Justice week 1: wrong none

According to Franklin, injustice is achieved both actively and passively.  You can be unjust by hurting others.  But you can also be unjust by refraining from actions you should perform: "Wrong none, by doing Injuries, or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty."  Justice in this framework is related to Franklin's general theory of action and virtue, which is to be accountable for what you fail to do at every moment (Resolution – "Perform without fail what you resolve"; Industry – "Lose no Time"). 

As with Sincerity week, I didn't find it a particular challenge during Justice week not to do injuries, though it is always possible to feel as though we could "omit" less, do more for others.  What is the true scope of Duty?  

This question is hard for a regular person to answer responsibly but non-neurotically.  If the injuries we commit against others can be hard to assess in a global economy (under what conditions was the t-shirt I wore today made?), it can be even harder to know what benefits we might be obligated to confer and how.

Ben Franklin is not often invoked in this context.  Always a popular and populist figure, he is regularly named as a supporter of individual thrift and responsibility, of entrepreneurship, and even of modern free-market economics.  Not for nothing was he cited by economically conservative Congressman Aaron Schock in the interview with Men's Health I mentioned in last week's post.  Franklin can even be made to stand in opposition to policies seen as overly intrusive on individual liberty, as in this Cafepress t-shirt you can buy for a mere $35:

Here is Franklin as the hip anti-Obama.  He is neatly signified as opposing the federal imposition of health care or higher taxes on a polity that refuses to benefit from another's sense of Duty, or to be forced to perform that Duty themselves.

Similarly, as historian Jill Lepore notes in a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Paul Ryan's Medicare- and social-services-cutting budget plan is named "The Path to Prosperity," a subtle echo of Franklin's famous essay, "The Way to Wealth" (discussed in April 19's Resolution Week 1 entry below).*  Economic conservatives readily name Franklin as the patron saint of freedom from the burdens of collective endeavor which, they imply, Franklin knew would hobble the individual and thereby, in their view, the nation.

Lepore argues against this, describing the difficulties of Franklin's sister, Jane Mecom, to whom, of all his correspondents, Franklin wrote most frequently.  Uneducated, married young, bearing child after child (nearly all of whom died), Mecom becomes for Lepore an argument that the state alleviate such misery – and convert it to productivity a la Franklin – by making universal education, health care, family planning services and, we might add, suffrage, available.  Pace Ryan, Lepore believes Franklin would agree.  She notes he gave a generous bequest to Boston's public schools in his will.  (Her eloquent argument may be found here.)

Franklin's definition of Justice in his virtue system could certainly support Lepore's reading (as might the record of Franklin's substantial endeavors for the public good, which only begin with him founding libraries and fire companies, and creating paper currency for the Colonies, long before his more well-known participation in crafting the republic). 

To assess Franklin and his role in our own age is to accumulate numerous quirky and troubling data.  (The abs are only the beginning: more to come.)  It's nicer, in my opinion, to credit him for his advocacy that we not omit the Benefits we owe others.

Coming up: return of charts, courtesy of restored hard drive.


*Thanks to Eugene's Blogger of the Year, Culinaria Eugenius, for bringing this to my attention.