By some happy coincidence, at around the same time that Leon Kass recommended
that the President's Bioethics Council read Nathaniel Hawthorne's story
The
Birthmark, in preparation for their deliberations, I also happened
to be rereading Russell Kirk's great book, The
Conservative Mind, in which he too extols the virtues of Hawthorne.
Earth's
Holocaust is one of the stories that Kirk particularly singles out
for its exploration of conservative themes. It's part of Hawthorne's
Mosses
from an Old Manse collection, but it's also available
on-line and well worth a read.
The story concerns a massive bonfire in which the people of the world,
convinced that their modern society has reached a state of near perfection,
determine to burn up all the outdated old knowledge from Man's dark past
:
Once upon a time - but whether in the time past or
time to come, is a matter of little or no moment- this wide world had become
so overburthened with an accumulation of worn-out
trumpery, that the inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a
general
bonfire. The site fixed upon, at the representation
of the insurance companies, and as being as central a spot as any other
on the
globe, was one of the broadest prairies of the West,
where no human habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where
a vast assemblage of spectators might commodiously
admire the show. Having a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining,
likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire might
reveal some profundity or moral truth, heretofore hidden in mist or darkness,
I made it convenient to journey thither and be present.
As our narrator watches, into the flames go all of literature and art,
the titles and insignias of rank, the decorations and medals bestowed upon
soldiers, the weapons, the fashionable clothing, the liquor and tobacco,
the clerical vestments and the church buildings entire, all the accretions
of Western civilization, until even the Bible is added :
[A]s the final sacrifice of human error, what else
remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful pile, except the Book,
which, though a celestial revelation to past ages,
was but a voice from a lower sphere, as regarded the present race of man?
It was done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood
and worn-out truth- things that the earth had never needed, or had ceased
to need,
or had grown childishly weary of- fell the ponderous
church Bible, the great old volume, that had lain so long on the cushion
of the pulpit, and whence the pastor's solemn voice
had given holy utterance on so many a Sabbath day.
And so, purified in the flame, and rid of all of the hoary old thoughts
that had been holding mankind back for so long, the reformers prepare to
face their perfect future. The former executioners, who have cast
into the fire the implements used by the various nations for administering
capital punishment, commiserate about how they will no longer have any
work, now that Man is perfect, but a stranger interrupts their reverie
:
'The best counsel for all of us is,' remarked the
hangman, 'that- as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor- I
help you,
my three friends, to a comfortable end upon the
nearest tree, and then hang myself on the same bough. This is no world
for us
any longer.'
'Poh, poh, my good fellows!' said a dark-complexioned
personage, who now joined the group- his complexion was indeed
fearfully dark, and his eyes glowed with a redder
light than that of the bonfire- 'Be not so cast down, my dear friends;
you shall see good days yet. There is one thing
that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without
which
all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing
at all; yes- though they had burnt the earth itself to a cinder.'
'And what may that be?' eagerly demanded the last
murderer.
'What but the human heart itself!' said the dark-visaged
stranger, with a portentous grin. 'And unless they hit upon some method
of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will
reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery-the same old shapes, or worse
ones-
which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble
to consume to ashes. I have stood by, this live-long night, and laughed
in my
sleeve at the whole business. Oh, take my word for
it, it will be the old world yet!'
This brief conversation supplied me with a theme
for lengthened thought. How sad a truth- if true it were- that Man's age-long
endeavor for perfection had served only to render
him the mockery of the Evil Principle, from the fatal circumstance of an
error
at the very root of the matter! The heart-the heart-
there was the little yet boundless sphere, wherein existed the original
wrong,
of which the crime and misery of this outward world
were merely types. Purify that inward sphere; and the many shapes of evil
that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost
our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms, and vanish of their
own
accord. But if we go no deeper than the Intellect,
and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify
what is
wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream;
so unsubstantial, that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have
so
faithfully described, were what we choose to call
a real event, and a flame that would scorch the finger- or only a phosphoric
radiance, and a parable of my own brain!
For good reason does he call this tale a '"parable", for in just a few
pages Hawthorne presents several of the central themes that unify his work,
ideas which form the very core of the conservative critique : that Man's
sinfulness is an immutable part of his character; that rationalists, reformers,
and progressives delude themselves with their utopian notions of the perfectibility
of Man; that in their delusion they do incalculable damage to the culture,
while leaving human nature untouched; and that, no matter the "progress"
they make, evil lurks, waiting to rear its ugly head and shatter their
dreams.
