tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/mary-wollstonecraft-96006/articlesMary Wollstonecraft – The Conversation2023-03-07T21:19:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2010462023-03-07T21:19:14Z2023-03-07T21:19:14ZMary Wollstonecraft: an introduction to the mother of first-wave feminism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513216/original/file-20230302-24-gv61ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C16%2C902%2C740&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A portrait of Wollstonecraft painted by John Opie in 1790-91.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft#/media/File:MaryWollstonecraft.jpg">Wikipedia.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mary Wollstonecraft has had something of a revival in recent years. </p>
<p>Though considered the mother of first-wave feminism, the 18th-century philosopher long endured her share of trolls refusing to take her seriously. She was dubbed a “hyena in a petticoat” by contemporary politician and writer Horace Walpole, accused of being “unsexed”, unladylike, and of having no shame. She even <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA16475767&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00463663&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ed7c8a185">fell out of favour</a> with some 20th-century feminists.</p>
<p>But in the last decade and a half, popular interest in her life and work has grown exponentially with the emergence of Wollstonecraft <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://wollstonecraftfellowship.home.blog&source=gmail-imap&ust=1678813552000000&usg=AOvVaw1ZpMUaUXgZxbSXFEVqDe7R">blogs</a>,<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wollstonecraftsociety.org&source=gmail-imap&ust=1678813552000000&usg=AOvVaw1-vTMNp2SUG4LCJQlkDfw1">societies</a>,<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.maryonthegreen.org&source=gmail-imap&ust=1678813552000000&usg=AOvVaw1TFCrFyBHNHnmh3kfAkizH">campaigns</a> and even Instagram and Facebook accounts in her name. Her public commemoration has ranged from the traditional blue plaque to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/25/london-mary-wollstonecraft-statue-one-of-2020s-most-polarising-artworks">controversial sculpture</a> in her old north London neighbourhood.</p>
<p>As the author of an impassioned plea for human rights, and one of the earliest and most-read statements of feminism, Wollstonecraft today has a well-deserved status as a feminist icon. But we should also take pause when looking at how she is presented, especially when she is shown as the main representative of British feminism. </p>
<h2>Education as politics</h2>
<p>Born in 1759 in London to a middle-class family, Wollstonecraft spent her youth watching her mother suffer at the hands of an abusive father. An avid reader, frustrated by the limited education and career options open to girls, Wollstonecraft set out to educate herself. </p>
<p>With her sister and friend, she opened a day school for girls in Newington Green. The focus of most of her writings was moral conduct, education and child rearing because she believed that this was the main route to changing the culture and creating a new path for women and girls. For Wollstonecraft, education was political.</p>
<p>Like her fellow north London radicals, Wollstonecraft was a passionate supporter of the French Revolution. She hoped for a similar shift toward democratic republicanism in British politics. </p>
<p>When the political philosopher and MP, Edmund Burke, wrote his <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-france-by-edmund-burke">famous treatise</a> condemning the revolution and defending the British monarchy, she was so incensed that she wrote and published <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62757">a response</a>. This was the start of the so-called “pamphlet wars” which resulted in hundreds of responses to Burke (the most famous of which was Thomas Paine’s <a href="https://www.bard.edu/library/arendt/pdfs/Paine-RightsofMan.pdf">Rights of Man</a>). </p>
<p>Both Paine and Wollstonecraft defended a doctrine of “natural rights”. This is the idea that man is naturally endowed with rational thought and an ability to think independently, and therefore judge for himself. </p>
<p>But neither Paine nor most of the French revolutionaries that Wollstonecraft so admired actively extended this thinking to women. The new French Republic, in fact, relegated all women (and men without property) to the status of “passive” (non-voting) citizens who were not considered independent enough to make their own decisions.</p>
<p>Wollstonecraft’s most famous text, <a href="https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/wollstonecraft1792.pdf">A Vindication of the Rights of Women</a>, is largely a treatise on the edifying effects of the right kind of education on virtue. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft did not mean sexual purity when she spoke of virtue, however. Virtue was indicative of moral character and primarily expressed in the ability to make sound, informed and rational judgements. </p>
<p>Moral character also included, for Wollstonecraft, humility and self-discipline and a willingness to look outward from selfish or trivial wants to the needs of others. These were the republican (and indeed Protestant) virtues that good citizens in the new post-revolutionary democracies would need. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft argued that women are equally capable of acquiring these virtues and of benefiting from a full education if only given the chance to develop their capacities in the same way as men.</p>
<h2>Gender norms as social constructs</h2>
<p>The idea that reason is not the sole provenance of men also meant that Wollstonecraft was already making an argument, often attributed to Simone de Beauvoir in <a href="https://newuniversityinexileconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Simone-de-Beauvoir-The-Second-Sex-Jonathan-Cape-1956.pdf">The Second Sex</a> and to the so-called second-wave feminism of the 1950s and 1960s, that gender norms are socially constructed. </p>
