Benjamin Franklin’s Absurd Yet Deep Critique: The “Fart Proudly” Manifesto
Benjamin Franklin’s “Fart Proudly” may look like a crude joke at first glance, but it is actually an absurd yet thoughtful critique of the direction of science, social politeness, and humanity’s uneasy relationship with its own nature.
Today we’re going to talk about Benjamin Franklin. Yes, the one on the 100-dollar bill.
When people hear the name Benjamin Franklin, they usually think of electricity experiments, kites, lightning, and the lightning rod. But what about farting? Throughout history, human beings have produced countless concepts to separate themselves from nature, elevate themselves, and almost deify themselves. Morality, civilization, science, culture... all of them, in one way or another, have been part of the effort to define human beings as something noble and elevated. But no matter what we do, the body always finds a way to remind us that it exists.
Franklin’s Strange But Clever Question
Franklin’s text “Fart Proudly,” written by one of America’s founding fathers, looks at first like a vulgar joke. It almost seems like the kind of thing that simply says “just fart and relax.” But inside the text is a strange yet clever inquiry into why gas, one of the most natural outcomes of the human body, is treated as something so shameful.
In this humorous piece, written around 1781, Franklin starts from a very simple point: everyone knows that during digestion, large amounts of gas form in the intestines. And when that gas comes out, it disturbs the people around us because of its smell. So why should science concern itself only with great and complicated problems? Why should it not also deal with a universal and deeply ordinary issue that affects human life so directly?
The Absurd Proposal That Says “Fart Proudly”
Franklin’s absurd proposal appears right here: scientists should find a way to alter what people eat so that the gases they release smell pleasant instead of foul.
And that is exactly what makes the text interesting. Because this proposal is not just a simple joke. Franklin places at the center of attention the very thing people try to hide. He takes a bodily reality that everyone experiences but no one wants to discuss seriously, and turns it into a subject worthy of scientific thought. In doing so, he quietly mocks both artificial social politeness and science’s tendency to become obsessed with overly grand ambitions.
The Real Target Is Not Farting
What is really being prodded here is not farting itself, but the whole idea of civilization. Human beings try to solve the mysteries of the universe, reach the stars, and understand the laws of nature, yet at the same time they produce a childish embarrassment in the face of one of the body’s simplest functions. Franklin’s text captures that contradiction perfectly.
Maybe that is why “Fart Proudly” is a smarter piece of writing than it first appears to be. Because its real subject is not gas. Its real subject is what human beings decide is worthy of seriousness. Why does science devote enormous seriousness to certain subjects while dismissing the most ordinary and universal aspects of human life as vulgar, trivial, or beneath attention? Must real knowledge only be sought in lofty fields, or can genuine thought also be found in the most ordinary moments of daily life?
A Small Hole Opened In The Wall Of Seriousness
Most likely, Franklin’s text did not seem especially elegant to the solemn academic world of his time. But that was probably the point. To punch a small but foul-smelling hole in the wall of seriousness.
That is why “Fart Proudly” is still not only funny today, but also strangely thought-provoking. Because the tension between escaping human nature and accepting it still remains. And perhaps the real question beneath Franklin’s ridiculous-sounding proposal is this: does a person become refined by fleeing from their nature, or by accepting it and becoming truly free?