Instrumental Valuing In Frankenstein

In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, we dive headfirst into a man who is consumed by knowledge and thrives off of it. Victor Frankenstein takes his mother's death to extremes by becoming obsessed with trying to create, or recreate life. Instead of trying to "create" life Victor's quest for knowledge could've been much better spent on research in different fields. Victor became possessed by knowledge, raising the question, is there such thing as too much knowledge?

In more modern times we have used knowledge and research to excel in the technological world. There's a plethora of things that have been invented to make human life easier. Basic everyday things like air conditioners, sewing machines, and the cell phone are all examples of proper use

"When institutionalists say technology defines progress, they mean to say the instrumental process defines progress. If we understand instrumental valuing to be a problem-solving process as defined above, then it is progressive by definition. But does it define progress? If we define progress as instrumental valuing, and instrumental valuing as progress, we employ a circular tautology. This tautology is the nucleus of the obsolete technology mentality (hereafter, "OTM"). To avoid this trap, we must explain just what it is that we mean when we say instrumental valuing is progressive. Is the process (and resulting progress) universal in some sense? Can it be progressive for those involved and regressive for others? Is the instrumental process the only source of progress? Is it always progressive? The technological process necessarily operates within the institutional structure of the extant culture. When new technology is created, it solves some problems and creates new ones, but always in a culture context: "The concept of technology, in all the uses for which institutionalists employ it, refers to an aspect of

Some believe it takes away from religious values. " Those who are imbued with the "technological spirit" find with difficulty the calm, the serenity, the inwardness essential for discovering the way that leads to the Son of God made man. They will even go so far as to belittle the Creator and His work, pronoucing human nature a defective product, where the necessary limitations of the human brain and other organs stand in the way of the fulfillment of technological plans and projects. Still less are they fit to understand and rightly es teem those very deep mysteries of life and of the divine economy, such as for example the mystery of Christmas, in which the union of the Eternel Word with human nature brings into play realities and marvels quite other than those of technology. Their thought is along different lines and follows other patterns, under the one-sided influence of that "technological spirit" which only recognizes and reckons real what can be expressed in mathematical formulas - They think that thus they are breaking up reality into its elements, but their knowledge remains on the surface and deals with but one aspect. It is evident that whoever adopts the method of technology as the sole way of seeking truth must give up any idea of penetrating the profound realities of organic life, and even more so those of the spiritual life, living realities of the individual