else is thinking about this.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, like, science is incremental. Innovation is incremental. There's a sort of network of what we would call experimental philosophers and experimental scientists, although they're not really thinking of themselves as scientists necessarily at this moment, because all of these things are kind of mixed together. Like, you're a philosopher and a scientist and a doctor and whatever, all. All together. You're just engaging in sort of questions about the world and trying to answer them, much like yourselves, you, Travis, Scott, and Benjamin. And he is part of this network. We know that he's traveling to Europe fairly regularly and coming back and doing stuff. So imagine that he exists in this space. Where he's coming up with things by himself is just not real or possible. We know, for example, that the lightning rod is based in part on European theories around electricity and lightning. There is a Czech priest named Prokop Divis who is also working on grounded lightning rods at the same time. His grounded lightning rod happens about three years after Franklin's, but they're working with the same ideas. So that's not to say that he doesn't do these incredible things, but, like, he doesn't do them by himself, and he doesn't do them in a way that no one else is considering approaching them, because science is also a very messy and very iterative process. Like, you have to try things over and over and over again and figure them out. And if he's the first guy to do it in America, like, that's great, but he's not the only person on the planet capable of it either.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Manny]

It seems like he's benefited from essentially, like. Like the elementary school curriculum.

[Noah]

Right.

[Manny]

Like, if the oversimplification happens because they're teaching this to kids. So he's getting a lot of credit for I mean, I. I didn't read a single thing about him after elementary school, I think. So if I had, I guess the. The teachings would have been a little bit more nuanced.

[Devin]

I'm worried about your high school education, but we're going to leave that there. But I. I do wonder how much of this is, like you said, Manny, like, the oversimplification of, like, teaching kids things. You know, like, even, like, Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks wasn't the first person, you know, to not get up. She also wasn't seated in the front of the bus. You know, like, there's stuff like that. There's nuance to a lot of stuff that when you're a kid, it's like, you know, can this fit in a picture book? It's like Benjamin Franklin, kite lightning. We get the gist electricity.

[Noah]

Right.

[Manny]

You're not gonna tell the kid about all the other collaborators.

[Devin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Claire Aubin]

About Czech priests, pro cup divisions.

[Manny]

Also,

[Noah]

we didn't need to go to Prague and see what they're.

[Devin]

They're lear.

[Claire Aubin]

I mean. And that's kind of generally a problem with how people understand historical figures. Right. Like, the real problem is, once again, the American education system, unfortunately, in terms of how we like satisfying endings, we like people who satisfy curiosity, we like people who we can hold up and say, this is the guy. Because history itself is a lot messier and more complicated than that, and it's harder to grapple with. So these simplifications really benefit us in terms of our ability to understand things. They're often, though, not really that true or that real. And the issue is further down the line when you're like, ah, well, this is the thing. I know about Benjamin Franklin. And someone has to say, okay, so. Not someone.

[Noah]

Not that Kelsey's main gripe, aside from kind of the Philly centric angle and, like, the advertisement use, which is obviously way far afield, was kind of like, how could this one guy do all this?

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah. We're talking a wide range. But I'm.

[Noah]

To me, this is. My simple explanation is I think about someone like da Vinci, like a Renaissance man sort of thing. I'm just thinking, you know, hundreds of years ago, not that many people were educated. So to me, it doesn't seem that crazy that the few people that were highly educated would know about a lot of things and be working in a lot of different fields, whether that be, you know, science, electricity, or politics or whatever, or art. In, you know, Franklin, he was writing. He did almanacs, these sorts of things. So it's not that crazy that one guy would kind of have his hand in all these different pots.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

I mean, does that make sense?

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, I mean, like fully 100% it makes sense. The way that we conceive of like sciences and the humanities or art as these separate categories is relatively recent. Like historically speaking, the man who is educated is educated in all of these fields and they're not seen as necessarily separable. So you can say like, yes, I've learned history, yes, I've learned science or art or whatever, but a person who is educated is well rounded and interested in all of these things. So like what I mentioned before about this sort of philosopher or physicist, whatever guy, that's very normal because that is part of being educated and interested in the world. The way that we've kind of siloed these things as totally separate is relatively recent because now we focus in on like becoming an expert in one single thing, becoming the person. We in part, because our approach to things like invention has narrowed further and further because we're getting, we're progressing and yeah, we're getting more advanced. Yeah. So you can be like, I do this one thing.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

So a lot of these things really benefit or draw from each other. So the da Vinci renaissance man style guy, it was a much more common person until recently. And like a thing that proves how good you are and how educated you are and how intelligent you are that you can engage with all these different things.

[Devin]

I feel like the similarity happens in like youth sports now. Right. Where back in the day if you were athletic, you would play a bunch of different sports. Now they have like 8 year olds that they're like, you're gonna be a soccer star, you're only playing soccer. Do not play any other sports. And a lot of, you know, older athletes talk about that's not actually great. Like you should, if your child is athletic, just let them play a bunch of different sports and like, don't narrow them down when they're so young.

[Noah]

You choose that choice later on.

[Devin]

Exactly. Okay.

[Noah]

You're going to make a career.

