Gordon Frankenblog #3

Are humans inherently good or evil?

Frankenstein despite what you would assume from the rest of the dark and violent tale that Shelley would be making the point that people are by nature evil.  This is what I thought also until I read a couple of passages near the end of the book.  The first was on page 161, Victor lies chronically fatigued on his death bed his red-eyed energies finally exhausted and he tells Walton "I created a rational creature , and was bound towards him, to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty."  After the creation has taken away everything that he cared about in the world, he still felt sympathy for the creature.  Oddly enough the creature who, exiled by the only person in the entire world that could understand what he is and possibly help him, still has sympathies for Victor. On page 164 he tells Walton "after the murder of Clerval, I returned to Switzerland, heartbroken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror: I abhorred myself." But again there is empathy for the person who brought him into the life he describes as an "unspeakable torment." Why? These two owe each other absolutely nothing, if you were making the case that people are evil then for those who have done them harm there would be no sympathy, only hate, they would take enjoyment in their failure's and pain.  Which they do, but the fact still remains when it is all over they look back and say "he had feeling, and even though he caused me pain I can understand that."

I love big questions like this because there are so many factors and behaviors to consider in an answer (if there is one).  I think it starts with the fact that people have the ability to feel another's pain (even Chris Perrando, he prefers to let it go to voice mail though).  This isn't necessarily the greatest survival instinct.  To see someone in a perilous situation and involve yourself does not aid your chances of reproduction.  Maybe it comes from people living initially in groups.  Before our mechanization of the world, we were a bunch of relatively defenseless members of the animal kingdom.  We found strength in numbers and maybe that's were that instinct comes from.  People are, however, selfish we want what is best for us and will not necessarily stay virtuous to better their situation.  But I do think we all start like the creature "when I first sought sympathy , it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection which with my whole being over-flowed that I wished to be participated."  The figures who seem to stand the tests of time are the ones who stay true to this unblemished ideal.  For most, however, life hardships knock this out of them and they find themselves not looking to be helpful and friendly for their own sake but being helpful and friendly when it benefits me.  I guess that's where the problem lies that even though we might want to live like that, its a moral standard that is very hard to keep.  There are many opportunity to cheat in life (Chris: and its all about how many you can take advantage of) and its hard to resist that temptation even if it helps get what you want.  We have these two conflicting mental agendas, personal success and group success, and in alot of ways aiding one harms the other.  Which is evident in how most of the world's disgusting behavior happened.  You have an individual who feels that the group (others) are having more success than they are so they take it out on the group, and that offensive makes them feel better about themselves.  I think it really is summed up with this image,  you've never heard a young person go out into the world and say "I want to become a sex offender."  Something has to happened along the way to put them in that mental state, which is why people are inherently good.