(Reviewed:07-Mar-02)
Grade: (A+)
Websites:
Nathaniel Hawthorne Links:
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864) (kirjasto)
-Encyclopædia
Britannica : Hawthorne, Nathaniel Y«
-Hawthorne
in Salem
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne Society
-The House of
the 7 Gables (Salem, MA)
-ESSAY
: Y«Chiefly About War Matters (Nathaniel Hawthorne, JULY Y«1862, Atlantic
Monthly)
-ETEXT
: The Birthmark
-ETEXT
: The Birthmark
-ETEXTS
: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (Bartleby.com)
-ETEXTS
: Nathaniel Hawthorne (Self Knowledge)
-The
Classic Text : Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (Transcendentalists.com)
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864) (American Literature on the Web)
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne : A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection Home Page
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864) (D. Campbell, Gonzaga)
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (IPL Online Literary Criticism Collection)
-The
SAC LitWeb Nathaniel Hawthorne Page
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864)(Perspectives in American Literature: A Research
and Reference Guide, An Ongoing Online Project © Paul P. Reuben)
-About
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Under The Sun)
-American
Writers: Nathaniel Hawthorne (C-SPAN)
-LitGothic
| Nathaniel Hawthorne page
-ESSAY
: Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Melville.org)
-ESSAY: Half a Puritan: Hawthorne understood total depravity but missed the gospel (Gene Edward Veith, World)
-Major
Molineaux Site : This is a site exploring the short story My Kinsman
Major Molineaux, first published in 1832 by Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Young
Goodman Brown : This is a site exploring the short story Young Goodman
Brown, first published in 1835 by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
-ClassicNotes:
About Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864): Teacher's Resource File
-ESSAY
: Anti-Science-Fiction : Why did Bush's bioethics czar order his colleagues
to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? (Nick Gillespie, January 18, 2002, Slate)
-ESSAY
: Birthmarks and Bioethics : Why is the head of the President's Council
on Bioethics forcing its members to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? (Nick Gillespie,
January 18, 2002, Reason)
-ESSAY
: The Crimson Birthmark (William Safire, 1/21/02, NY Times)
-ESSAY
: Cure or quest for perfection? (Ellen Goodman, 1/24/2002, Boston Globe)
-ANNOTATED
REVIEW : of The Birthmark (Janice L. Willms, Medical Humanities)
-REVIEW
: of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Julian Hawthorne,
1886, Atlantic Monthly)
-REVIEW
: of Y« The Marble Faun, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (James Russell Lowell,
A P R I L 1 8 6 0, Atlantic Monthly)
Book-related and General Links:
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864) (kirjasto)
-Encyclopædia
Britannica : Hawthorne, Nathaniel Ý
-Hawthorne
in Salem
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne Society
-The House of
the 7 Gables (Salem, MA)
-ESSAY
: ÝChiefly About War Matters (Nathaniel Hawthorne, JULY Ý1862, Atlantic
Monthly)
-ETEXT
: Earth's Holocaust by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
-ETEXT
: The Birthmark
-ETEXT
: The Birthmark
-ETEXT
: EARTH'S HOLOCAUST (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1844)
-ETEXTS
: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (Bartleby.com)
-ETEXTS
: Nathaniel Hawthorne (Self Knowledge)
-The
Classic Text : Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (Transcendentalists.com)
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864) (American Literature on the Web)
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne : A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection Home Page
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864) (D. Campbell, Gonzaga)
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (IPL Online Literary Criticism Collection)
-The
SAC LitWeb Nathaniel Hawthorne Page
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864)(Perspectives in American Literature: A Research
and Reference Guide, An Ongoing Online Project © Paul P. Reuben)
-About
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Under The Sun)
-American
Writers: Nathaniel Hawthorne (C-SPAN)
-LitGothic
| Nathaniel Hawthorne page
-ESSAY
: Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Melville.org)
-Major