[Claire Aubin]

It used to even more recently. Beyond that, using the sports, childhood sports analogy, being a three sport athlete used to be a type of person in the U.S. like, if you're a person who plays baseball, basketball and football, you are a three sport athlete.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

That's like, that was a type of high school guy, basically. And now we rarely see that because people are told to do just do one thing. Yeah. Or be like, maybe you should focus on your schoolwork and only play one sport. But yeah, so even that is like us narrowing and narrowing. And yeah, all of that is crazy too, because it's like, hey, eight year old.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

I need you to prepare yourself for a life of CTE.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah. Starting now.

[Claire Aubin]

Starting now.

[Manny]

LeBron James was famously a five star football recruit as well. Maybe not. Maybe four or five stars, I can't remember. But he definitely could have made a lot of money in football.

[Devin]

But yeah, he's a big, athletic guy.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Some great Highlight Tapes on YouTube if you want to go back and check them out.

[Noah]

Why don't we pull them up right now? We got 20 minutes

[Claire Aubin]

to go back to your question. Some of the other things he's credited with. So the bifocals one is good. Glasses existed. Having different glasses also existed for distance and for close range vision. From what I understand, things like inventions are not necessarily my specialty as a historian, but from what I understand, in the research I did for this, he kind of perfected an idea that had existed, that pre existed, or he. He made a thing that people had been thinking about into a thing that existed, if that makes sense.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Especially because we're like, he invented the bifocal. That's so crazy. But if people are switching between two kinds of glasses, I feel certain someone said, I wish these were one pair of glasses.

[Devin]

You know, he basically made like a scrub daddy.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

You just put it like, we got sponges.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Devin]

This is a better version of a spongebob.

[Noah]

And a smiley face.

[Claire Aubin]

You can put your finger.

[Manny]

That'd be perfect.

[Noah]

Let me do it. Let me get in the lab.

[Claire Aubin]

To be fair, I am a huge scrub daddy.

[Devin]

Oh, yeah, that's all I got.

[Claire Aubin]

I have a. I've scrubbed mommies too.

[Devin]

Yeah, scrub mommies are actually better.

[Claire Aubin]

Mommies are better than scrub daddies.

[Noah]

Can you guys give me the quick pitch on what. What actually is the benefit of these compared to another.

[Manny]

A normal sponge?

[Devin]

I think they're just better sponges. They're. They're thicker, you know, sponges, you know, more. I would say horizontal.

[Noah]

Yeah. So these are more.

[Devin]

They got more depth.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. And the, the wetter they get, the softer they get. So they start out like, kind of crispy in a way that's good for exfoliate. Exfoliating your pants.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Manny]

I hear.

[Claire Aubin]

And then they get softer, so they're more workable, which is great. And they have more crevices. Yes, crevice options.

[Devin]

And mommy has two sides.

[Noah]

Okay. Like a hard side, like a scrub side.

[Devin]

A scrub side. And then like a More.

[Manny]

Okay.

[Devin]

A softer side.

[Noah]

They're going to try it out, and we're not putting this in until they give us some money.

[Devin]

Yes.

[Claire Aubin]

At the end of the episode, sponsor us scrub Daddy and Mommy.

[Noah]

Some other things, and these are more like, like infrastructural. That came up were like the fire department, postal service.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Speak to that. Like, how important was Franklin to those being set up?

[Claire Aubin]

Fire brigades existed.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

That was for a long time, pretty famous.

[Noah]

They certainly had fires before.

[Claire Aubin]

And yeah, they did have fires, and they did have community responses to fires.

[Noah]

Not individual vigilantes.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. Benjamin Franklin actually invented both fires and fires and the concept of insurance. I don't know. I also feel confident that that predated him, at least to some extent. With all of these things, we're looking at, like, what we consider very obvious concepts now that he might have popularized or he might have formalized in some way. But again, like, I don't necessarily think that these are things that we should be like, that's his thing. That's him who did that. One of the things that I found interesting in the conversation that you had with Rich is he talks a little about John Adams in it. And I found that very funny because John Adams kind of emerges as the opposite of Ben Franklin in. In the way that Rich says. But one of the things he's annoyed at Ben Franklin for and writes in his diaries and in letters about, as in John Adams is writing this Franklin. It might be there too, in his diaries. Adams is writing that Franklin, like, is getting too much credit for stuff. And he feels frustrated that he's being credited not just for inventions, but for the whole revolution and for all of these ideas. And he feels frustrated that people are kind of laying all of this at Franklin's feet. So this goes also to the. Did he have haters.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

When he was alive? Thing. That there was already frustration while he was alive at how people were engaging in this, like, myth making around him.

[Devin]

Did John want some more credit? Was John like, hey, I'm doing some of this shit too. Nobody's talking about me. Was that. Was that his real issue? Or was it just like, all right, enough.

[Manny]

This sounds like class. The more classic kind of hating where it's like, I'm tired of hearing about this guy.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, I think it's more of that. I don't think there's as much of John Adams being like, it should have been me, but I do think he's like, okay, there were a lot of us at the Constitutional Convention.

