Episode 4 min
0:00 on 01/01/1818 a novel appeared in london with no author's name on the cover it told the story of a brilliant arrogant student who creates life and then abandons it in horror two hundred years later we are still arguing about who the real monster was last week harriet tubman spoke of the hidden strategies of0:29 war and liberation tonight's guest mary shelley she unpacks a different kind of conflict the war between ambition and responsibility a battle that begins the moment we dare to create something new you go into an interview with mary shelley expecting to talk about a ghost story contest at a villa on lake geneva you expect lord byron and lightning0:55 and nightmares and you get that but that's the packaging not the product the real story the one she keeps circling back to isn't about one stormy night it's about the years of intellectual kindling that came before it she talks about the public lectures on galvanism in london watching scientists run electricity through the limbs of dead frogs making1:20 them twitch excitedly making them dance she talks about the arguments with percy her husband about the very nature of the soul is it a divine spark or just a chemical reaction we haven't decoded yet she wasn't just telling a scary story she was taking the single biggest scientific and philosophical question of her time and giving it a1:43 body a very large very angry body and then she asks the question that cuts through everything else the question we're still asking so you made it now what what do you owe the thing you brought into this world everyone wants to talk about the creature its loneliness its rage but she waves that away that's the effect not2:09 the cause the person she wants to put on trial is doctor victor frankenstein she paints him not as a mad scientist but as the ultimate deadbeat dad a man obsessed with the glory of creation who never once stops to think about the reality of parenthood he builds a person and the second that person draws a breath the2:31 second it needs him he runs he is disgusted by its appearance terrified of its existence and he spends the rest of the book trying to erase his own accomplishment he is the true monster his crime isn't hubris it's abandonment ten years from now looking back what would we say this moment was mary shelley would say we're living2:58 in victor frankenstein's world we're all him now we birth artificial intelligences edit genomes build global networks that connect and divide us in ways we cannot possibly control and then we look away we get bored we move on to the next project leaving our creations to wander the world lonely and misunderstood looking for their parents her warning wasn't3:25 about rogue science it was about the failure of empathy on an industrial scale the single most valuable idea from all of this is that creation is not an act it's a relationship it is a promise you don't get to just have the brilliant idea you don't get to just build the thing and take the credit you have3:51 to raise it you have to answer its questions you have to sit with it when it is ugly and when it is frightening and when it accuses you rightfully of failing it the horror isn't the monster in the shadows the horror is the creator who closes the door turns up the music and pretends he can't hear the4:17 screaming
