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Libertarian Writer Says We Get "Frankenstein" Wrong, Should Celebrate Triumph of Science Over Limits of Nature

3/8/2018

18 Comments

 
​Every week I receive messages asking why I bother to cover topics the writer considers too discredited or ridiculous to have anything to do with the reality of daily life. And then we hear stories like yesterday’s revelation that British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and at least half a dozen other high-ranking party members were participants in a private Facebook group where they shared Holocaust denial claims, Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds (the timely subject of my forthcoming British history magazine article), and conspiracy theories from David Icke, the British personality who folded the Protocols of the Elders of Zion into a ridiculous tale of space aliens and lizard-people. The Labour Party confirmed the story to Britain’s Telegraph, but Corbyn said he made only a few posts and condemns the group’s Anti-Semitism. 
​Meanwhile, Britain’s Sun newspaper made unwelcome headlines this week when it attacked so-called “snowflake” Millennials and their liberal college professors for claiming at the Frankenstein Monster was a misunderstood victim who deserves sympathy. When the rest of the world laughed at the Sun’s attempt to attack what is widely seen as the most basic reading of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, the paper posted an official statement to social media, somewhat unbelievably attempting to rationalize a headline that read “FLAKENSTEINS: Snowflake students claim Frankenstein’s monster was ‘misunderstood’ — and is in fact a VICTIM” as a serious attempt to explain that “more people have begun to see the character not as a terror to be feared but find his actions to be a result of the unimaginable horror from which he has been created.” The story itself contains virtually no content, being a very brief summary of a story from the Times of London a few days ago marking the novel’s bicentennial by claiming that modern students view the monster sympathetically. Basically, the headline writer went a little crazy with the rightwing propaganda. Both papers are divisions of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
 
What makes this interesting, I suppose, is that the 24-hour tempest arose over a question of literary interpretation. The assumption of those who supported or opposed the Sun article is that there is an “official” reading of Frankenstein that is inherently “correct,” and many of the critics of the piece tried to tie their advocacy to Shelley’s original intentions.  The interesting thing about art is that it isn’t something that can be placed into a box that easily. Shelley’s intentions need not govern readers’ experiences, and it is entirely possible to react differently, and yet justifiably, to a piece of art.
 
That said, if there is a way to be wrong, trust Murdoch’s slipshod half-assed news-like products to find it. The Frankenstein Monster literally describes being a victim of societal oppression, and laments being misunderstood.
 
However, I am more interested in a similarly contrarian article about Frankenstein that is running in the current edition of Reason, the libertarian magazine. Libertarian science writer Ronald Bailey offers what I would consider a quite wrongheaded reassessment of Frankenstein as a triumph of individualism and science. Skeptic magazine’s Michael Shermer praised the article on Twitter as a powerful defense of science against the mad scientist theme in literature and cinema.
 
Part of the reason that Bailey get his argument wrong is that he is no literary scholar, and he understand neither how Frankenstein emerged in 1818 nor how it was received at the time of its creation:
… everywhere that Frankenstein’s creature goes, he and his creator are misunderstood. Almost without exception, his cinematic doubles are embedded in narratives that depict science and scientists as dangerously bent on an unethical pursuit of forbidden knowledge. That trend was established in the first Frankenstein talkie, in which Colin Clive hysterically repeats "It's alive! It's alive!" at the moment of creation. 
​At a strictly factual level, Bailey is wrong. Early readers of Frankenstein seized upon the theme of forbidden knowledge from the first. Condensed plagiarisms of the book, marketed to working class readers as cheap “blue books,” emphasized the transgression of the mad scientist as the key theme of the story. R. B. Peake’s highly influential stage adaptation of the book, Presumption: Or, the Fate of Frankenstein, has Frankenstein’s assistant Fritz (later made famous in the Universal movie) state the theme of forbidden knowledge quite plainly: “like Doctor Faustus, my master is raising the Devil.” On the other hand, some reviewers of the book took a very different lesson. For example, Sir Walter Scott, in reviewing the volume for Blackwood’s magazine, expressed nothing but enthusiasm for the “wonderful” possibility of creating life from dead tissue, though he did note that Frankenstein was too “rash” in his pursuit of science.
 