[Noah]

Hold on.

[Claire Aubin]

But yeah, and even, like, Thomas Jefferson is also writing, like, look, he can't be president because his temper is a little too. He says. I think he says he has a supple temper, but that his. He's. He's not suited, in terms of temperament to the difficulties of actual leadership. I mean, there are people who are, while he's alive, being like, hold on. Like, we can't. This guy is not necessarily everything he's being held up to be.

[Devin]

So he did have haters, but how widespread was this hate? You know, these people are, right. You're saying, writing this in their diaries. Are they saying this publicly, or are these just whispers behind the scenes?

[Claire Aubin]

It's like, I hate these guys.

[Noah]

Yeah, but it's like, that's different than, you know, the little people down below.

[Claire Aubin]

Not as much public hate. It depends on. On what point in his life you're talking about. The British are really frustrated at him, for example, because they're like, man, you kind of messed this up for us. Like, the British are like, you know, maybe we wouldn't have succeeded, for example, if he didn't go to France and do this. So that's what we would consider sort of hating from someone who, like, yeah, lost a war.

[Manny]

I'd be pretty mad if I was,

[Noah]

you know, England at this time.

[Claire Aubin]

So that one is more understandable. The people around him do have these frustrations, and a lot of them end up being kind of frustrations around, like, is he a good employer? The normal stuff. But there isn't, like, this widespread hate movement while he's alive, necessarily until you get to his late 70s. He dies in his mid-80s, but his late 70s is when he decides to take an abolitionist turn. And then people who are like, no, we like slavery are like, we hate this guy.

[Noah]

Interesting.

[Claire Aubin]

That being said, there is another group of people who might hate him, which would be all of the people he had enslaved. And so those people might hate him, but we lose them in the historical record, which is a pretty common issue with, for example, enslaved people who were enslavers, where we lose the voices of the people who had that level of relationship with him, that level of antagonistic relationship. And so often when we think about them, because we don't have them in the historical record, we're like, everyone loved him. It's like, maybe not the people who couldn't leave his house. You know, it's a pretty sobering thing, but it depends on who you consider a person when you're thinking about, like, what hating on someone is.

[Manny]

They were haters yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

And who counts.

[Noah]

Can you walk us through his arc towards abolitionism?

[Claire Aubin]

Benjamin Franklin died in 1790. He takes this abolitionist turn or starts thinking about it. From what I can tell in the early 1770s, he moves fully into, we would call his abolitionist kind of phase. In I think 1781, he becomes an open public abolitionist, takes over control of this very public abolitionist group. He's doing all of these things in part because he's like, I think this might be bad. He's also surrounded by other people at this moment in the 1780s where wealthy people living in the north are starting to be like, maybe this isn't good. So this is actually when the fault lines start to appear between who thinks slavery is an acceptable institution and who thinks it's not. But he, yeah, he takes his weird turn and we think around 1772, 1775, he starts thinking about it more and becomes open and public about it in the 1780s. But before that, that when he's asked to comment on slavery, he like outright refuses. So for most of his life, not only does he own slaves or have people living with his family as their slaves, he also feels basically fine with it and is like, when asked to comment on it, says he's not going to. He also is making money off of slavery because he is the editor and the guy who runs the Pennsylvania Gazette where people are advertising slave markets and slave sales. So he's actively making money off of this. And he also, when people have like missing or, or self emancipated slaves, so people who run away, he's allowing these missing and runaway slave ads to be run in his paper. So he like enables slave patrols and slave catchers as well. Not super good.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

The other thing I would add to the abolitionist thing is at the point that he becomes an abolitionist, he still has people who are enslaved living that he like owns. And he puts in his will that when he dies, that's when they can be free.

[Devin]

How convenient.

[Claire Aubin]

And they both, the two that he names in his will, both die before he does. So they die still enslaved.

[Manny]

Didn't George Washington do something similar? Yes. Emancipated his slaves only after he died.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. This is kind of a classic, classic thing actually, that people who are, I think classic as in like, this is a common thing, a thing that happens where people are like, abolition is good. Not yet though.

[Devin]

Yeah, wait until I'm gone.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, you can't do it, but the next generation might be equipped you, you, you've lived too long like this. I'm Too responsible for you. I'm not going to, for example, offer you your freedom and then pay for you to live a life of freedom and take care of you that way financially. Which he absolutely could have done. And other people. People did. Instead, he was like, when I'm gone, you can go too.

[Manny]

It's what frustrates me so much about this kind of argument on the right from, like, the Charlie Kirk types that, like, you can't really blame the Confederacy that much because slavery was normal. It was, like, the norm, and they didn't know any better. But there's so much information that disproves that.

[Claire Aubin]

The question we have, even the guys

[Manny]

who had the slaves, you can be free after I die. It's like a clear indication that they knew what they were doing was bad.

[Claire Aubin]

And one of the questions we have to ask when that comes up when someone says, oh, this was normal, it's like, for who? Because again, the calculus then is, who's a person?

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

If the calculus is a person who. Who enslaved someone and someone who is enslaved, and we don't have the enslaved person's thoughts on the record, and we do have this person, we default to the person who says, it was normal.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

The person experiencing it does not think this is normal and good. Right.

