people to recognize and promote a separate existence. He did this by encouraging the improvement of all citizens through every means he could: the library system, abolition efforts, never obtaining patents for his inventions so that others could profit from them and access them more cheaply, religious institutions, Poor Richards Almanac, his experiments and inventions, acting on behalf of the citizens as a diplomat, and on and on. RHETORICAL EFFECTS: Strategic Conversation: This is my term for the many different techniques used by Franklin throughout the book and his life to move people and overwhelm opponents using logic, reason, and traps. For starters, his ideas are thought out so clearly and methodically that at each step any rational reader would accept them. As he nears the crux of the issue at hand, however, the reader is in a position where they must accept the whole of the argument or retract all the previous steps they have just affirmed. Also, his self-effacing common-man style lulls the reader into a sense of trust with Franklin, allowing many of his ideas to be accepted more readily with less deliberation. This is similar to the technique he learns from Socrates for drawing people in and breaking down their argument. "Modest diffidence," the practice of not stating anything as certain or definite, seems to have also served him well. When considering the autobiography critically, the reader should keep in mind that we are all vulnerable to Franklins devices and he surely uses them to influence how we will view him as a person and how we will see his points....