Now here is where things get interesting. Shelley herself found the stage version to be, well, presumptuous. She complained that Peake had done too much to emphasize the role of presumption and forbidden knowledge. But by then the genie was out of the bottle. Of the thirteen different Frankenstein plays that were performed between 1820 and 1910, I believe something like 10 or 11 revolved around the idea that Frankenstein was wrong to play God with his mad science. This did not go unnoticed by Shelley. When she revised Frankenstein in 1831 into the text most commonly used in standard editions of the novel, she added themes and imagery from Presumption, notably the word “presumption” itself to describe Victor Frankenstein’s work.
 
Here we have a bit of a dilemma: It is true that the 1818 text of the novel is lighter on the forbidden knowledge theme, but the 1831 text reflects Shelley’s revised (and darker) view of life. In the 1818 text, Frankenstein possesses moral agency and is clearly intended to be seen as having sinned for abandoning his creation, but in the 1831 text, Frankenstein’s fate seems guided by supernatural forces, and he is condemned by the sinful decision to engage in what are now called “unhallowed arts”—that is to say, because he trespassed on forbidden knowledge. Bailey doesn’t engage with these radically different interpretations of the story by its own author, nor the mutual influence between novel and stage play. Instead, he places blame on Peake for having somehow corrupted a pro-science novel. He also complains that in horror movies, there are an awful lot of villains. He cites a study of twentieth century British horror films: “Mad scientists or their creations were the villains in 31 percent; scientific research constituted 39 percent of the threats. Scientists were heroes in only 11 percent of the movies.”
 
This, he wrongly argues, is a result of misunderstanding Frankenstein.
There is nothing immoral in Frankenstein's aspiration to "banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death." The people who will choose to use safe enhancements to bestow upon themselves and their progeny stronger bodies, more robust immune systems, nimbler minds, and longer lives will not be monsters, nor will they create monsters. Instead, those who seek to hinder the rest of us from availing ourselves of these technological gifts will rightly be judged moral troglodytes.
​In his myopia, Bailey feels that Frankenstein’s only sin was failing to nurture the Creator’s “moral capacity.” But this is wrong. Bailey, being a libertarian, has difficulty recognizing the difference between is and ought, or in this case, the difference between what science can do and what science should do. His broader point is to suggest that genetic engineering is safe and the Frankenstein story can be used to support it rather than caution against it. But the problem is that Bailey exhibits the sins of many who place the focus on the wrong actor. Like others who identify with the comfortable, Bailey doesn’t consider the Creature’s point of view. The product of a flawed creation, the Creature is born into a society that will never accept him, and to a life that Frankenstein knew, or should have known, would be one of suffering and pain. Did he deserve that fate so that Frankenstein’s wealthy friends or their offspring might be able to live more comfortable lives in some utopian future? Even if Frankenstein had only the noblest of intentions, there is still a difference between what science can do and what it should do.
 
Ultimately, however, there is an even more basic point to consider: The story of “Frankenstein” isn’t just Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. It is also her 1831 revision, and the stage adaptations, and, yes, even the movie adaptations. All of these are equally the story of Frankenstein. The mad science theme grew more pronounced in later stories modeled on Frankenstein, like H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, and it grew not because it was a corruption of a platonic ideal but because it developed in reaction to the perceived efforts of scientists to transgress the bounds of propriety and nature. This might seem like an extreme reaction in light of today’s science, but this theme grew up in the era of vivisection, scientific racism, eugenics, and nuclear terror—when life and death seemed malleable and subject to the whims of unelected servants of imperial and colonial powers.
 
Bailey paints a rosy picture of science because the cautionary tales of the past had an impact, the horrors of unethical, unrestricted science were reined in during the twentieth century, and we now have the luxury to fantasize that is and ought, can and should will always be the same.
18 Comments
An Anonymous Nerd
3/8/2018 09:22:39 am

I find it difficult to reconcile this Libertarian's view of the story with, well, the book itself. Honestly it's hard to believe whomever suggested that actually read the book. (The version I read and/or any version I've heard about.)

One thing that immediately comes to mind is the scene where Frankenstein chides the ship captain for asking what the secret to creating life is. In my own memory at least, Frankenstein's response amounted to "don't you get it, dude? I shouldn't have done this stuff to begin with."

Another is the sequence where The Monster asks Frankenstein to make him a bride, and while making the bride, it suddenly occurs to Frankenstein that if he does as his creation asks the possibility exists of a new race emerging and overwhelming humanity. "What have I done?" he thinks to himself, and rips the half-finished bride to pieces. (Hint to doctor: Leave out the ovaries and you pretty much have solved your issue.)

