Frankenstein as Guiding Light. Add Mary Shelley's novel to the list of things that can help save the world.

April 19, 2021. After Mary Shelley published the novel Frankenstein in 1818, John Wilson Croker, reviewing it in the

quarterly review, wrote, Our taste and our judgment alike revolted this kind of writing,

and the greater the ability with which it may be executed, the worse it is.

It inculcates no lesson of conduct, manners, or morality.

This is what we in the writing business call a negative review.

And it wasn't the only one Shelley Gut. According to the literary scholar, This is what we in the writing business call a negative review.

And it wasn't the only one Shelley Gut.

According to the literary scholar Michael Rossington of Newcastle University, there was a strand

of critical reviewing that was very hostile to the book for not having a clear moral.

I just finished reading or actually listening to the novel, and I was thrilled to discover

how wrong this strand of reviewing is. I was thrilled partly because I'm always happy to discover

a morally redeeming work of art, and this work of art, as a bonus, is redeeming in an

apocalypse aversion project friendly way.

But I was also thrilled because I think it's really good news,

like bodes well for the future of the world,

that two centuries ago, so many people had trouble finding moral lessons in a novel that,

read today, seems so obviously to have them.

That's a testament to the ability of human moral consciousness to evolve, and evolve in a direction

I applaud. As you know, if you've been following this AAP thing, I think this evolution

has to continue and even accelerate if our planet is to flourish,

as opposed to, say, getting sucked into a spiral of doom.

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