[Manny]

Like, it might even be normal on the basis of, like, a society. But it doesn't mean it was, like, default. Fine.

[Claire Aubin]

No. And also, yeah, normal doesn't mean good or positive.

[Devin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

So it's a. It is a really frustrating and kind of circular argument because it really just gets back to, like, well, who do you consider a person? Whose thoughts do you care about? Whose feelings do you care about? Who matters here? You know, to bring John Adams up again, which I think is interesting to head off this. This is normal. All the Founding Fathers had them argument, you know, who did not have slaves? John Adams, who emerges as kind of the secret hero of the episode. And neither did his cousin, Samuel Adams.

[Devin]

Damn.

[Claire Aubin]

In fact, of the Founding Fathers, we traditionally think of, for example, when we're looking at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a little over a quarter of them were not slaveholders. So if you can say it's normal to be an enslave. Also normal not to be as normal as it would be to be, like a vegetarian or something.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Manny]

Do we know if that was because of, like, historical happenstance or they had a position against it?

[Claire Aubin]

It depends on the person. Sometimes it's kind of both. Sometimes they're like, it doesn't make financial sense for Me. They're expensive, right? Like, not just as in, like, to purchase, but the care and upkeep of another human being is expensive. And so some people couldn't really, like, afford this. And this is just using the sort of like, really kind of, like, cold here. But there's that some people did also have, like, a real moral, ethical obligation where they felt like this was not right. So those people count, too. And I think it's interesting that when we think about Benjamin Franklin, we're like, look at all these amazing things he did. The seven people that he, over the course of his life, purchased, sold. At one point, one runs away from him in England, and he, like, goes on this quest to go find this man, discovers that the man is in this other woman's house in England and is having a better time there, basically. And he's like, okay, fine, I guess you can stay here. And he sells the man. So again, this is not like he says, you're having a good time. I guess you can stay because you're happy.

[Devin]

What am I getting out of?

[Claire Aubin]

He's like, so do you need to pay me in this scenario when you can stay in England? But, yeah, I mean, he, for almost his whole life, makes money off of slavery and benefits enormously from enslaving people. So I think that should be part of the conversation when you think about if he's important or good or a fraud or whatever. And that goes to what's bad about him. That's mostly what's bad about him.

[Devin]

I'm gonna say, okay, on our. We're gonna cancel Benjamin Franklin, the slave stuff. Pretty big.

[Noah]

It's a bad one.

[Manny]

It's up there.

[Noah]

Yeah. I'll speak for Rich and say we don't support that.

[Claire Aubin]

Gary Nash, who's a historian who works on the American Revolution and works on, like, black and white relations during and after the American Revolution, says like many other white colonists during the years leading up to the American Revolution, the Franklins grew to dislike slavery, but not so much as to sacrifice their investments. So they don't. They don't like it, but they don't like it. Like, they still like it enough to

[Devin]

not change what they're doing.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. To not risk some money, basically.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

So just like, we won't do it again.

[Claire Aubin]

And they do it again, though.

[Manny]

Started over.

[Claire Aubin]

You know, what's interesting is they say, like, well, we don't want to do this, but if you have a kid, that kid's gonna be gonna become a slave too. It's a really, like. It's a murky thing, and it's a thing that makes people really uncomfortable because you have to grapple with a whole lot of other stuff about American history when you think about it.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

But, yeah, that's my argument for the, like, what's bad? He also, you know, does the thing that quite that a lot of white colonists at this time do, where he says, we need to take the west, indigenous people over there, who cares about them? He's not overtly like, we hate them, we should kill them. He just is like, we should take the west too. We need more space. We need more people. The way that America is going to survive is by bringing as many people here as possible. And he's not, you know, alone in thinking this, and it's not specifically about wanting to, you know, cause the annihilation of this enormous group of people, but he doesn't have a problem with it necessarily. So you can, I guess, add that as another tick on the list.

[Noah]

Up next, what did Ben Franklin think about running for president? And older women and farting. All of that after the break.

[Vital Proteins Ad]

Shake it up with vital proteins, collagen and protein shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Learn [e-mail] this is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D o o dot com. That's O D O o dot com.

[Miraval Resorts Ad]

We spend so much time of our lives switched on, scrolling, multitasking, reacting. Miraval Resorts is an invitation to unplug and be present. For over 30 years, Miraval has been a global leader in mindfulness and well being, helping people reconnect to what matters. Body Mind and spirit through meditation, yoga, time in nature, equine experiences and moments designed for true presence. Miraval offers practical tools you can carry into everyday life. Miraval meets you where you are and supports wellness that actually lasts. Discover More by visiting miravalresorts.com.

[Claire Aubin]

Would he be taken more seriously if he had been president? Is another.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Did he have any ambitions to be. To run for office?

[Claire Aubin]

No. He's 81. At the Constitutional Convention.

[Manny]

Oh my God.

[Claire Aubin]

That's old for context. George Washington is 55 at this point.

[Manny]

My whole.

[Claire Aubin]

I know, Completely warped. Yeah.

