Liberalism, Modernism, and the Limits of Progress

Introduction: Liberalism's Broken Promise

Liberalism introduced a very appealing, idealistic perspective of the world, wishing for universal freedom and equality. Historical events such as the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution seemed to change the world in exactly this direction, but the truth is that liberalism failed to keep its promise regarding progress.

Society did undergo fundamental changes. Absolutist regimes were brought down. Industrial advancements allowed for the creation of a new social order, with the middle class acquiring a better living standard and easier access to knowledge. However, all these positive changes came with a heavy price.

Modernism had the purpose of renewing all the important aspects of society — social, political, cultural, and otherwise — under circumstances in which an entirely industrialized world seemed to prove that power was in man's hands, and that it is our actions, not the will of an omnipotent god, which create the future.

Nevertheless, instead of constructing a future resembling the ideal society people had been imagining since the days of the Enlightenment, mankind created a world characterized by political tensions, continuous class struggle, inequality, and global war. This tragic development is reflected in the literary and scientific work of various authors. Among the works most worth considering are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, and Perry Rogers' Aspects of Western Civilization.

Frankenstein as a Metaphor for Modern Ambition

Mary Shelley published her work during a period of sweeping changes at the political, social, and scientific levels. Her novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, was inspired by these changes, and it may be argued that the book mirrors the anxieties the newly born modern society was facing.

The plot concerns a young man named Victor Frankenstein. He struggles to accept the death of his mother from a contagious disease, and his ambitions become focused on bringing the dead back to life. He studies and experiments until he finally succeeds. Using pieces of dead corpses, he creates a new being of overwhelming physical power.

However, this creature inspires terror in its creator. Frankenstein abandons the nameless monster, who then begins killing everyone dear to him. The creature eventually asks Victor to create a companion, and Victor attempts to do so but destroys the second creation before giving it life. The monster pursues him, and the book ends with Victor dead and the creature acknowledging that what he did was wrong.

In a certain sense, the plot of the book is a metaphor for the changes that society and mankind were undergoing. The significance of the novel's subtitle becomes clearer in this light. According to Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to men, enabling them to develop their own civilization and to conquer nature. Zeus, however, condemned him to have an eagle devour his liver each day — with the liver regenerating each time so that the agony could continue indefinitely.

Victor is clearly a modern Prometheus. He is modern because he uses scientific advancements as his tool, and he is Promethean because he wishes to perform an act that defies god and nature. In this sense, Prometheus functions as a symbol of absolute ambition.

The Industrial Revolution increased the extent to which man dominated nature, bringing advantages such as greater employment, higher earnings, improved living standards, and easier access to knowledge. This may have given people the illusion that they could do whatever they chose. The desire for power and its acquisition could have positive consequences, but only to a limited degree.

Prometheus ended up having one of his organs devoured by an eagle — a metaphor for the victory of nature over man, even when man believes he holds supreme power. Victor Frankenstein possessed a kind of supreme power: he managed to give life to a being assembled from dead matter. His apparent victory over god and nature seemed absolute. Similarly, the fall of the absolutist regime in France and the expansion of the Industrial Revolution gave people the illusion that their own victory was complete.

Prometheus, Pandora, and the Price of Progress

Yet Victor proves unable to control his own creation. The creature commits murder because it is rejected by its creator, and the cause of that rejection is the creature's ugliness, which turns Victor's anxiety into outright terror when he realizes the being's enormous strength. Just as mortals used fire to hunt and consume animals, the creature in Shelley's novel devours children and animals to feed his tremendous appetite. In exactly the same way, Shelley's contemporaries tried to expand their dominion absolutely, literally devouring the newly available resources of the industrialized world.

A legend related to that of Prometheus is the myth of Pandora's Box. Zeus sends Pandora to the wedding of Prometheus' brother with a box he promises contains wonderful gifts. When it is opened, hellish things escape — disease, despair, pain, and death. The only thing that remains inside is hope. The Industrial Revolution may have had tremendous benefits for society, but there were costs to be paid as well. From child labour and entrenched class conflict, through two world wars and massive destruction, to inequalities that persist to this day, it is reasonable to conclude that the liberal ideal failed in its purpose of building a better world. Just as the creature remained nameless, so do people become increasingly anonymous in a society that aims to make them consume without thinking.

The reason for this tragic succession of events lies in the possession of too much power — power that ultimately turns against its possessor. Victor Frankenstein can be seen as a scientist whose primary tool was reason. Yet everything was ruined by passion: the fear and hatred he felt toward the creature, and his inability to accept his mother's death. In a similar way, one can see how the liberal ideal also relied on reason as its primary tool, while the destructive forces of passion quietly undermined it.

Unlike Enlightenment thinkers who believed in the grace of an omnipotent and omniscient god, modern thinkers placed their faith entirely in mankind's power to create its own destiny. Stefan Zweig, in his autobiography The World of Yesterday, demonstrates how this ideal of reason turned out to be little more than an illusion.

The book describes his life in three broad stages. The initial Vienna period represents a kind of golden age in which people had hope and believed in the triumph of freedom, equality, and universal prosperity. It is an analysis of what happened and why, offering insight into the social changes of the era and what he calls the esprit du siècle — the spirit of the age.

Just like Victor Frankenstein, who can be considered an idealist, Zweig in his youth believed he was living in a golden age of security that could only improve. History brought two world wars and Hitler. Together with Hitler came antisemitism and slaughter. Society did change and develop from many perspectives, but not in the direction the liberal ideal had promised.

At a certain point in his life, Zweig came to understand that people had been deceiving themselves in believing that reason would triumph over everything else. In his speeches, Hitler spoke about peace and lofty ideals, and under the influence of propaganda people forgot about his crimes, allowing the whole catastrophe to proceed unchecked. It was during this same period that Freud was publishing his works, explaining how instincts, desires, and repressed frustrations ultimately govern human behaviour, overriding the supposedly almighty faculty of reason. Zweig found that Freud was right, and he discovered ample evidence for this conviction in everything happening around him.

Conclusion: Man as a Modern Prometheus

Zweig, Stefan. The World of Yesterday. Hesperides Press, 2008.