Frankenstein: Nature vs. Nurture

You know, you've probably heard this being talked about

in contemporary society.

The question is - Are we born as a blank slate

and anything that we are as humans

comes from nurture, meaning comes from

the environment we're brought up in,

the way we're treated, et cetera?

Or are we born with certain innate qualities?

You know, I might be born as kind of a bubbly kid.

Or am I born blank slate

and because my mom is bubbly,

so am I? That's kind of the question.

Nature versus nurture is used a lot

in super controversial topics

like homosexuality, where there are people who argue

that people are not born as homosexuals,

- but instead it is, you know, nurture and it's learned. Exactly. - Learned.

So that's the nature versus nurture.

How is the nature versus nurture debate brought up in Frankenstein?

Is the monster innately bad...

or is he bad because his creator abandoned him?

Those are the two options.

Either he was just born a monster,

or created a monster,

or he was totally a blank slate,

could've turned out to be the sweet guy next door,

but then Victor abandoned him

and so he became evil and started killing everyone.

The Enlightenment is when this theory of the blank slate -

the fancy term for that is "tabula rasa" -

came about with John Locke.

And the idea would be that yes,

Frankenstein's monster could have turned into

a normal guy and could've led a totally fine life.

But he was abandoned by his creator

and so the nurture made him not be that way.

Today you look at a toddler, you look at a kid --

We now know that tabula rasa's not a thing.

It's definitely not -- No one's born a blank slate.

But we still don't know how much.

And the modern parlance is that there's a genetic predisposition

to doing something some way.

Exactly. You know, we know that nobody's born blank slate.

We also know that, you know,

nurture is an issue and nature --

But we still haven't figured out how much.

And this is something that Mary Shelley was thinking about

and John Locke in the Enlightenment was thinking about

like hundreds of years ago and we still haven't figured it out.

What is the nature versus nurture debate?

How is the nature versus nurture conflict

presented in Frankenstein?

[ baby laughs and cries ]