<p>Rational qualities, argues Wollstonecraft, are not naturally gendered. They are learned and shaped by environment, especially by upbringing, education and culture. If education is narrow and confined, it will produce narrow and confined thinking. This is what she meant when she wrote of women: “Make them free and they will quickly become wise and virtuous.”</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The title page of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1227&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1227&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513218/original/file-20230302-1870-4p15f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1227&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The title page from the first American edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft#/media/File:Vindication1b.jpg">Wikipedia/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wollstonecraft wanted to free women from being forced to focus solely on trivial accomplishments that would make them a better wife. Wollstonecraft herself lived a life that largely defied convention, but it was evidently not an easy one. </p>
<p>This is, far too often, still the life that women live today: caught in a struggle to break free of preconceived notions about who and what we can be, what we should wear, how we should look, and what we should value in ourselves.</p>
<p>Wollstonecraft asserted the simple idea that women were fully fledged people with the capacity to decide on and forge a path for themselves. Obvious to us, but the revolutionary character of this idea, should not be underestimated. </p>
<p>It is the same notion that nearly a century later got John Stuart Mill <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mill's_logic_1867.jpg">lampooned</a> and laughed at in the House of Commons when, as Westminster MP, he proposed to substitute the word “persons” for the word “men” in the voting reform bill of 1867 so as to include women in universal suffrage.</p>
<p>This idea, that women are rational beings with a right to self-determination, must still be fought for daily around the world. This is the case in every instance where, as women, we are forced to assert that we are not objects, or property, that we have not been made for someone else’s use or pleasure, that it is not justified to exclude us from education or politics, or prevent us from speaking our minds, whether through laws, violence, intimidation or ridicule.</p>
<h2>Personal liberation</h2>
<p>Wollstonecraft has striking relevance for us and she is responsible for inspiring generations of activists. However, she had her blind spots. She was not writing for working class women and she said little about women of colour in spite of her abolitionism. Today’s women around the world deal with issues that Wollstonecraft could never have imagined.</p>
<p>Nor is it helpful when she is simplistically presented as paving the way for the suffragettes. In claiming Wollstonecraft, the suffragette movements rescued her memory from a largely negative obsession with her sexual morality. But they also did her a disservice by reducing her aims to a battle for legal and political equality. </p>
<p>Equal treatment is indeed a necessary condition for women’s progress. But it is not a sufficient condition for women’s freedom. Wollstonecraft herself was more interested in personal liberation. In fact, she never made voting a focus of her writings. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft wanted something much more than voting, something that too often we still do not have: liberation from prescribed notions of who or what we can be and from the fear of being who we are. </p>
<p>Liberation from oppression means being able to define ourselves and the direction of our lives. And this requires access to the intellectual resources and knowledge needed to develop independence of mind. This is Wollstonecraft’s most important message, and one that should speak to everyone regardless of gender.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bridget Cotter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wollstonecraft was ridiculed in her time for the idea that women should be treated as fully fledged beings.Bridget Cotter, Lecturer, Social Sciences, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1972032023-01-10T17:15:46Z2023-01-10T17:15:46ZRichard Price: how one of the 18th century’s most influential thinkers was forgotten<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503384/original/file-20230106-23-db9yxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1914%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Price reading a letter dated 1784 from his friend, Benjamin Franklin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benjamin West, National Library of Wales & Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to the eulogies and <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_gentlemans-magazine_1791-04_61_4/page/388/mode/2up?q=price">obituaries</a> written at the time of his death in 1791, <a href="https://richardpricesociety.org.uk/">Richard Price’s</a> name would be remembered alongside figures such as Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, George Washington and Thomas Paine. </p>
<p>Three hundred years on from his birth in the village of Llangeinor, near Bridgend in south Wales, why has he therefore been lost from our popular memory? </p>
<p>After all, here was a polymath whose lasting contributions ranged across a number of disciplines, including moral philosophy, <a href="https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2013.00638.x">mathematics</a> and theology. Moreover, Price’s contribution as a public intellectual made a huge impact, not least in international politics. </p>
<p>A useful starting point are the parallels with his friend <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/oct/05/original-suffragette-mary-wollstonecraft?CMP=share_btn_link">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>. She was a philosopher, a women’s rights advocate and the mother of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley">Mary Shelley</a>. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft was both inspired by Price and indebted to him. Indeed, her most influential texts are directly linked to Price and the pamphlet war known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_Controversy">Revolution controversy</a>. </p>
<p>In these texts, influential thinkers discussed the political issues arising from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution">French Revolution</a>. It has subsequently been recognised as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26213839">formative debate in terms of modern political ideas. </a></p>