[Manny]

What the fuck?

[Devin]

And this was before 80 year olds were running for president.

[Noah]

Not normalized at the time.

[Devin]

He would have been ahead of his time if he did.

[Manny]

Also, is, is 80. Like it's already old today. But like back then that must be like.

[Devin]

That's like 120 year old.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's very old.

[Devin]

Yeah. Yeah. Damn.

[Claire Aubin]

I mean he's, he's not like, it's not like insane. There are plenty of 80 year olds that existed back then. Not as often as Norm, because you could get dysentery pretty easily, you know, so like you could get taken out by all kinds of stuff at a younger. You know, like they didn't have penicillin.

[Rich]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Some basic stuff.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. So I mean there is, there is that.

[Devin]

So he was in no shape to. It wasn't like they passed over him. It's like, guys, I'm too old.

[Noah]

He's like, I'm.

[Devin]

Yeah, I'm not even into running.

[Claire Aubin]

It wasn't gonna, that wasn't gonna happen. That. I don't think that was a real conversation that people were really were thinking about. But yeah, it does reframe a lot of this stuff when you think about like he lived, you know, his whole life other than the stints in Europe, like in the US or what would become the US and he's 81. When we get a constitution.

[Noah]

He was able to do all this stuff then. Yeah, you know, he had a lot of time.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, that's part of this. He's not president, so he can spend his time doing all kinds of going on side quests basically for his entire life.

[Devin]

You know, a trip to Europe back then was not very quick.

[Noah]

Yeah, he's getting on the boat.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, he's. He's like. He has time to do a million other things because he doesn't hold political office in, in the same way. So he kind of is given this like guiding grandpa, uncle role in a lot of this. Yeah, he is Franklin Is I'm basically

[Manny]

curious like what he was up to during the war.

[Claire Aubin]

Oh, all kinds of stuff. He was in France. He was. He was like being a diplomat and securing alliances.

[Manny]

Was he like busy with that or was this is an also a time when he's like kind of doing all the inventions.

[Claire Aubin]

Inventions think kind of simultaneously doing all of these things. But a lot of the inventions do kind of predate the Constitutional Convention. And there's like between. During the war. He's off getting alliances, meeting people, hanging out. Yeah. And not fighting because he's seven years old.

[Manny]

He's the oldest.

[Claire Aubin]

Like these all feed into each other though, right? Because he's in France. He's meeting all these philosophers and scientists and whatever and then he's getting ideas. He's coming back. He invents the Franklin stove, which is a stove that is kind of credited with like he's credited with this new stove technique that by the way is immediately improved upon because it's not that good. But he's still like remembered as this guy who comes.

[Manny]

We needed the step one. Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. But yeah, like his, his relationship to the war is more in like a support being in other places stuff role. So he has time even there kind of has time to. To dick around.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Interesting. Wants to.

[Devin]

Who would we say is like the modern day equivalent of Benjamin Franklin?

[Manny]

I don't know.

[Noah]

Diplomacy and also inventing things. Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

It depends on your idea of diplomacy.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Cuz there are plenty of like tech billionaire guys who are.

[Devin]

Bill Gates or something.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. Who are all over the place doing all kinds of weird stuff.

[Devin]

Elon.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

But he's not really doing diplomacy. At least Bill Gates has like the charities and stuff.

[Manny]

Elon skipped the diplomacy stage. He's just directly involved in the elections.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

He's not really having conversations, just doing things. Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. It is kind of weird to compare like Elon and Benjamin Franklin because we're like, okay, well here's our idea of an inventor. Like a crazy inventor guy. But because Benjamin Franklin does actually invent a bunch of stuff or like come up with stuff and do stuff. And he also like like does objectively help the US become a country rather than just be like let's destroy everything and hire someone named Big Balls to like take over.

[Noah]

Who is the Big balls of the.

[Claire Aubin]

I don't know. But this does fit with. Actually I said that we should talk about his MILF thing. The inventors, famous inventors are freaky guys. Is a long term problem in the US And Benjamin Franklin has a lot of like weird creepy uncle stuff that he does. And not, not in like a, not in like a scary way, but in like a, like a, you know, Elon in like the waifu stuff.

[Devin]

No, yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Am I too online?

[Manny]

Yeah, no, no. Like he just loves the anime looking.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, yeah. Benjamin Franklin is like that a little bit. Well, so there.

[Manny]

Who's the anime woman in the Benjamin?

[Noah]

Who's the grind?

[Claire Aubin]

So we have letters from him where he does a couple of things. So one of the things he's famous for is writing something called Fart Proudly, which is Fart Proudly. Fart Proudly. Which a fun thing about a lot of guys in the 18th century is they were in. They love talking about farting. So that's a. And that's something that Ben Franklin is really into.

[Manny]

And so the word fart was like a thing back then.

[Devin]

Yep, he invented that.

[Claire Aubin]

But yeah, he writes this thing that's for. I think it's sort of like a science magazine, like to encourage young men to engage in scientific inquiry. And so he writes this thing manifesto, I don't know how to describe it, about how they should practice farting basically and how they should like do it as a scientific experiment and like they should undertake special diets. It's crazy. But like we can find. We have.

