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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a pivotal text whose story haunts us today. Published in 1819, the spirit of the depths below the spirit of the times in which it was written foreshadowed how Victor Frankenstein’s dream to animate dead matter has become our nightmare. As a new god who would all but banish death from life, he would use the newly discovered science of electricity and create a technology to create a new race of beings who, as he says, would bless him as their father. But horrified by the creature he has made and whom he never names, he abandons him and denies responsibility for the consequences of his actions.
For much of the younger generation, living East or West, gone are proverbial 40-nights in the desert and neglected are the ancient tomes of perennial wisdom. These have been replaced by an electronic universe of information and opinion; and, yes, it can be for the better. Never before have people been so interconnected at a social level. For the young, these connections may not be as deep as the older generation might have experienced but they are, indeed, wide. Within the next decade there is more to come.
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We’re poised between two futures. One: a breakdown future of chaos, conflict, and collapse. The other: a breakthrough future of safety, restoration, and flourishing. The choice between them starts in our minds – whether we’re able to manage our mental states, at a moment of extraordinary turbulence. Whether we react to people who disagree with us with empathy or enmity. Whether we see ourselves as part of a polarised them-and-us – or an inclusive Larger Us. Â