<p>It was Price who sparked the controversy with a sermon in 1789 entitled <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Discourse_on_the_Love_of_Our_Country/92QNAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">A Discourse on the Love of Our Country</a>, in which he supported the opening events of the revolution in France. </p>
<p>He declared it to be a continuation of the spreading of enlightened values and ideas introduced by the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/revolution/">Glorious Revolution of 1688</a> in England. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XHjtIO0ZFs4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Price’s sermon to the Revolution Society in 1789.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This provoked a response from the philosopher and Anglo-Irish Whig MP <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edmund-Burke-British-philosopher-and-statesman">Edmund Burke</a>, with his famous text, <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/reflections-on-the-revolution-in-france-by-edmund-burke">Reflections on the Revolution in France</a>. </p>
<p>This is regarded as a formative text of modern conservative thought. It defended the importance of the traditional institutions of state and society while warning of the excesses of revolution. </p>
<p>In response, Wollstonecraft published <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-men">A Vindication of the Rights of Men</a> in 1790. It was both a critique of Burke and a defence of Price, who died a year later. </p>
<p>Then in 1792, she wrote her profoundly influential <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a>, explicitly extending dissenting ideals to women, with a searing social critique. </p>
<p>Both Price and Wollstonecraft would subsequently be written out of history. </p>
<p>Price’s biographer, <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/author/Paul-Frame-663/">Paul Frame</a>, suggests this can be partly accounted for by events in France and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Reign-of-Terror">violent turn to terror during the French Revolution</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, <a href="https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/libertys-apostle-richard-price-his-life-and-times/">Frame suggests</a> Burke was “the man who had accurately predicted the direction of the Revolution”. This “undermined the more optimistic faith in rationalism and natural rights” of Price and others. </p>
<p>They both also suffered in terms of their personal reputation. Price became a caricature of the picture painted by Burke, captured in the cartoons of the day. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Satirical cartoon of Richard Price at his writing desk overlooked by a large nose and eyes surrounded by haze representing Edmund Burke, carrying a crown, a cross and a copy of his pamphlet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503100/original/file-20230104-70338-pvtb8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A caricature of Richard Price with a vision of Edmund Burke looking over his shoulder, by James Gillray.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wollstonecraft was posthumously <a href="https://lithub.com/how-a-husbands-loving-biography-ruined-his-wifes-reputation/">undone by the candid biography of her widower</a>, its contents deployed maliciously by those who sought to undermine her. Thankfully, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman-149888">her works and good name were recovered by the feminist movement</a>. </p>
<p>As Frame suggests however, there were deeper, structural factors at play. </p>
<p>Price was the embodiment of a reformism the British establishment had a material interest in thwarting. He represented a dissenting community whose <a href="https://welshchapels.wales/nonconformity/">nonconformist Christian denominations</a> were in opposition to the established church and discriminated against. </p>
<p>Price spoke out against the crown, slavery and chauvinistic nationalism. He advocated equality, democratic principles and civic nationalism. </p>
<p>The hostility towards the progressive forces he embodied was symbolised by the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100452318;jsessionid=7677A3EB1D19321A218678801F2EDCD1">Seditious Meetings Act</a> introduced in 1795 to stifle the reform movement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration from 1790 showing three men speaking from a church pulpit to a group of others reading and tearing up documents." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503390/original/file-20230106-6729-mq16ci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsay in a 1790 engraving satirising the campaign to have the Test Act repealed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Sayers</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There would have been very real consequences had it been Price and his ilk – and not Burke – who were lionised as the spirit of Britain (a state less than a century old at the time). Arguably, we still live with the ramifications today. </p>
<p>Price’s politics eventually had their day as the social tumult of the 19th century meant the tide of reform could not be stemmed. </p>
<p>Burke’s conservatism, however, conceivably still symbolises where the balance of power sits in terms of the UK’s political culture. The Tory party is often <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA271975015&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=15555623&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E26847d25">still regarded as the natural party of power</a>, and deference towards the ruling classes remains. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A memorial stone dedicated to Richard Price in Newington Green Unitarian Church" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503386/original/file-20230106-24-s9fgwp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial to Richard Price in Newington Green Unitarian Church in North London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Cardy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given the collective amnesia towards him within Britain, it is perhaps apt that celebrations of Price’s life and works should begin this month with a talk at <a href="https://www.amphilsoc.org/events/electrifying-thinkers">the American Philosophical Association</a> in Philadelphia. </p>
<p>There will, however, be <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089200358334">a programme of events at home</a> to reflect on his contribution and contemporary relevance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599865290761785344"}"></div></p>