As to the other kind of conservative view expressed by the hands of Rupert Murdoch, it amounts to "lib-rals r wussies," which is something we hear from that side of the aisle a lot. It's less an argument than it is a schoolyard insult, which isn't the kind of thing you can have a rational counter-argument for. It is what it is.

As to the "conventional" reading of the story, I've always disagreed with it on less political grounds. I see the story as one of personal arrogance and lack of ability to think outside the box to solve problems. Frankenstein's arrogance in creating The Monster; The Monster's arrogance in thinking that his quest for revenge overrides the right of people who have not wronged him to live. (Revenge would have been satisfied by killing Frankenstein, and leaving it at that. Instead The Monster turned himself into a serial killer.) Frankenstein's lack of ability to think outside the box in confusing "can do" with "must do," and his lack of ability to think that he could've created The Bride without ovaries, thus solving the "new race" issue.

Ultimately it's a cool science fiction story that raises all sorts of issues depending on how you see it. But is it too much to ask that people who want to interpret it actually read it first? I guess so.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Reply
Platy
3/8/2018 04:56:02 pm

"As to the other kind of conservative view expressed by the hands of Rupert Murdoch, it amounts to "lib-rals r wussies," which is something we hear from that side of the aisle a lot. It's less an argument than it is a schoolyard insult, which isn't the kind of thing you can have a rational counter-argument for. It is what it is."
When in doubt, blame Millenials and liberal professors I guess.

Reply
crainey
3/8/2018 11:03:46 am

PUTTIN' ON THE RITZ!

Reply
Shane Sullivan
3/8/2018 11:36:39 am

Next you'll be telling us Aquatarkus *isn't* a metaphor for the gold standard.

Reply
Bob Jase
3/8/2018 12:33:25 pm

Frankenstein is the story of the horrors that result from bad parenting. The alchemist/creator (note his sources in the book) is no scientist but rather a magician who is a psychopathic narcessist (he abandons his creation asa not good enough rahter than take responsibility for his making it such, he allows an innocent girl to be hanged for the creation's actions rather than admit his responsibility, he takes inadequate precaution to protect his bride because of his self-aggrandisement and more).

The Sun writers & editors probably have never read the novel.

Reply
Kal
3/8/2018 01:09:48 pm

When TV producers 'invented' realty TV, an easy formula requiring little actual acting, or talent, they too probably thought 'I have done it, It lives! I have played God', and then now that one of their 'creations' runs the biggest fake news network, Fox, and another is President, it overrides the fantasy idea that 'it's alive!', Now they are like, 'What have we done?', but it is more like 'Come forth from the afterlife, and live, and feast!' If only the irony was lost on the tabloid Sun in England.

The Monster does not know he is a monster, but is driven by his need to make amends, and revenge being a basic conceit, goes to that, being a monster.

Frankenstein is both science and magic, partly because in the 1800s, science of that nature was relatively new, and like magic. Thankfully even 200 years later, we cannot piece together a corpse and make it a living being.

Or can we do that virtually?

Reply
V
3/8/2018 10:31:03 pm

I find it interesting that you say "thankfully," as if the parts being dead make the overall creation inherently bad. Well, sir, we've been doing various organ transplants for years, including skin grafting, heart transplants, liver transplants, lung transplants, bone grafts, skin grafts, hair grafts, kidney transplants, nerve grafts....there are in fact people who are as much or more "parts of corpses" as they are original tissue. It hasn't turned them into serial killers or monsters.

Perhaps the fact that transplants are generally accepted and considered "normal" plays into that....just a thought.

Reply
Platy
3/8/2018 01:42:48 pm

Hey Jason, not exactly related (although Frankenstein is mentioned at the beginning), but there's an article on The Daily Grail about the intertwining of SF and paganism that you might find interesting.
https://www.dailygrail.com/2017/06/the-new-gods/

Reply
Only Me
3/8/2018 02:06:49 pm

I find that Sun article odd. In the version of the story I have in storage, the Creature came to hate Frankenstein for abandoning him shortly after he came to life. That hatred was born from suffering rejection by the family he had initially helped before revealing himself.

I didn't have sympathy for either character. Frankenstein refused to accept responsibility for his creation, while the Creature came to revel in his monstrosity. There were a lot of themes in Shelley's story and complaining about science/scientists becoming pre-internet memes because of it is too simple of a takeaway.