[Manny]

I thought he was writing like a metaphor at first.

[Claire Aubin]

No, no, he's talking literally. Yeah. But then he' saying do this and then you'll learn how to engage in scientific inquiry if you do this farting experiment. But like back then they were making fart jokes and being like, you know what teenage boys love is, fart jokes. And he was like, until today. Yeah. And then test the time. Yeah. And then the other real weird thing that we have from him, it's a letter that's known as advice to a young friend on mistresses. And it's telling this young friend, probably

[Manny]

71

[Claire Aubin]

years younger, he's telling this young friend that having sexual urges, being horny is normal and this the way to solve it is by getting a wife. And he says, you know, they're hot when they're old too. Like you get a hot old wife basically. And like it's. You're kind of like, like, okay. But some of the things he writes about it are my open minded kids bananas. And I'm sorry to my parents who are probably going to be listening to this. The Wikipedia page on it literally says whether serious or humorous, the letter is frankly sexual. He says he talks about things like the lower parts continuing to last as plump as ever. And says, and as in the dark, all cats are gray. The pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and frequently superior. Every neck being by practice capable of improvement. So he says, the older she is, the more practice she is, the more practice she has.

[Manny]

That is incredible.

[Claire Aubin]

Isn't that an incredible story?

[Noah]

Oh, nothing wrong with that then.

[Claire Aubin]

So add that to the un Cancellation.

[Manny]

Yes.

[Noah]

Supersedes slavery.

[Manny]

And we're assuming by older women, he's. Maybe. I mean, back then he could be talking about someone who's 20. What is the age

[Noah]

dispersion?

[Claire Aubin]

No, I mean, he has a wife. Like he has an old lady later

[Manny]

on in his life.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, he's. He's writing this to a young friend. Like, he's saying, hey, I know, I gotta.

[Devin]

I get experienced women.

[Claire Aubin]

You can get a more experience.

[Manny]

He says, I'm just trying to pull through this.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. He's like, you're. No, I mean foolproof. Yeah. He says, you have urges. You're a young man. Get a wife. And the bonus is it just all cats are gray. All cats are gray in the dark.

[Devin]

I'm saying not take. He said, don't take advantage of her. Eat. To get married to her.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Devin]

He's not saying just go out there and sleep with her. No, make. Make her your wife.

[Manny]

Put a ring on it.

[Claire Aubin]

And he's saying this is the best way to. To fulfill all of these urges is

[Noah]

by being loyal to an older woman.

[Devin]

She has more experience.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Devin]

I can't find nothing wrong with that.

[Manny]

That's pretty good.

[Noah]

No, there's absolutely nothing wrong.

[Manny]

Pretty good.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, I mean, it's a. It's a. It is wild. Every. Pretty much every historical figure, if you look hard enough, you're going to find something crazy.

[Devin]

I love that they. So he wrote this. This was a letter he sent to his friend. Man, if I send y' all some shit like that, delete it right after you read it. We don't need history to be reading our letters.

[Noah]

Hey, I don't know what to do. Like, I'm dating. I can't really find someone. And then Devin sends me that. Hey, listen, all cats are gray in the dark, my friends.

[Claire Aubin]

It does have a very, like, uncle at a. At like a barbecue vibe to it, if it makes sense.

[Noah]

Come over here. Let me tell you something.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. Look, you've been single for too long.

[Devin]

They wrote too much down back then,

[Manny]

you know, So I always wonder if they know it's good. Going to be read by the public in the future. Like I imagine in this case, the guy who received the letter, maybe his family, after he died, gave it to a museum or something because they knew who it was from. I always wonder if.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

All the letters, what they're writing for an audience. Yes, exactly.

[Claire Aubin]

People were writing letters the way that people are, like, tweeting.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Claire Aubin]

Like, because we would call it an epistolary culture. So, like letter writing culture. This is like how you get your thoughts out. So people are sending thousands of letters to each other. So this is something that you would just fire off. Like, he was like, all right, I need to give someone advice.

[Devin]

He's at my young boy. You know, like, he was on Twitter.

[Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Devin]

Directly, he's the guy's tweet.

[Noah]

Now he's sitting at, like, clavicular.

[Devin]

Yeah. He's like, I'm young, I'm horny, what should I do? And then Ben's adding him.

[Manny]

Wasn't the original tweet icon, when you click to tweet something, like a quill, like something.

[Claire Aubin]

Oh, yeah.

[Noah]

See, there you go. He invented that.

[Claire Aubin]

There's continuity, historical continuity happening here. Actually, we're all engaging in a picture.

[Manny]

Wow.

[Claire Aubin]

At this moment in time, if we still use Twitter.

[Manny]

That's beautiful.

[Devin]

So I guess the last question we have is, why isn't he today more scrutinized? You know, I feel like a lot of modern day figures, especially post 2020, we were looking at everybody. Yeah.

[Noah]

Like Jefferson, they got his ass.

[Devin]

We were going through all these people.

[Vital Proteins Ad]

Oh, y' all like him?

[Manny]

They did.

