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684. Franklin: Revenge of the American Genius (Part 2)
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Franklin vs Dr Johnson: Slavery and the Limits of the Enlightenment
At 38:05 · chapter starts 37:25
Tom Holland introduces the sharpest tension in Franklin's London years: his relationship to Samuel Johnson. The two men moved in overlapping circles but almost certainly avoided each other deliberately — the room, as Dominic puts it, simply wasn't big enough for both of them [1] — Tom Holland "Franklin and Samuel Johnson were the twin lions of London's intellectual scene at the same time, yet they almost certainly never met — and …" 37:25 . Johnson despised Franklin's folksiness as provincial hypocrisy; Franklin found Johnson's Toryism antithetical to everything he stood for. The ideological flashpoint was slavery. Johnson famously skewered American patriots — 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?' — and he had a point: Franklin had arrived in London with two enslaved men, composed an advert for the return of one who had escaped (then thought better of publishing it), and in 1770 wrote an anonymous defense of slavery that Tom describes as probably the lowest point of his career. This uncomfortable episode sits alongside the mastiff-lion parable in the same year, revealing the profound contradiction at the heart of Franklin's Enlightenment project.
Franklin and Samuel Johnson were the twin lions of London's intellectual scene at the same time, yet they almost certainly never met — and almost certainly because they were so determined not to. Johnson saw Franklin's folksiness as rank hypocrisy; Franklin's two slaves in London made Johnson's point for him.
In 1770 — the same year he wrote the famous mastiff-and-lion parable warning Britain — Franklin wrote an anonymous defense of slavery, which Tom Holland described as probably the lowest point in his career.
