Mr. Benjamin Franklin in his diaries wrote about how he decided to re-educate himself regarding his behaviour towards virtue and what is good or wrong. If we think about it carefully, it is not something rare at all, (how many times have WE wanted to change completely or do something different for the sake of improving our lives?) but is it possible at all?
Franklin himself tells how he was brought up as Presbyterian and how he was educated as such. He did believe in certain things, such as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, but there were other things in which he did not believe at all. He never went to service on Sundays because he preferred to study, this being the first sign of his will to do things differently.
Education plays an important role in this situation not only because through it Franklin received the foundantions for his latter re-education, but also because it is something external to the individual (in the words of Mr. Durkheim) and as such, would qualify as a social fact. " A social fact is a way or acting or thinking that has a coercive power on the individual", points out Durkheim, and we can see this in Benjamin Franklin's case very well. He decided to break free from certain points, certain social facts, of his earlier education, and though it is possible to struggle free, it is never easy. It is possible to think of this struggle as something violent (even, physically violent) but this is not the exact case. The struggle of Benjamin Franklin was rather a private and non physical one, more importantly, because he was struggling against his own customs and his own self. He created a new method to re-educate himself in terms of behaviour, and in terms of what he thought was good and bad. He then decided that it was not only about something being good or doing good, but it was more related to something being virtous. He then wrote a list containing twelve virtues (adding a 13rd in the end) and decided to master them all.
If we see all this as a social fact, it would be interesting to point out that he broke free from one social fact to adopt another. It is true that this new way of behaving was created by himself, but as it was said earlier, his former education served as the foundation for what he would latter believe. The question proposed was if it was really and truly possible to go against what is stablished, and the truth is that up to some point it is, but there will always be a part of ourselves that remains tied to the social (and moral) facts passed on to us through education. Even when creating a new 'system' for our use only we are creating something using bits and pieces of already existent thoughts, doctrines, etc.
Self-education is possible, but complete isolation is not. Deciding for oneself is possible also, and though living out of the system is possible, it is almost inimaginable in these days.
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