Benedict Arnold, Misconstrued History, And the Depths of Trustworthiness-Part One-
history, and I want you to think of a word - the first word that comes to mind. Are you ready? When I say Benedict Arnold, what comes to mind? Did you think traitor? Because if you did, maybe you should have thought of the word patriot instead. If you got it wrong, don't worry, because I did too. I thought ‘traitor’ when I saw Benedict Arnold in the show The Turn because I was taught a lie by Congress. Not the Congress taught at my school, but like other Millennials, I went to public school during the No Child Left Behind era. If you're unfamiliar with No Child Left Behind, it was an Act passed by Congress in 2001 to 2015. If you attended school in that era, you probably have all kinds of funny misconceptions.
Back then, we filed into classrooms 40 students thick and read about Benedict Arnold from a generic stapled packet. Teachers who criticized the era call it ‘packet learning’ or ‘test centric learning’ and the packaged version of Arnold made him out to be the traitor of the American Revolution. If George Washington was the God of Liberty's founding, Benedict Arnold was Liberty’s devil. Here's what else to packet said:
Arnold had a fancy young wife he couldn't afford named Peggy Shippen.
Arnold broke his leg in battle and stayed very bitter about it.
Crippled, he was sent to Pennsylvania to be its military Governor, where he stole from the local Merchants to buy Peggy a fancy mansion - Mount Pleasant.
He was caught and stood trial for the stuff he took, but there wasn't enough evidence.
Arnold could have gotten away with it scot-free with his money and Mansion, but he was a greedy Judas. So, he tried to sell West Point to the British.
We're being glib or poking fun at the facts we learned in school. I won't quibble that Arnold was a traitor; He was. But the No Child Left Behind packet version of Benedict Arnold is ironically the same version Congress fabricated back in 1780. Diversion Congress and the State House literally rewrote history to sell to the public, a version that only leaves room to hate the traitor. The reality is that Benedict was a war hero, a revolutionary patriot who gave everything to the cause, including his fortune, freedom, and health. But he outshined his superiors on the battlefield. So, he was passed over for promotion over and over. Then Congress kept all the money they borrowed from him and allowed a lawyer who was known for hanging conscientious objectors to put Arnold on trial without evidence for a year.
All this while Arnold was recovering from a war wound that he got defending America. But Benedict Arnold kept his word and trustworthiness right up until the end. In a frantic letter just before his trial, Arnold tried to warn Washington he was about to break. On May 5th, 1779, he told Washington, “If your excellency thinks me a criminal, for heaven's sake, let me be immediately tried and if found guilty, executed.” I can hear the argument of today's modern patriot that a true American would never betray their country no matter how unfairly they've been treated. But I want to learn a different lesson from Benedict Arnold, one that seems awfully relevant currently when so many Americans feel like their government may not represent them as much as it used to. In an age when Congress is about as trustworthy as a bunch of used car salesmen (according to public polls) and how corporate lobbyists just manipulated the House of Representatives into keeping pharmaceuticals sky-high while 60% of the public from both parties want drug prices regulated. I ask you, what's the value of trustworthiness in politics and in your home life? How much abuse of your trust would it take hypothetically to turn you from patriot to traitor? How many of us would sell out West Point right now if it meant never hearing another lie from Congress?
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If you took all the wrong lessons away from politicians and CEOs, especially recently, you couldn't be blamed. Shark Tank, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Trump Cabinet, we've been fed the impression that the most important part of business is shrewdness, wit, and guile. In the world of finance, you're either the shark, or you are the chum - no exceptions. But what about trustworthiness?
In prior episodes, we've covered studies that backed how trustworthiness was the biggest contributor to financial success, not shrewd negotiation skills or grit. So that's our focus today. How far does trustworthiness get you? How much can it make you, and how often can we handle having our trust betrayed before becoming a traitor? And we have three myths about trustworthiness to explore.
Myth One: How accurate is your trust gauge? Do you think you can spot a liar on sight? If you think Benedict Cumberbatch looks untrustworthy, then I've got bad news for you.
Joe: As we begin this, I want to take us a little bit far afield. Have you ever seen the movie, Gladiator?
Todd: Oh yeah. That's a great movie.
Joe: Have you ever seen movies about Caligula?
Todd: I saw his documentary drama, and that was really good.
Joe: My point here is that the Roman senate was often responsible for writing history books. And so, when you watch those documentaries, did you get the sense that these Emperors were unbelievably crazy?
Todd: When we talk about Caligula, who was known for crazy botched parties and acting literally insane, these are the same Senators who named him the father of the Roman lands years ago. They praised him and put him up on a pedestal. These guys, its bitterness that made them write their histories the way it was. After reading about Benedict Arnold, I view him as being skewered in the same way. It's just congressmen, newspapers and Washington's cabinet that made him out to be this huge Judas figure.
Todd: To disclose, you went into this thinking as everyone does. And then doing the research, you flip sides.