<p>This will include a birthday celebration in Llangeinor, an academic conference, and <a href="https://contemporancient.org/">a play</a>. </p>
<p>If he has not been celebrated by a British culture, for which he had such high hopes, then it is high time it happened in Wales, at the very least.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huw L Williams works for Cardiff University who are a lead partner in the 'Price 300' project celebrating Richard Price's tercentenary in 2023. His work as a philosopher is part-funded by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, a government-funded body responsible for promoting academic activity and teaching through the medium of Welsh. He is the President of the Adran Athroniaeth Cymdeithas Cynfyfyrwyr Prifysgol Cymru that promotes philosophy through the medium of Welsh and Welsh-language philosophy.</span></em></p>He was an important philosopher, mathematician and social reformer of his time. But Richard Price was subsequently written out of history.Huw L Williams, Reader in Political Philosophy, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755202022-06-19T19:53:09Z2022-06-19T19:53:09ZFrankenstein: how Mary Shelley’s sci-fi classic offers lessons for us today about the dangers of playing God<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452995/original/file-20220318-12943-b0cfo5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster.</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature.</em></p>
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<p><a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/frankenstein-9780241425121">Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus</a>, is an 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Set in the late 18th century, it follows scientist Victor Frankenstein’s creation of life and the terrible events that are precipitated by his abandonment of his creation. It is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction">Gothic novel</a> in that it combines supernatural elements with horror, death and an exploration of the darker aspects of the psyche. </p>
<p>It also provides a complex critique of Christianity. But most significantly, as one of the first works of science-fiction, it explores the dangers of humans pursuing new technologies and becoming God-like.</p>
<h2>The celebrity story</h2>
<p>Shelley’s Frankenstein is at the heart of what might be the greatest celebrity story of all time. Shelley was born in 1797. Her mother, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, author of the landmark A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), was, according to that book’s introduction, “the first major feminist”. </p>
<p>Shelley’s father was <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/">William Godwin</a>, political philosopher and founder of “philosophical anarchism” – he was anti-government in the moment that the great democracies of France and the United States were being born. When she was 16, Shelley eloped with radical poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley">Percy Shelley</a>, whose <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias">Ozymandias</a> (1818) is still regularly quoted (“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”).</p>
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<img alt="A pretty woman sitting between two men, looking anxious." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452987/original/file-20220318-19-lnulc8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Douglas Walton Percy Shelley Elsa Lanchester Mary Shelley and Gavin Gordon Lord Byron in the film The Bride of Frankenstein.</span>
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</figure>
<p>Their relationship seems to epitomise the Romantic era itself. It was crossed with outside love interests, illegitimate children, suicides, debt, wondering and wandering. And it ultimately came to an early end in 1822 when Percy Shelley drowned, his small boat lost in a storm off the Italian coast. The Shelleys also had a close association with the poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron">Lord Byron</a>, and it is this association that brings us to Frankenstein.</p>
<p>In 1816 the Shelleys visited Switzerland, staying on the shores of Lake Geneva, where they were Byron’s neighbours. As Mary Shelley tells it, they had all been reading ghost stories, including Coleridge’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43971/christabel">Christabel</a> (Coleridge had visited her father at the family house when Shelley was young), when Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Thus 18-year-old Shelley began to write Frankenstein.</p>
<h2>The myth of the monster</h2>
<p>The popular imagination has taken Frankenstein and run with it. The monster “Frankenstein”, originally “Frankenstein’s monster”, is as integral to Western culture as the characters and tropes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. </p>
<p>But while reasonable continuity remains between Carroll’s Alice and its subsequent reimaginings, much has been changed and lost in the translation from Shelley’s novel into the many versions that are rooted in the popular imagination.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TBHIO60whNw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>There have been many varied adaptations, from <a href="https://youtu.be/TBHIO60whNw">Edward Scissorhands</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGzc0pIjHqw">The Rocky Horror Picture Show</a> (see <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/11/the-20-best-frankenstein-films-ranked">here</a> for a top 20 list of Frankenstein films). But despite the variety, it’s hard not to think of the “monster” as a zombie-like implacable menace, as we see in the <a href="https://youtu.be/BN8K-4osNb0">trailer to the 1931 movie</a>, or a lumbering fool, as seen in <a href="https://youtu.be/nBV8Cw73zhk">the Herman Munster incarnation</a>. Further, when we add the prefix “franken” it’s usually with disdain; consider “frankenfoods”, which refers to genetically modified foods, or “frankenhouses”, which describes contemporary architectural monstrosities or bad renovations. </p>
