Frankenstein was “created” by the famous British writer Mary Shelley. The story is about a scientist creating Frankenstein by constructing “his” body by using dead organs, brain and limbs. Then, Frankenstein was given a life by a lightning. Afterwards, he killed the scientist (creator) and started his monster life. It was a shocking idea to the people of the 19th century not only because of the new thought but also it brings out the dark side of technologies.
As technologies those days were expected to be a tool of providing easier and convenient life to people, the horrible idea of Frankenstein made people start to realize new technology could also be a disaster for the society. “Technophobia” seems to become the by-product of the idea of “Frankenstein”. Here, we can define the technologies being tightened with science. Cited by Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall in their article named “Frankenstein’s Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romantic Culture, 1780-1830”[1], Patricia Fara points out in “Educating Mary: Women and Scientific Literature in the Early Nineteenth Century”: “Defining what is meant by ‘science’ at this period is problematic, because the word itself was and is constantly changing in significance. In retrospect, it is tempting to pick out activities of the period that clearly influenced the sciences of the future, an approach that is inappropriately historical”. We can see that people in the 19th century had less concept on what science is. Therefore, the existence of Frankenstein really vibrated their point of views about science.
Technophobia appeared in those years mainly related to the low opportunities of receiving education, i.e. most people had low standard of education level. However, does technophobia still exist nowadays? The answer would be “Yes! ”. Luke Fernandez stated in the article “Frankenstein in the University”[2] that people nowadays also face the problem of “technology out of control”. The American still have technophobia in their mind although they live in such a high technology society. We are encountering a large problem that how much control we really have over the technologies. Technological determinism would be a suitable term to describe our relationship with technology. Relying on the technologies makes us being controlled by technologies at the same time. Examples are raised by the writer to support his point. Some systems(software) are once installed even they might not be good ones, it is difficult for us to use others as they may not be available. The writer concluded that we are put in a “dilemma” between fear and reliable.
Another article named “The Influence of Science on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and subsequent retellings”[3], the writer talked about the background of Mary Shelley (the author of Frankenstein) and why she had such an idea. Mary lived in a time with frequent scientific discoveries which affected the people’s life. Numbers of scientific fields with regards to “Frankenstein” (anatomy and physiology) bloomed at that period. The article also stated that the modern physiology began while William Harvey published his findings on how to trace the path of the blood throughout the body and the heart. We can see that “Frankenstein” do have a good effect to the scientific field. The writer made a conclusion that we should learn from the Frankenstein to put right things on its place to make real benefits to the society.
What is the right attitude towards new technologies should we have? Shari Popen recalled in a chapter of the article called “Thinking through Technology: Frankenstein’s Problems”[4] with an advising topic of “Caring for our creations” what Frankenstein talked to its creator. Here, Frankenstein said that thought and care must also be given as only empowering and improving a new technology is not enough. At the end of the chapter, the writer pointed out we nowadays use all the technologies uncritically with no attention to the ways these unexpectedly control and arrange our lives.
Scientific ambition in some kind is becoming bigger and bigger. Technologies are not only improved for enhancing the working skills in old days. It is developed into many fields. The article titled “Frankenstein Vs Frankenfoods”[5] stated a lot of relationships between the idea of Frankenstein and nowadays technologies. Examples are listed to help the writer to elaborate certain points. For example, different steroids are injected into tomatoes. In some countries, genomes of tomatoes are altered to provide larger, tastier and better alternative for the consumers. At the beginning, such technologies might be developed for making benefits to people. However, it has been used to make profits from consumers. They have added so many elements to the food but ignored the possible negative effects. The writer cited the scene of Frankenstein requesting his creator to make one more “partner” for him and being refused to compare with the conditions of nowadays scientific technologies.
To conclude, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been a fantastic idea for the scientific technologies both in old days and today. A coin has two sides. Although technophobia may be a worry of the dark side of technologies, it had never haunted technologies development. In fact, the development of technologies “runs” faster and faster. Therefore, we should keep an eye on controlling the technologies rather than being controlled. This would balance the technophobia and would not avoid the growth of scientific development.
Reference
"Frankenstein in the University -- Campus Technology." Campus Enterprise Networking & Infrastructure -- Campus Technology.
“Frankenstein Vs Frankenfoods.” OPPapers.com.
Adams, Patricia D. and Bove, Cheryl. “The Influence of Science on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Subsequent Retellings.” Ball State University.
Knellwolf, Christa and Goodall, Jane. “Frankenstein’s Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romatic Culture, 1780-1830.” Australian Journal of Victorian Studies.
Popen, Shari. "Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein's Problem." Viterbo University.
[1] Knellwolf, Christa and Goodall, Jane. “Frankenstein’s Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romatic Culture, 1780-1830.” Australian Journal of Victorian Studies. 04 Mar. 2009
[2] "Frankenstein in the University -- Campus Technology." Campus Enterprise Networking & Infrastructure -- Campus Technology. 04 Mar. 2009
[3] Adams, Patricia D. and Bove, Cheryl. “The Influence of Science on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Subsequent Retellings.” Ball State University. 04 Mar. 2009
[4] Popen, Shari. "Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein's Problem." Viterbo University. 04 Mar. 2009
[5] “Frankenstein Vs Frankenfoods.” OPPapers.com. 04 Mar. 2009
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ReplyDeleteThis article linked Frankenstein with the phenomenon of “Technophobia”, which argues that people are still experiencing technophobia. Besides, it is a good point that Kenneth pointed out most people are highly relying on the technology. Although it might sounds contradictory, which people are dependants on technology with technophobia, I think it is true. Let’s state mobile phone as an example. In Hong Kong, most of us have our own mobile phone, which we always bring along with it and even unwilling to leave it more than 5 minutes out of sight. On one hand, we might worry about the invasion of software virus or fatal operation of the mobile itself. On the other hand, we might feel anxious about missing any calls or texts from others, which is also another kind of technophobia.
ReplyDeleteFrankenstein is really a collective memory for most of us as we have seen this scientific fiction in cartoon network since we were small. Frankenstein is always depicting horrible character. I do think this is a good example to illustrate the main argument of his essay, Technopobia.
ReplyDeleteWith the supports of numbers of references and readings, Kenneth has demonstrated there are still plenty technophobic people in the society due to their low level education as well as people nowadays may be too depend on different kinds of technology.
On one hand, elderly and lowly educated people are afraid of trying new stuffs, especially the term “technology” seems frightening them since they are not confident on controlling the devices. On the other hand, for most of us whose are very depend on technology are also another kind of technophobia, a good example to illustrate this point is, we almost can’t do anything without a computer in this digital age. Therefore, I think this is a good essay to explain what technophobia is.