Joe: Right. I was actually looking for a narrative about what makes somebody a traitor. And this turned into basically the opposite.
This is the last time we are ever doing a Revolutionary War episode. There are a ton of different documentaries, and the problem with every single one was horrible research, and there are way too many different opinions on everything. So, why might Benedict Arnold be a pretty okay guy? We are living through an era of political polarization; each side does not really get along. Any time a vote comes up, Senate or Congress, it isn't easy to swing. People think that even if you don't agree with something your party is doing, you still need to stick with your party.
The party line has become more important than doing something productive. Benedict Arnold was living through that time, and I hate to say it; he wanted to be a political moderate. He wanted to be both and appease both sides. He did not come from a huge amount of money, and he made almost everything he had. So, by the time this war started, he wanted to impress General Washington and the military. But when he was sent to be the temporary Governor Philadelphia, it was a military posting, and it was because he was disabled. He was effectively out of the fight. He was basically there to impress people and to make people get along.
And while this was going on, there was a Clothier General who was supposed to supply clothes and supplies to the militia Washington's forces. He makes deals with merchants who can't sell anything. Again, they're in lockdown, and he makes side deals. He forced Merchants to sell their goods and then he gave them what the government allowed him to pay them, which was nothing. Then he took those items and would give some of them to the Army like he's supposed to, but a lot of the rest gets sold at markup out into the public away from Philadelphia. So, while he's doing this, he needs a general or somebody of a high rank to help him get away with this. When Benedict Arnold moved to Philadelphia, he's that man. Benedict Arnold starts doing this with the Clothier General. Now, one might argue that this makes Arnold immediately a criminal, but this was completely legal. It certainly was not the most moral thing to do, but mind you, everybody who was in Arnold’s position before worked with this Clothier General. They did the exact same thing. This was seen as an income that you can expect if you are in the position of being a military Governor.
How much do you know about New York during the 1700s? A New York Library blog that I found states that the seizure and sale of loyalists’ property raised revenue for the state by redistributing property from the loyalists. So, basically stealing loyalist stuff, kicking out the British lovers, and taking all their stuff was a legit way to do business. Many of the states establish their legitimacy in the eyes of the Constitution by depriving certain people of their right of property. Unmoral times, right unfair trade. So, if you think Benedict Arnold is immoral, that is not nearly the worst thing that happened during these times.
Congress wasn't what we consider Congress today. One of their big jobs at that time was gathering militias for Washington. But the bigger job that people in Congress in this period was to get the largest pie for their own home state. This sounds exactly like the crime families of the mafia. Like New York, Congress was just 13 dudes who were trying to get their state. We'll talk about how Arnold was passed over for promotions because the states really wouldn't let somebody competent be their General. They wanted an equal share of generals from each state. And that came down to Arnold's money. Arnold donated all his wealth before the war started, and they kept it. Benedict Arnold gave all his personal wealth away to the government, which he knew was going to be spent. Who's that patriotic today to do that?
Myth Two: Do we advertise our trustworthiness through our facial features? Is it our tone? Is there a way to level up our trustworthiness at work?
Just so we don't turn this entire episode into a history of Benedict Arnold, let’s get into the science portion on why Arnold is actually a pretty cool guy. First off, we talk and speak differently with different people. And that's our first road stop to trustworthiness, which is how we communicate. Overall, there are ways you can learn to manipulate your speech and your behavior to socially fit into your surroundings. You don't talk the same to your friend from the soccer team as you do to your grandmother. You have different body language, tone, and you might swear with one. And when you break down to just the words you use, it's shocking. We all have multi personalities.
We've talked about code-switching on other episodes. Scientific American had an article based on when you first meet someone and about first impressions. We also had a Yale study that talked about first impressions as well in our Orson Welles episode. In both of those, it talks about how somebody will know what socio-economic class you come from in the first eight seconds of interviewing you. It's based on not the words that come out of their mouth or appearance, but we literally measure someone's trustworthiness by their facial features. This is totally outside our awareness. It's our subconscious making these fleeting instant decisions.
So, our brain activity goes wild, and then we decide in our subconscious if we trust this person or not. It's the micro-expression signs we're analyzing to see if we trust someone, be friends with or loan money to. Medical Daily also did an article about how broad cheekbones make us trust somebody. I wonder how much tension you can see in someone’s face. We've talked about that in other episodes, how you can tell how much money someone grew up with based on how stressed they looked. There's a lot of interesting studies on this, and there's one where it talks about how we feel very insecure around really attractive people. We put our guard up because we think they're going to take advantage of us because we can’t say no to someone that hot, right? Psychology Today also did one on trustworthiness and how capable that person is of feeling guilt. And if they're guilt-prone and willing to show that they feel guilty about something, it means that we're more willing to trust them. It makes you more trustworthy because others will know you are capable of feeling guilt. It shows empathy for other people.