<p>However, in Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein’s creation is far from being two-dimensional or contemptible. To use the motto of the Tyrell corporation, which, in the 1982 movie Bladerunner, creates synthetic life, the creature strikes us as being “more human than human”. Indeed, despite their dissimilarities, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAzpa1x7jU">the replicant Roy Batty in Bladerunner reproduces Frankenstein’s creature’s intense humanity</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=244&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452988/original/file-20220318-10625-19lfw2e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Roy Batty as a replicant in Blade Runner, delivering his famous tears in rain speech.</span>
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</figure>
<h2>Some key elements in the plot</h2>
<p>The story of Victor Frankenstein is nested within the story of scientist-explorer Robert Walton. For both men, the quest for knowledge is mingled with fanatical ambition. The novel begins towards the end of the story, with Walton, who is trying to sail to the North Pole, rescuing Frankenstein from <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Das_Eismeer_-_Hamburger_Kunsthalle_-_02.jpg/1280px-Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Das_Eismeer_-_Hamburger_Kunsthalle_-_02.jpg">sea ice</a>. Frankenstein is being led northwards by his creation towards a final confrontation. </p>
<p>The central moment in the novel is when Frankenstein brings his creation to life, only to be immediately repulsed by it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Victor Frankenstein, like others in the novel, is appalled by the appearance of his creation. He flees the creature and it vanishes. After a hiatus of two years, the creature begins to murder people close to Frankenstein. And when Frankenstein reneges on his promise to create a female partner for his creature, it murders his closest friend and then, on Frankenstein’s wedding night, his wife.</p>
<h2>More human than human</h2>
<p>The real interest of the novel lies not in the murders or the pursuit, but in the creature’s accounts of what <em>drove</em> him to murder. After the creature murders Frankenstein’s little brother, William, Frankenstein seeks solace in the Alps – in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog#/media/File:Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.jpg">sublime nature</a>. There, the creature comes upon Frankenstein and eloquently and poignantly relates his story. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452989/original/file-20220318-36080-1qgz6sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York Public Library</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>We learn that the creature spent a year secretly living in an outhouse attached to a hut occupied by the recently impoverished De Lacey family. As he became self-aware, the creature reflected that, “To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being.” But when he eventually attempted to reveal himself to the family to gain their companionship, he was brutally driven from them. The creature was filled with rage. He says, “I could … have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.” More human than human.</p>
<p>After Victor Frankenstein dies aboard Walton’s ship, Walton has a final encounter with the creature, as it looms over Frankenstein’s body. To the corpse, the creature says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Oh Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou lovedst.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The creature goes on to make several grand and tragic pronouncements to Walton. “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change, without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” And shortly after, about the murder of Frankenstein’s wife, the creature says: “I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey.”</p>
<p>These remarks encourage us to ponder some of the weightiest questions we can ask about the human condition:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is it that drives humans to commit horrible acts? Are human hearts, like the creature’s, fashioned for ‘love and sympathy’, and when such things are withheld or taken from us, do we attempt to salve the wound by hurting others? And if so, what is the psychological mechanism that makes this occur?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And what is the relationship between free will and horrible acts? We cannot help but think that the creature remains innocent – that he is the slave, not the master. But then what about the rest of us? </p>
<p>The rule of law generally blames individuals for their crimes – and perhaps this is necessary for a society to function. Yet I suspect the rule of law misses something vital. Epictetus, the stoic philosopher, considered such questions millennia ago. He asked: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What grounds do we have for being angry with anyone? We use labels like ‘thief’ and ‘robber’… but what do these words mean? They merely signify that people are confused about what is good and what is bad.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>Victor Frankenstein creates life only to abandon it. An unsympathetic interpretation of Christianity might see something similar in God’s relationship with humanity. Yet the novel itself does not easily support this reading; like much great art, its strength lies in its ambivalence and complexity. At one point, the creature says to Frankenstein: “Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” These and other remarks complicate any simplistic interpretation.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453199/original/file-20220321-21-1fulrev.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>In fact, the ambivalence of the novel’s religious critique supports its primary concern: the problem of technology allowing humans to become God-like. The subtitle of Frankenstein is “The Modern Prometheus”. In the Greek myth, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus">Prometheus</a> steals fire – a technology – from the gods and gives it to humanity, for which he is punished. In this myth and many other stories, technology and knowledge are double-edged. Adam and Eve eat the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and are ejected from paradise. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, <a href="https://youtu.be/RWCvMwivrDk">humanity is born when the first tool is used</a> – a tool that augments humanity’s ability to be violent.</p>
