https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyyrwoCec1k

8:52-9:51

In this video, John Green brings up the point that even though Frankenstein is telling his story to Walton as a cautionary tale, he tells Walton that he should continue his expedition in the Arctic. This part of the story confused me a bit because Victor Frankenstein pushed the limits of science by creating his monster but when Walton and his crew want to explore the Arctic for scientific discoveries, Frankenstein tells him this story as a lesson to not go too far with science… and then when Walton tells his crew to turn back and give up on the expedition, Frankenstein goes backwards and says that they should go forward and “not to turn their backs on the foe.” In this quote, “foe” is referring to science. Why does Frankenstein refer to science as an enemy that humans have to conquer? The contradiction of his statements didn’t make much sense but John Green explained that this was normal for a Mary Shelley story because Mary Shelley herself was a very ambivalent person. She wrote in her journal, “I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counterarguments too strongly.” I relate to this statement on a personal level because I am one of the most indecisive people I know and so I can’t pick sides in arguments and debates when both sides have valid points. So for this debate on whether science should keep pushing the limits of knowledge and technological advancement, I don’t know which I agree with more.

I actually read Frankenstein in English class in my freshman year of college (the whole semester was focused on this debate of whether scientific advances are good or bad). The aspect that I focused on for my final paper was social media and how technological advancement is fueling both the positive and negative sides of social media. For the positive side of the argument, I believe that the generation that is growing up alongside technology benefits because they learn how to use technology at such a young age and that makes them tech savvy starting from their childhood which will only grow from there. Technological advancement also helps people connect across the globe. For the negative side, people are becoming more isolated because they are so focused on their phones and some people feel the need to hide their real selves behind a facade on the internet. The debate on science will always be relevant and affects everyone.