Frankenstein Meets The Rime-man

Growing up in the Godwin household, Mary Shelley was exposed to parlor conversations between her father and some of the brightest intellectuals of the day. In 1806 she and her stepsister hid under the sofa while Coleridge recited "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Ten years later Shelley began writing Frankenstein. Her book, as we know, deals with discovery, predominantly scientific discovery (through Victor) and to a lesser extent geographic discovery (through Walton). It also poses the same questions as Zezik about the ethical implications and possible real consequences of creating an artificially intelligent human being. In fact, Zezik uses Frankenstein as a model for what can happen when scientists lose control over their creations.

It’s less widely known that Coleridge was also concerned over the ramifications of science and discovery, particularly their historical development. According to Thomas Pfau, Coleridge considered modernity a “miscarriage.” In league with several German Romantics—Goethe, Schlegel, and Schopenhauer among them—modernity, which he traced back to the Cartesian method of rationality, ushered in an age of fractionalization and specialization. The result was the abandonment of the ancient notion of knowledge as the fortuitous fusion of theoria [contemplation] and eudaemnonia [human flourishing] in order to produce the vita contemplativa [the contemplative life]. Zizek says essentially the same thing when he refers to the “incessant activity” of scientists and technologists whose lives are run by the “objective constraint” of Progress.”

I’ve always had an underlying, unspoken belief that science and technology would save us. I guess that was my unknown known. There’s as much substance for believing in science as our savior as there is in believing in a talking snake as our nemesis. I agree with Zizek and Dupuy that the only way to confront the catastrophe is to first, accept that it’s unavoidable, and then govern our actions by what we would have done if we had known then what we know now. That’s the only way Zizek’s Four Points would have a chance of being implemented. But there’s another step that has to be taken: vote the tea party out of congress in ’14.