성장 없는 성장소설: 프랭클린의 『자서전』(Autobiography)과 청교도적 개인
Bildungsroman without Bildung: Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and the Origin of the Puritan Individual
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At a time when American unilateralism takes off and boasts its time-old flag of exceptionalism, it is necessary and desirable to delve into the origin of American ideas and re-examine, as well as criticize, their present implications. In particular, the idea of American individualism so far has been advertised by America herself as the buttress of the democracy in any civilized society, including "recently liberated" Iraq. With the failure and debacle in Iraq after 9/11, however, whole things changed into opposites. As a way of explicating and re-thinking the validity of American idea of individualism, I attempt to revisit Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, deconstructing, as it were, the ideal of self-made man. As it turns out, Franklin's individual is the composite of a shrewd moral Puritan and an enlightened modern subject whose ultimate goal of life lies not in becoming a heroic man of politics and knowledge, but in achieving a very secular moral perfection through everyday transactions. Unlike Thomas Jefferson and other Enlightened intellectuals, Franklin leaves the whole story of American Revolution out in his narrative, thereby successfully transplants the desire of common people from the realm of the political culture to that of secular success, material as well as moral. Franklin's individual is indeed exceptional: he is the man not only tailored for modern capitalism but trained to be a morally correct Puritan. Franklin forges out the archetype of American individual in the sense that he believes in the essential goodness of America and the fundamental vulnerability of American leaders. He is a free adventurer to the success but at the same time an already aged young Puritan who defies the growth of soul any further.
Abstract
At a time when American unilateralism takes off and boasts its time-old flag of exceptionalism, it is necessary and desirable to delve into the origin of American ideas and re-examine, as well as criticize, their present implications. In particular, the idea of American individualism so far has been advertised by America herself as the buttress of the democracy in any civilized society, including "recently liberated" Iraq. With the failure and debacle in Iraq after 9/11, however, whole things changed into opposites. As a way of explicating and re-thinking the validity of American idea of individualism, I attempt to revisit Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, deconstructing, as it were, the ideal of self-made man. As it turns out, Franklin's individual is the composite of a shrewd moral Puritan and an enlightened modern subject whose ultimate goal of life lies not in becoming a heroic man of politics and knowledge, but in achieving a very secular moral perfection through everyday transactions. Unlike Thomas Jefferson and other Enlightened intellectuals, Franklin leaves the whole story of American Revolution out in his narrative, thereby successfully transplants the desire of common people from the realm of the political culture to that of secular success, material as well as moral. Franklin's individual is indeed exceptional: he is the man not only tailored for modern capitalism but trained to be a morally correct Puritan. Franklin forges out the archetype of American individual in the sense that he believes in the essential goodness of America and the fundamental vulnerability of American leaders. He is a free adventurer to the success but at the same time an already aged young Puritan who defies the growth of soul any further.
참고문헌 (23)
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