<p>The novel’s subtitle is referring to Kant’s 1755 essay, “The Modern Prometheus”. In this, Kant observes that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is such a thing as right taste in natural science, which knows how to distinguish the wild extravagances of unbridled curiosity from cautious judgements of reasonable credibility. From the Prometheus of recent times Mr. Franklin, who wanted to disarm the thunder, down to the man who wants to extinguish the fire in the workshop of Vulcanus, all these endeavors result in the humiliating reminder that Man never can be anything more than a man.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Victor Frankenstein, who suffered from an unbridled curiosity, says something similar: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind … If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And also: “Learn from me … how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.” </p>
<p>In sum: be careful what knowledge you pursue, and how you pursue it. Beware playing God.</p>
<p>Alas, history reveals the quixotic nature of Shelley and Kant’s warnings. There always seems to be a scientist somewhere whose dubious ambitions are given free rein. And beyond this, there is always the problem of the unintended consequences of our discoveries. Since Shelley’s time, we have created numerous things that we fear or loathe such as the atomic bomb, cigarettes and other drugs, chemicals such as DDT, and so on. And as our powers in the realms of genetics and artificial intelligence grow, we may yet create something that loathes us.</p>
<p>It all reminds me of sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson’s relatively recent (2009) remark <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00016553">that</a>, “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Q Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The possibilities of ‘more human than human’ artificial intelligence and the dangers of playing God and are not new – they’re the subjects of one of the world’s first science-fiction novels.Jamie Q Roberts, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1505632020-11-24T08:54:48Z2020-11-24T08:54:48ZMary Wollstonecraft statue: why public art should be collective, commemorative and embrace abstraction<p>There was much upset when the first statue tribute to the pioneering feminist and author <a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman-149888">Mary Wollstonecraft</a> was unveiled at Newington Green, north London. Created by Maggi Hambling (CBE), the silvered bronze sculpture features a small naked woman emerging from the flames of sacrifice. It has solicited responses like that of The Guardian’s art critic, Rachel Cooke, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/15/poor-mary-wollstonecraft-reduced-to-a-pippa-doll-with-pubic-hair">entitled her critique</a>: Poor Mary Wollstonecraft – Reduced to a Pippa Doll with Pubic Hair.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.maryonthegreen.org/project.shtml">Over 90% of London’s monuments celebrate men</a>. This statue is one of just a few commemorating women around the capital and, for that, it should be celebrated.</p>
<p>But, pubic critics aside, the statue also opens up some interesting debates about public monument culture and the embrace of more abstract works that are informed by a community rather than the ideas of one artist.</p>
<h2>Creating with communities</h2>
<p>Public sculpture has the potential to lose its resonance quickly. Consider the representational statues of <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/technology/letters/hill.html">Victorian politicians</a> in waistcoats and pocket watches. Many of these men, commemorated in cities across the UK, are largely unknown and their true-to-likeness statues have become “street furniture” with barely any public acknowledgement or recognition.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1326602555720425480"}"></div></p>
<p>Therefore, sculptors need to “future-proof” their representations. There are more successful methods of commemorating an individual, an event or an emotional response than by reproducing them with a sense of fidelity. </p>
<p>Sculptors who want to depict the individuality of the likes of Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf (whose <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/13/virginia-woolf-statue-fundraiser-flooded-with-donations-after-wollstonecraft-controversy">imminent sculpture is now a hot topic</a>), or respond to the Black Lives Matter movement, should involve communities in the creation process. There is then the opportunity to work with collective memory – the shared memories of a community – rather than one person’s vision.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/edward-colston-statue-toppled-how-bristol-came-to-see-the-slave-trader-as-a-hero-and-philanthropist-140271">Edward Colston statue toppled: how Bristol came to see the slave trader as a hero and philanthropist</a>
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<p>When groups feel the urge to remove sculptures, like those of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/search?q=Edward+Colston+">Edward Colston</a> in Bristol or <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/robert-milligan-statue-slave-trader-london-who-pulled-down-docklands-museum-442517">Robert Milligan</a> in London Docklands, this is because collective ideology is changing. There is an “<a href="http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/84-ICONOCLASH-GB.pdf">iconoclash</a>”, which is where an image – in this case sculpture – is contested or destroyed based on the belief that what it represents is wrong. </p>
<p>Ideas about statues change as society changes. As this happens, different groups contest the meanings behind the sculptures, leading to disagreement about whether they should be kept or taken down. But while ideologies can change, causing this iconoclash, communities retain their collective memories about something, whether they are good or bad.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/r/representational">Representational</a> sculptures (those that strive for realism) pin memories to the particular person depicted and their values. So, the image of Colston reminds us of his slave trading. </p>
<p>When statues are more figurative, their meanings become more multilayered. The sculptures become representative not of the individual but of collective memory, a feeling or moment and are then able to eschew the connection with personal values. </p>