Reply
Machala
3/8/2018 03:54:42 pm

I have always found the 1818 version of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein superior to her 1831 rewrite. What I did find interesting in her 1831 preface, aside from her distancing herself from any insinuation by the public that her husband, Percy Bysshe, Shelly, actually wrote the novel, was the following:

"Every thing must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindoos give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it."

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Catspaw
3/8/2018 06:02:04 pm

Next up: The Sun on Stoker's "Dracula" -- "Bram's Batty Book: Dracula Is Just a Bunch of Old Letters, Ship's Logs and Diary Entries!!!"

Reply
T. Franke link
3/9/2018 07:42:54 am

Good! I like these considerations under a literary perspective. You can view a story under various perspectives, and all are legitimate in their own right, and later works taking up the subject add to the subject.

E.g. the story of Atlantis seen as a piece of art and all its follow-up pieces of art have grown to a research topic in itself, independently from Plato's original. All this art will keep its value even if it turns out that Plato really wanted to refer to a real place -- which no one will ever find who sticks to the literalist reading of Plato's texts.

So many wrong ideas about conspiracies, pseudo-science, and political and especially religious ideologies would vanish from earth, if this kind of education against primitive literalist understanding spread among the people.

Reply
Americanegro
3/9/2018 01:36:02 pm

In other news Musk and Bigelow are teaming up to mine the Moon's cheese which is not literally green but tasty nonetheless.

Reply
T. Franke link
3/9/2018 02:25:32 pm

@Americanegro:

To me the moon appears rather white, or grey, but not green --? But the perception of colours is different among civilizations. Could well be that some describe the moon as green. Again a question of perspective, or?

And if somebody lives ensnared in fake news, for him the moon is made of cheese. Of course, this is wrong. But he believes it. If he tells the world that the moon is made of cheese, it is not a lie, it is "only" not true.

And this is exactly the same difference which we have to consider with certain aspects of Plato's Atlantis. They really believed some crazy things in ancient times without the intention not to speak the truth.

Momus
3/9/2018 08:42:30 am

Let's not forget that the probable inspiration for Mary Shelley's story - and the source of its protagonist's name - was a novel by François‐Félix Nogaret, which was essentially what Bailey wants "Frankenstein" to be: an eulogy for scientific progress. Shelley's book may be seen as a kind of Romantic polemics with Nogaret's rationalist and revolutionary optimism - in the context of the aftermath of the French Revolution. More on that you can find in Julia V. Douthwaite's book "The Frankenstein of 1790 and Other Lost Chapters from Revolutionary France" and in her 2009 paper "The Frankenstein of the French Revolution: Nogaret’s automaton tale of 1790": https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10509580902986369

Reply
Sharkman
3/9/2018 09:25:16 am

Jason, isn't Frankenstein's real sin not taking responsibility for what he had created? He was seized with a fascination about the subjects of life and death, created a life, and then abandoned it. I think the idea of responsibility and science sometimes gets lost in the arguments over what Mary Shelly's intentions were in the novel. As for the mad scientist as villain in novels, movies and TV one could also point out that big business and the military have been used as villains just as often. Villains need to be powerful so the hero can be..well, heroic.

Reply
Residents Fan
3/9/2018 07:45:39 pm

Jason,
Jeremy Corbyn says he was signed up to the Palestine Live
Facebook group "without his knowledge". Corbyn also added that he only looked and posted on the group a few times, and left it in 2015. So it doesn't sound like he was plugging "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" on the sly:


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/08/labour-suspends-party-members-in-antisemitic-facebook-group


It should be pointed out that much of the British media (including the Murdoch Press, the Daily Mail, Daily Express and even parts of the BBC) strongly dislike Corbyn's policies intensely and have been running non-stop negative coverage of him since he became Labour Party leader.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-media-bias-labour-mainstream-press-lse-study-misrepresentation-we-cant-ignore-bias-a7144381.html

Reply
PHANTOM
3/12/2018 01:40:30 am

The current "interpretation" of Frankenstein, as critiques by the Sun and the Times, are based more on the Universal films, particularly those directed by James Whale. Whale seized on the monster as an outsider. He is reviled, yet possesses humanity. For Whale he was we even something of a Christ figure, as see in the "crucifixion" scene in The Bride of Frankenstein. More millennials are familiar with the movies than with the novel.

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