[Vital Proteins Ad]

He did this shit here.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. Jefferson really, really got. And he deserved to.

[Devin]

Jackson.

[Manny]

Yeah, yeah.

[Devin]

Jackson got it too.

[Noah]

Oh, yeah.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Harder than ever.

[Devin]

Yeah. So why. I don't remember us talking a lot about Benny during that time period. Yeah. Why do you think that is? Why?

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, why do you have any memories of this?

[Devin]

Why'd he get out of the.

[Noah]

But yeah, my only guess is like, because he's not a president. So we only. We mainly think of him. Of course. We know this diplomacy and stuff from Annie, but we think of the electricity thing as kind of the iconic stuff. I feel like when you're a kid.

[Devin]

Right.

[Noah]

And then, you know, he' involved in the other stuff. But we don't put that much importance because we don't see him like a George Washington who was the leader of the country. So I think the presidents obviously take, you know, the first.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

They're the top found fathers. And then like the 1B, we got Ben Franklin. Right. Even though he's probably more famous than a few of those presidents.

[Manny]

Really? Yeah.

[Devin]

And he wasn't like a general or something like that?

[Noah]

Yeah. So there's not any. There's not like, other stories about him in that way? I don't know.

[Devin]

That's.

[Noah]

That's my only guess for why we haven't had that re. Examination. And then the only other association. Sorry, I'll keep going, please. He's on $100 bills. So it's like, all about the Benjamins. We like. Like, that's a cool. That's cool aspirational thing. It just. We like money.

[Manny]

Yeah, that's cool.

[Claire Aubin]

And he's all over Philly and sunglasses and.

[Noah]

Yeah, all of our friends in Philly see him all the time on elliptical.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. I think there are two answers to this. So the first answer is basically what you've said. He's so fascinating. He does all the. All this interesting stuff. He's all over the place. He has all these side quests. He's going to all these places doing interesting things. And he's doing this while not holding enormous formal state power. So we don't tend to criticize people who we see as being, like, helpers of the machine rather than the machine themselves. And, like, we love the kooky genius guy. Like, that's an archetype that we've been working with for a very, very long time in a lot of different contexts. We. We know the interesting genius dude. Like, that's a. That's. If you, like, go in your head, climb into your head and think about this, like, you could probably come up with a ton of, like, wacky guys.

[Devin]

My boy Albert, you know?

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. Wacky guys who come up with stuff. They look funny. They send weird letters about farting and sex with older women. They're like. They're. That's a guy. Like, that's an archetype of a guy. And so people are like, okay, well, we can just kind of box him away that way.

[Devin]

That's a different thing.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah. And so we don't need to scrutinize him because we're like, oh, he's a founding father, but he's 80 when he's doing it, and he's kind of wacky. And so that's. I think, part of this. And then the other part is because we don't really scrutinize historical figures that much in general. Actually, like, off the top of your head, when you were like, who are the people that we think of? We're like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, which is like, oh, like the Trail of Tears. Gu.

[Devin]

Pretty Bad one.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah, these are. And someone who. Yeah, and we've got Jefferson and Sally Heming. Like, these are things that we're like, oh, pretty famously. They did really, really bad stuff. Not, like, daily level. Everyone's kind of doing bad stuff, like really egregiously bad things. But everybody who doesn't do that or doesn't do things that rise to that level, we often kind of leave them alone. So let me make you a pitch for a podcast. Yeah, like, everything I'm saying here has been said before by much more knowledgeable people, people who work on Franklin directly. So I'm just reiterating their ideas. But, like, people are uncomfortable with having to reassess historical figures because if you reassess the past, it makes you have to think harder about what you're dealing with right now. There's a reason that, like, current modern state policy is about rewriting and erasing parts of the past that are uncomfortable. And specifically the parts that we have started to reckon, where we've started to be, like, at this, At Monticello, for example, or at Mount Vernon, let's have exhibits on the people who were enslaved and living here. Let's have these in national parks. Let's talk about the indigenous people that we've like, booted off this land or killed or whatever. Like, those are the things that people are trying to get rid of. In part because it makes you, like, think about the time that we're living in right now. And, and so when we reassess people, it feels like, like it creates a sense of discomfort. It can also create a sense of, like, satisfaction and relief when we reassess someone to feel like someone is being written back into a narrative. But that often is at odds with the discomfort. Yeah, you know, it's less satisfying to say, this person was complicated.

[Devin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Claire Aubin]

You know, or this person did some good stuff. Stuff. Also, the people who, you know, were forced to work for him for their entire lives didn't think he was that great, actually. Probably that's a, that's a weird thing to like, sit with and, and think through, basically. And so often we'll switch to, no, he's great, he's really important. And. Or no, it's just he's, he's fraudulent.

[Noah]

But rather, it's like, all of these are true.

[Claire Aubin]

All of these things are true at the same time. And also he sucks. And also he's smart. And also. So, you know. Yeah, but we like a one dimensional guy when we think about history.

[Noah]

So now, after all we've learned about Ben Franklin. We think it's important to bring it back to our original debaters, Rich and Kelsey. So we're going to call them up and see how they feel about all this.