If you want to get down to the absolute bare of trustworthiness in a business or workplace, look at reviews. Those are boiling trust down to five little stars, but all business is built on trust, and it goes from business to the individual. When you get businesses that announce that they are feeling guilty about having had a data breach or something, it really does make me feel better. I don't think of Benedict as a war hero or a war Warrior, but he was the first I've heard other historians call him America's first real patriot. And that may seem like a slap in the face to people who were doing amazing things for us before the Revolutionary War, but I kind of view the same for us. When the war started, Arnold was all in. And when you talk about the ability to feel guilt, every time we read a letter from Arnold, it is dripping with it. This was a man who could not keep any of his thoughts and considerations to himself. He was really good at Battlefield command and knowing what to do when it came to military decisions. But he could not keep his thoughts to himself.
Myth Three: Is it even worth building up our trustworthiness? Maybe Benedict Arnold would have been better off acting humbler. Maybe we'd all be better off.
Arnold is a war hero when he arrives in Philadelphia because the year before he performed the most heroic act (as far as the war is concerned), which was crossing Lake Champlain with a small group of armed men. Now, these were all volunteers. They call themselves The Green Mountain Boys, and Arnold takes it upon himself to march with the other soldiers. This was the start of the war, and we haven't had a militia yet. There's no structure. It's not organized. You just go house to house to gather more people to volunteer. Every military unit in America is the Bad News Bears unless you're under Washington. All in all, The Green Mountain Boys ran into Arnold, and Congress permitted him to go to war with them. He's allowed to March.
So, Arnold runs with The Green Mountain Boys, taking 83 of them across Lake Champlain. And he takes a fort called Fort Ticonderoga, and he does it without killing anybody. This is very important to the war because America doesn't really have a lot of guns. We didn't have big cannons yet and he managed to capture about 60 cannons in this fort. It deals a heavy blow to the British. It means that the Brits can't sweep down from Canada and enter America through Lake Champlain. So, he did a couple of things at once: He just took 83 men and captured their guns. He put a cork in the bottle that would lead to America losing early, and he proved that he could command a Littlefield. Now, it's very important to note that before the war started, he was a traitor. He was a merchant and a smuggler before the war. He was smuggling around the British who wanted to tax everything that he was trading. And so, these are the skills that America needed, and he brought those skills to get us our first real big win.
Joe: When it came to Arnold not getting his money back, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania did what shady businesses do today. They held them up in court in useless legal fights. He was eventually paid off when he was an older man, but they kept this fight going for 30 years hoping he would drop out and give up. Joseph Reed really held this against Arnold.
Todd: He knew if he didn’t have the money from him, this would have been over a long time ago.
Joe: That's exactly right. If Arnold hadn't loaned the money to fight the case, it would have been over in like a year. I will point out that ironically Congress is still one of the least trusted institutions in America. We said in the opening narrative that they are right up above car salesmen - barely. This is according to a Gallup news poll.
Todd: Some things don’t change.
Joe: So, there is a reason why Arnold is so spicy toward Congress already. They already gave him a big middle finger when he returned as a war hero, captured Fort Ticonderoga, and did all these things for America. He needed a promotion, but they promoted a couple of his underlings above him. If you are in line for a promotion at work, how many people would you tolerate being promoted from under you before you said no more and just walked?
Todd: One, maybe two.
Joe: Arnold was a brigadier general who wanted Major General, and he honestly deserved it for what he did. He needed it for the pay and for the prestige of doing more in battle than almost anybody in America at this point. Because remember, there hadn't been a major American war there. There have been wars, but not like this. So, he gets passed over five times. Congress, whose job was to promote generals and major generals, promoted five of his underlings to the rank he was holding out for, and they just basically ignored him.
Todd: So, they disrespected him, and he's permanently disabled.
Joe: I mentioned before that each member of Congress is looking out for their own and are greedy? This was another move on Congress's part; they didn't want to be left out on generals. So, every state wanted their own general or however many they could get, so they promoted five generals from other states in front of him. Arnold was so surprised and angry about this that he wrote to Washington. Washington was surprised and thought it was an honest mistake, and he calls it an Omission on Congress's part. He tells Arnold don't be too hasty and that it will be cleared up soon. Then Arnold learns it’s not a mistake, and Congress tells him they're doing it to be fair to other states and to give an equal number of generals on the battlefield. And again, this is just the representatives trying to get theirs from their home state. You mentioned it would take one promotion or two for you to walk out; Arnold walks out. He resigns. Now, you might be thinking if Benedict Arnold resigned, how could he be the traitor of the American Revolution? Washington convinced him to withdraw his resignation. Arnold was ready to go back to being a merchant, but General Washington told him not to be hasty and continue being part of the political life.
Todd: George Washington is a pretty good judge of character, I’d guess.
Joe: I don't want to spoil this too badly because this is a big one, but there was one person who surprised Washington as far as being two-faced. It was Joseph Reed. So, Washington was a good judge of character, but even Joseph Reed caught him by surprise.