The Monster of Malady: “Oh, it is not thus-not thus,” interrupted the being. “ Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once, I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honor and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightened catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone. -Mary Shelly, Frankenstein pp.190 In my opinion I believe this is the most prolific aphorism in literature. His loneliness is incomparable to anything on earth; he was created by man not nature. In many ways we have more commonaltys than contrasts with the monster. We are no longer a part of nature either, and are losing our collective social instincts which makes us human beings. We can be alienated from society, from each other, or from ourselves. The alienated personality loses much of his or her sense of self, since this sense of self comes from experiencing myself as the subject of my experiences, my thoughts, my emotions, my decisions, and my actions. We can fully fathom the nature of alienation only by considering the routinization of modern life and our repression of awareness of the basic problems of human existence. We can fulfill ourselves only if we stay in touch with the basic facts of existence, from love and solidarity to our lonesomeness and the fragmentary character of our lives. However, the creature had only one way out of his dilemma; destructiveness. The destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempts to save himself from being crushed by it. Destructiveness is often rationalized as love, duty, or conscience, however, the creature justifies nothing and accepts his certain fate willfully. For he realizes he can never be a part of this world, for he is not part of this world. No one will ever accept him, so he will destroy the only thing he ever wanted, love and acceptance. We are in a process of cultural self-destruction, Schweitzer writes. ...By a general act of will freedom of thought has been put out of function, because many give up thinking as free individuals, and are guided by the collective to which they belong. ...With the sacrifice of independence of thought we have--and how could it be otherwise--lost faith in truth.Schweitzer was a radical critic of industrial society. He debunked its myth of progress and general happiness and noted the degree of misery in which many people live. The only meaningful activity, he maintained, is activity of giving and caring for fellow creatures. Schweitzer insists that our task is not to retire into an atmosphere of spiritual egotism, remote from the affairs of the world, but to lead an active life in which one tries to contribute to the spiritual perfection of society. He concludes that our present cultural and social structure is driving us toward a catastrophe from which only a new Renaissance much greater than the old one will arise. He emphasizes that we must, each of us, become thinking human beings. By M and M- Alias Tyler Durden Resources: Eric Fromm lecture notes; (12/02/2003)
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 04:25:27 +0000
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