[Devin]

This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names.

[Claire Aubin]

I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely

[Rich]

with Robert Kraft for a long time, and one thing I've always respected is

[Claire Aubin]

how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete, my identity is

[Rich]

something I am proud of.

[Claire Aubin]

But I also know what it feels

[Rich]

like to be singled out for for it.

[Claire Aubin]

That's why this new commercial for the

[Devin]

Blue Square Alliance Against Hate that aired

[Jacob Goldstein]

during the big game really hit home.

[Claire Aubin]

It's about showing up for someone when

[Rich]

they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words. And sometimes standing next to someone is enough.

[Claire Aubin]

And you can show support by sharing the Blue square.

[Manny]

If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Grainger knows you need to understand what's wrong and soon as possible. So when a conveyor motor falters, Grainger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem. With Grainger, you can be confident you

[Claire Aubin]

have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly.

[Manny]

Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Vital Proteins Ad]

Shake it up with vital proteins, collagen and protein shake. It's a high quality, ready to drink shake shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. With 0 grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan. It's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day so you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital proteins stay vital. Learn [e-mail] this is an iHeart podcast.

[Kelsey]

Guaranteed human.

[Devin]

All right, so we are joined now by our two competing factions of the Ben Franklin legacy. We have Kelsey and Rich from episode one. So we've now talked to our expert, we've talked to Claire. We have some information we want to share with you about good old Benjamin Franklin and then we want to get your reactions. But first of all, thank you guys for joining us.

[Kelsey]

Thank you for having us.

[Noah]

Very serious. Very tense.

[Devin]

I know.

[Noah]

Very tense.

[Rich]

Yeah, it's palpable.

[Noah]

Yeah, I'm nervous.

[Devin]

Tension in the studio right now is.

[Manny]

Feels like I'M in court, so we'd love to just get some general reactions, thoughts, maybe starting with Rich.

[Rich]

Yeah, sure. So I think that in terms of the main question, was he overrated, underrated? Was he, like, legit for what he's known for? I think that, yeah, there's a lot of mythology around him around this idea of being a Renaissance man. I think part of that is he was as close to a celebrity as you had back then, But I think

[Devin]

that he used to.

[Rich]

That to his advantage. Yeah, basically the Kardashian of the founding fathers. So I think he used that to his advantage for his diplomacy, especially with France. And I think that, like, if we're talking about, like, the first, like, the premise of this debate, basically, I think that even if you just took his diplomacy with France, which helped bring them to the war, which ended up winning the war for what became the U.S. i think that is enough for, like, to be considered a founding father in a real way. I think there's plenty of evidence. Yeah.

[Manny]

Yeah. Another thing we realized was that your two points of view are not even necessarily in contrast with each other, because, Rich, you just think he is adequately credited for the things he did in his life. Kelsey's just fucking annoyed at seeing him everywhere. So it's like they're not even necessarily in contrast. But, Kelsey, just your general thoughts.

[Kelsey]

Well, I'm. It's nice to meet you, Rich, and I'm glad that, moving forward, friends, we

[Noah]

can put this in the past.

[Kelsey]

I was a little scared to learn that I. I had a potential nemesis out there in the universe centered around Benjamin Franklin. So that's a really.

[Claire Aubin]

Yeah.

[Kelsey]

No, I'm so excited about everything that we've learned through this exploration. I think that's something I'm reflecting on, is that this all tracks because I just kind of hate celebrities, so maybe that's kind of what I'm responding to. I also, I think I have some anger at, like, the kooky little genius guy archetype.

[Devin]

Oh, yeah.

[Manny]

The mad scientist.

[Kelsey]

Yeah. And I think. I mean, it's really interesting to think about how my positionality and, like, where I exist in history just really complicates my ability to even fully understand that as, like, a norm, because I feel like I exist in, like, the hive mind era of, like, information sharing and discovery. And so the idea that, like, I kind of live by is, like, nothing is original, and we're all making everything together. And, like, the best things that we do are together. And so the idea that, like, this one little guy could come up with

[Claire Aubin]

all of these things on his own

[Kelsey]

without crediting anybody else, just like comes into sharp tension with that. But that's a really interesting. I don't know how I would have felt back then, and I'm excited to learn that he's pro milf. That's fascinating.

[Rich]

That was one of his strongest positions, actually.

[Noah]

Yeah, he never wavered on that.

[Manny]

No such thing.

[Noah]

No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hatakedur. The show is created by Manny Fadal, Noah Friedman and Devin Joseph. Theme and credits Song by Manny Mixing by Steve Bone Our guest this week is Claire Albin. Check out her show this Guy Sucked. And special thanks to our friends Rich and Kelsey. Visit Nosuchthing show to subscribe to our newsletter for links to more research and to look at the Fart Proudly Manifesto. If you have feedback for us or a question, our email is mannynoadevinmail.com or leave us a voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. If you like this episode, please give us a five star rating and write a nice review wherever you listen. Or just drop this link in your family group chat. I'm sure they'll enjoy it. We'll be back next week with a new episode.

[Manny]

Bye. Such thing.