<p>As David Lowenthal, historian and author of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Past_is_a_Foreign_Country.html?id=jMqsAQZmv5IC">The Past Is a Foreign Country</a> (1985), wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The past is everywhere … Relics, histories, memories suffuse human experience … Whether it is celebrated or rejected, attended to or ignored, the past is omnipresent. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the collective experience is incorporated into the creation and construction process of commemorative sculpture, then the resulting work will have an internal life of relevance to the community.</p>
<h2>A mining community’s Dream</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/10589/dream">Jaume Plensa’s Dream</a>(2009) in St. Helens, Merseyside is a successful example of this process. The sculpture was commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial for Contemporary Art and St. Helen’s Council in 2007 as part of the Channel 4 television participatory public art initiative, <a href="https://www.biennial.com/collaborations/jaume-plensa-dream">The Big Art Project</a>.</p>
<p>Commemorating the industrial history of the area, Dream sits on the site of the former Sutton Manor Colliery. The <a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/40489/">project evolved with deep involvement from the miners</a> who had worked on the coalfield, as well as schoolchildren and other community groups.</p>
<p>As a result of working with the community, Plensa discovered that miners carried <a href="https://lancashireminingmuseum.org/2017/08/11/miners-tally-checks/">tallies</a> – identity discs which they held to be very significant – and that they dreamt of light when working below the surface. These key issues led to the design of a luminous white head based on a plinth referencing tallies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C25%2C5755%2C4295&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370791/original/file-20201123-19-nwyo00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dream is located on the summit of the former Sutton Manor Colliery in St.Helens, Merseyside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/1311-dream-st-helens-merseyside-uk-1853583745">Pete Stuart/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ex-miners involved in the design process rejected a more literal sculpture, in the form of a miner’s lamp. The stylised dolomite stone and concrete angel aims not to represent anyone but everyone. It does not revive the past by focusing on the specifics of mining, but reflects on the collective memory, community hopes and dreams, and looks forward.</p>
<p>After some <a href="https://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/2273251.jaumes-dream-sparks-hot-debate/">initial surprise and backlash</a>, the public received the sculpture well. Former miner and member of the Dream focus group, Gary Conley, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-11034719?print=true">said</a>: “We’ve got an iconic sculpture done by a world-class artist that other major towns and cities would absolutely revere.” </p>
<p>Similarly, Maggi Hambling aimed for universality in her tribute to Wollstonecraft. “She is Everywoman … by elevating an idea, personifying the spirit, rather than depicting the individual.” <a href="https://maryonthegreen.org/docs/MOTG-SculptureLaunch2020.pdf">The commissioning team</a> sought for it to be “a source of debate … a tangible way to share Wollstonecraft’s vision and ideas”. </p>
<p>The statue’s rejection of Wollstonecraft’s features enhances its universality. It reflects all women, their achievements and power. It is a memorial to equality and therefore a compelling monument for us all. Future acts of public commemoration could learn a thing or two from it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150563/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Evelyn Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It might have many critics but the statue tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft succeeds in its abstract commemoration of the feminist. Public sculptures could learn from itEmma Evelyn Roberts, Associate Dean for Global Engagement and Programme Leader of BA History of Art & Museum Studies, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1498882020-11-11T12:55:46Z2020-11-11T12:55:46ZMary Wollstonecraft statue: a provocative tribute for a radical woman<p>A small naked female figure in silvered bronze emerges out of a swirling mass of organic matter. There is something excitingly unexpected about it all. Although not everyone shares this opinion of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54886813">recently unveiled memorial</a> in north London to the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) by the artist Maggi Hambling CBE.</p>
<p>The statue is a project ten years in the making – but centuries overdue. Wollstonecraft was one of the most defiant and intelligent voices in the period of our nation’s history which is often termed the Enlightenment (1715 – 1789). The arguments she advanced for women’s equality feel familiar today, but they were radical in her age. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft paid a high personal cost for making her voice heard. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16199/16199-h/16199-h.htm">Vilified</a> in society as an adulteress and for conceiving a child out of wedlock, her unorthodoxy was condemned by the very society she worked to improve. But her political writings are extraordinary documents, including letters in close dialogue with the leading thinkers and events of the day. </p>
<h2>Everywoman?</h2>
<p>In her new monument, Hambling does not give us a figure of Wollstonecraft, but a vision of “everywoman”. The work feels more of an intervention in <a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/statue-wars-blog-post-mary-beard/">debates about monuments</a>, than a monument for a specific person. The sculpture rejects a male tradition of public sculpture, in which the likeness of celebrated men is cast in bronze or carved in marble.</p>
