by In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, mad scientist Victor Frankenstein creates a living being out of human corpses, that came to be known as the Monster. Although maybe with good intentions, Victor creates a “hideous” Monster and becomes afriad of it shortly before abdonding the Monster. Ultimately, the two of them die near the Northpole where Frankenstein was looking to take revenge against the Monster for murdering his bride Elizabeth. As far as messages about science, technology, and society go in the book, I think one of the most obvious messages is the principle of limits and how we treat others.
Towards the very end of the book, another one of the characters named Robert Walton turns back from reaching the North Pole because he knew he had reached his limit. Unlike, Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein was never able to understand his limits and how far he should take his science. When creating the Monster, he failed to recognize the humanistic qualities that Victor was placing on him, and only cared about making a great creation. Victor should have taken a second to think if recreating a being out of dead bodies was right, and what kind of quality of life the Monster would have. He was unable to understand that by making a creature that could potentially be different from a lot of humans, the creature would need special care and attention, not less care. When relating the principle of limits to todays science, technology, and society, I think we a currrently at an ethical crossroads that Mary Shelly, and others at the time of publishing her book, could only dream about. Our society and its scientists have a moral obligation to decide if we should be able to recrate life, extend life through speical treatments, and how intrusive our technological devices should be in our lives, among other many things. I think its incredibly important for us to consider the quality of life for all people, including that of the things we could potentially create, when thinking about scientific and technological innovations. Reason being, when it comes to down it, the most impotant thing in life for all people is simply the quality of life people have. Creating highly advanced techonlogy may be impressive and useful, but could also negatively affect a lot of lives more than its intended positvite impact. Hopefully our society can learn from fictironal stories, like that of Victor Frankenstein, and not repeat the same mistakes.
Another theme in the book was treating all people with respect and not leaving people on the outcasts of society due to their differences in appearance or disabilites. The Monster was outcasted after being created by Victor, and in the end, ultimately caused Victor a lot of pain by way of killing two people he loved. If he had treated the Monster nicely, maybe the outcomes of Victor’s loved ones and himself might have been different. In our society, we will all be much better off if we treat evryone with kindness and respect, as we will not only get along better, but we will most likely have a lot less anger and violence in our everyday lives.