Scientific advances and the overall progress of a society are interdependent. Technological breakthroughs steer the direction into which a civilization grows, while the morals of each civilization guide the course for future breakthroughs. Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz exhibits this relationship on a larger scale, while Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon” looks at the machinations of individuals within a society driven by this correlation. However, both reveal a dark truth about the ethical implications of scientific advancements within the texts and in the real world. Both texts show how the lack of knowledge leads to instinctively competitive behaviour, how knowledge is a powerful driving force within society, yet how …show more content…
Fanny, Charlie’s co-worker, reflects that “it was evil when Eve listened to the snake and ate from the tree of knowledge. It was evil when she saw that she was naked. If not for that none of us would ever have to grow old and sick, and die” (Keyes 514). In the biblical narrative, Adam and Eve originally inhabited the Garden of Eden, but were tempted by the snake to eat from the tree of knowledge, which was explicitly forbidden. This betrayal of God led to their expulsion out of paradise and the onset of human suffering. By alluding to the biblical story of Adam and Eve, Fanny reveals the extensive mechanisms behind the widely held fear of Charlie’s progress. In this short story, Charlie’s operation could be compared to the biblical apple, the researchers to the snake, and Charlie’s new intelligence as the forbidden tree of knowledge. Charlie’s coworkers now fear him due to the threat he implies to their ignorant paradise. This exemplifies not only a fear of competition, but a fear instilled by religious dogma, exploiting the common ignorance. Karl Marx, the well-known revolutionary socialist, has said that religion is the “opium of the people” (131), referring to how the general populace, both in the short story and real life, uses certain aspects of organized religion as a crutch for ignorance and subsequent mass movement to quell the competition from intelligent factions within society. Both Miller and Keyes’ texts reveal how the presence of crowd mentality due to the absence of knowledge and reliance on groupthink and dogma induces intrinsic hostility and