<p>A statement on behalf of the campaign to raise the statue, which took a decade to source the necessary £143,300, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-north-london-feminism-b1720207.html">described the work’s design</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As opposed to traditional male heroic statuary, the freestanding woman has evolved organically from, is supported by, and does not forget, all her predecessors who advocated, campaigned and sacrificed themselves for women’s emancipation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hambling should be praised for her attempt to break with this tradition but whether this statue is a fitting tribute to Wollstonecraft can be questioned.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of the artist Maggi Hambling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368715/original/file-20201110-15-1fvi14d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sculpture’s creator Maggi Hambling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggi_Hambling#/media/File:Maggi_Hambling_2006.jpg">StOuen/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, statues don’t represent people, they represent ideas. Ideas of how we choose to see the world. Hambling’s more abstract and representative form perhaps tries to do too much: to celebrate the life and contribution of one woman, whilst celebrating the life and possibilities of all women. </p>
<p>Is such a feat even possible? In attempting to represent every woman, perhaps the statue stands testament to the impossibility of such a task. </p>
<p>The statue’s unveiling saw a swift response of <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/mary-wollstonecraft-naked-sculture-maggi-hambling-b63158.html">female commentators who question the decision</a> to present womankind, and Wollstonecraft’s contribution to our history, through an idealised naked form. <a href="https://www.jojomoyes.com/">Novelist Jojo Moyes</a> said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think it would have been nice to commemorate Mary Wollstonecraft with her clothes on […] You don’t see a lot of statues commemorating male political figures without their pants on. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fellow writer <a href="https://www.foyles.co.uk/author-imogen-hermes-gowar">Imogen Hermes Gowar</a> also rejected the “sexy toned female” figure, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nameless, nude and conventionally attractive is the only way women have ever been acceptable in public sculpture.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While such assessments misconstrue Hambling’s intention for her design, the statue is – in this early moment of its life – too provocative to please every woman. But then again, the same was true of Wollstonecraft’s own reception with her contemporaries. </p>
<h2>Wollstonecraft’s portrait</h2>
<p>It is impossible to know what Wollstonecraft would have made of the statue. She might have experienced sheer shock, perhaps, that the establishment would view her as a fitting subject for such a thing.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft dressed in white looking to the right." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368709/original/file-20201110-23-1q88gli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw02603">National Portrait Gallery, London</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hambling’s silvery creation is certainly a far cry from <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02603/Mary-Wollstonecraft">John Opie’s portrait of Wollstonecraft</a> that hangs on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery in London.</p>
<p>A woman of elegant simplicity, you would barely believe you were looking at one of Britain’s most radical writers. Painted when Wollstonecraft was pregnant with her second daughter, Mary, the portrait is a poignant reminder of tragedy around the corner. Wollstonecraft died of septicaemia following the birth. Her daughter would grow up to become <a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/mary-wollstonecraft-mary-shelley-extraordinary-mother-daughter/">a formidable figure</a> in her own right, writing her own monumental work, Frankenstein. </p>
<p>Wollstonecraft was not “every woman”. She was far more outspoken, more rebellious and braver than the average woman of her day. Upon her death, Wollstonecraft’s grieving husband, the author <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/">William Godwin</a>, wrote to his friend, the writer Thomas Holcroft, that “there does not exist her equal in the world”. Hugely individual and brilliantly intellectual, Wollstonecraft was a rarity. It could be fair to say, then, that we are still in need of a statue to capture this.</p>
<h2>Statues as history</h2>
<p>Critics of Hambling’s monument should be reminded that this does not need to be our only statue for Wollstonecraft. True, it has been a long time coming. But Wollstonecraft is a shining beacon in British women’s history – a figure due many statues and acts of remembrance. </p>
<p>Hambling’s statue should remind us rather than distract from the fact that Wollstonecraft made her own final monument in the form of her <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman">writings</a>. They are well worth reading.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Statue of Millicent Fawcett holding a banner saying 'Courage calls to courage everywhere'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368714/original/file-20201110-15-1mxk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millicent Fawcett by Gillian Wearing in Parliament Square Gardens is one of the 10% of statues commemorating women in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-england-january-6th-2019-statue-1276044091">Alan Kean/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, too, are new statistics emerging from the nation’s newfound interest in its public sculpture. Women make up more than 50% of the UK’s population but are the subject of only <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54886813">10% of the statues</a> on London’s streets. </p>
<p>Whatever we may make of Hambling’s statue, today we have one more statue of, and for, women. It is a fact well worth celebrating.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149888/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudine van Hensbergen currently receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She has received previous funding from this body, as well as from the following: Arts Council England; British Academy; Chawton House Library; School of Advanced Study, University of London; University of Oxford. She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the University and College Union.</span></em></p>Is the statue a fitting tribute to the fierce feminist writer?Claudine van Hensbergen, Associate Professor, Eighteenth-Century English Literature, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.