05 March 2009

Virtues of Ben Franklin


How important are virtues in American Society today?
Would Ben Franklin's ideals hold up in the 21st Century?

8 comments:

Katie said...

I think American Society greatly values individualism and therefore it is easy for there to be multiple variations on the same virtues. Americans realize that everyone is different, but we are all the same (in being human). This means that people are less offended when they don't share the same virtues. In Ben Franklin's time people were less open to new ideas (morally speaking). However, many of Franklin's virtues are still upheld today, just in varying degrees of intensity. Basically, we still value temperance and moderation and silence, there is just more wiggle room. Nothing is black or white.

Tran Dacey said...

america values virtues today but in a totaly warped way we look down apon poeple who dont follow the basic moral values that Ben Franklin layed down but we clam to because as americans we are hipicrats we look down at people who drink too much as we hold a beer in our hands and we look down on people who over eat when our belts are about to burst. so in short we say we try to follow the original ideals but we fall way short of our goal.

allissia18 said...

I believe that Ben Franklin's virtues are great ones and should be valued in our society. Unfortuantly almost all of them are not. These virtues should be the base of our society, although may of the virtues do not hold up in our society. I do not believe the virtues will hold up any better in the 21st century then they do now. I think they will only get worse because i sense us americans getting further away from the goal of us following those virtues.

j.riordan25 said...

In American Society today, virtues aren't as important as they were. Virtues today are also different from what they used to be. All of Ben Franklin's ideals would not hold up today in the 21st century. They wouldn't hold up today because, people don't "follow the rules" like they used to. Some of Franklin's ideals would hold up in the 21st century, but not all and some of his virtues today are almost the same just changed a little from what they originally were.

Tuna said...

Virtues in America are very important today, just like they were 233 years ago around the time of Benjamin Franklin, but I think the virtues most Americans want are ways different then those of Americans even fifty years ago, like capitalism to most Americans 50 years ago just wanted a nice little home with a nice family now people want all these nice cars and penthouses and want to be the next big thing and don’t care about other people to get there. I think about half of Ben Franklins ideal virtues are held today but that’s because some of his virtues were ones like justice and everyone wants justice, but like silence most people don’t like to keep there opinions to them selves and now everyone is so subjective and picky and loud about there feelings.

Toni said...

I think that Ben Franklin's virtues are still deemed as important today. American Citizens still see those ideas as positive attributes, but for most people all they are is an idea. People today have little self control. They do things to the extreme to get instant satisfaction. They don't worry about the long term effects of their actions. I think that similar to how politics swings like a pendulum moving from liberal to conservative that that is how the virtues would be. Right now we're still at a fairly liberal point in US history, but I think that these virtues would hold up even stronger in a more conservative period.

Alessandra said...

American society today is completely different than from it was before. Although Ben Franklin's ideals where something we should follow as a society, but they dont hold up today. In some way they are followed though because people know that what the virtues state, is the right thing to do. America as a total is drifting farther away from those virtues as time goes on, but we should be getting closer to getting things back together and follow what Ben Franklin had said.

hannah lee said...

Since the 21st Century,our world has definitely changed. This is shown through the ten virtues of Benjamen Franklin. His virtues that he had chosen at that time were probably followed through much better than it is today. When looking at the whole picture and not just individuals these virtues that Ben F. had chosen would not and does not hold up in America. Although these should be our goal to keep, it would be a very tough, but not ignored change.