Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.

Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Simon & Schuster, 2000. It is George Washington who is usually referred to as the father of our American Nation. Benjamin Franklin, in contrast, more often than not takes on the status of the friendly and eccentric uncle, given his greater age, his propensity towards scientific experimentation and innovation as well as political action, and even his renowned fondness for making the turkey the American national bird, rather than the bald eagle.

Although ranking the relative importance of the Founding Fathers of the nation may seem quixotic one at best, with perhaps Jefferson and Madison's role in framing our national view of constitutional rights and the federal responsibilities of the states ranking even higher than Washington, Isaacson makes a strong case for Benjamin Franklin's status as the spiritual and moral founding father of the American nation, and perhaps just as important, the American media and attitude.

Isaacson makes a case for Franklin's "indispensable" quality to the achievement of the United States' status as an independent nation from Great Britain and its establishment as a new government in his advocacy of moral tolerance and scientific pragmatism. He stood in contrast to the nation's Puritan founders, which still stressed a fundamentalist need for a calibrated and calculated view of human existence according to God's predetermined plan.

But, as espoused in Poor Richard's Almanac, Franklin, a true American ideological Father, stated time and time again that believed a kind of perfectibility of the human soul and the human condition that need not be followed according to a rigid pre-existing moral framework. Rather it was incumbent upon every individual and later every American to set this moral framework for themselves. Thus, Franklin combined perfectionism with enlightenment, Puritanism with European attitudes and moral creativity.

This can be seen manifest in Isaacson's chronicle of Franklin's morally flexible and indulgent attitudes towards sexuality and the use of sexuality and sensationalism, when he was in the newspaper trade, to sell papers. But Franklin's willingness to question pre-existing moral norms can also be seen in his attitude towards science and making use of intellectual innovations. Franklin never categorized himself purely as an inventor, a politician, or a spokesperson. His public image was ever changing and thus thoroughly American.

The one core to all of his manifestations was its pragmatism. Franklin's belief in science as opposed to pure political interests also marks him as distinct. The practicality of his inventions of the stove and bifocals is testimony not just to his intellect, but also to the man's core philosophy of life. Benjamin Franklin may have not been the single most necessary individual to the achievement of independence and the establishment of the U.S. In terms of its formal political structure.

To state this would be to supersede the Constitutional founders and framers of Washington and Jefferson. Moreover, to associate Franklin with formal structures of nationhood is to reduce his more important contributions to the non-formalized American journal and media. Franklin set his own moral code for his own private life and transmitted these ideas about.