Molineaux Site : This is a site exploring the short story My Kinsman
Major Molineaux, first published in 1832 by Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Young
Goodman Brown : This is a site exploring the short story Young Goodman
Brown, first published in 1835 by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
-ClassicNotes:
About Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Nathaniel
Hawthorne (1804-1864): Teacher's Resource File
-ESSAY
: Anti-Science-Fiction : Why did Bush's bioethics czar order his colleagues
to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? (Nick Gillespie, January 18, 2002, Slate)
-ESSAY
: Birthmarks and Bioethics : Why is the head of the President's Council
on Bioethics forcing its members to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? (Nick Gillespie,
January 18, 2002, Reason)
-ESSAY
: The Crimson Birthmark (William Safire, 1/21/02, NY Times)
-ESSAY
: Cure or quest for perfection? (Ellen Goodman, 1/24/2002, Boston Globe)
-ESSAY
: Ignorance and Bliss : Today's scientific breakthroughs raise an old
question: Is the pursuit of knowledge always a good thing? A long tradition
in Western thought holds that it is not. (Mark Lilla, Wilson Quarterly)
-REVIEW
: of FRANKENSTEIN'S FOOTSTEPS: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture, by
Jon Turney. (Edward Tenner, Wilson Quarterly)
-ANNOTATED
REVIEW : of The Birthmark (Janice L. Willms, Medical Humanities)
-REVIEW
: of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Julian Hawthorne,
1886, Atlantic Monthly)
-REVIEW
: of Ý The Marble Faun, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (James Russell Lowell,
A P R I L Ý 1 8 6 0, Atlantic Monthly)
BIOTECH/BIOETHICS :
-SPEECH
: Remarks by the President on Stem Cell Research (The Bush Ranch Crawford,
Texas, 8/09/01)
-SPEECH
: The Bush Decision on Stem-Cell Research (George W. Bush, Crawford,
Texas, August 9, 2001)
-EXECUTIVE
ORDER : Creation of the President's Council on Bioethics
(White House, November 28, 2001)
-President's
Council on Bioethics
-President
Names Members of Bioethics Council (January 16, 2002)
-ESSAY
: Bush Unveils Bioethics Council Human Cloning, Tests on Cloned Embryos
Will Top Agenda of Panel's 1st Meeting (Rick Weiss, Washington Post, January
17, 2002)
-ESSAY
: Opinion Journalism at the Post : The Washington Post confuses an
editorial with a news story, and takes a shot at the
president's new Bioethics Council. (J. Bottum, 01/18/2002, Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY
: Kass Commission Names Emerge (Nick Schulz, 1/15/02, techCentralStation)
-ESSAY
: ÝTallying the New Bioethics Council : Has Leon Kass stacked the
deck? (Ronald Bailey, January 23, 2002, Reason)
-SYMPOSIUM
: Did Bush Do the Right Thing? (Kathryn Jean Lopez, August 10, 2001,
National Review)
-ESSAY
: The Incoherent Embryophile (Michael Kinsley, 11/30/01, Washington
Post)
-ESSAY
: Rebels Against the Future : Witnessing the birth of the global anti-technology
movement (Ronald Bailey, February 28, 2001, Reason)
-ESSAY
: The Future Is Now, II (William Kristol, 04/15/2002, Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY
: The Remastered Race : Artificial chromosomes and in vitro screening
are giving new life to the eugenics debate. The question is not whether
we want to engineer embryos but how far it should go. (Brian Alexander,
April 2002, Wired)
-ESSAY
: Advice Fit for a President : New bioethics council faces tough challenges,
harsh criticism (Eugene Russo, The Scientist, Feb. 18, 2002)
-ESSAY
: Wanna Buy a Bioethicist? : Some corporations have discovered that
bioethics makes good public relations. (Christianity Today, October 1,
2001)
-Center
for Bioethics and Human Dignity
-The World
Transhumanist Association
-Extropianism
-Center for the
Study of Technology and Society
-THE
ISSUES : Stem Cell Research (Washington Post)
-Coverage
of the Cloning Debate (NY Times)
-Bioresearch
Symposium (Reason, November 2001)
-Commentary
on Stem Cell Research
-CharlesMurtaugh.com
(a bioblog from a Harvard post Doc)
-ARTICLE
: The First Human Cloned Embryo (11/25/01, Scientific American)
LEON KASS :
-Leon
Richard Kass : Curriculum Vitae (Born: Chicago, Illinois, February
12, 1939)
-Committee
on Social Thought (University of Chicago)
-STATEMENT
: The Inhuman Use of Human Beings : A Statement on Embryo Research by the
Ramsey Colloquium (First Things, January 1995)
-ESSAY
: The Wisdom of Repugnance (Leon R. Kass)
-ESSAY
: The wisdom of repugnance. (Leon R. Kass)
-ESSAY
: LíChaim and Its Limits: Why Not Immortality? (Leon R. Kass, First
Things, May 2001)
-ESSAY
: Ban Stand : CLONING'S BIG TEST (Leon R. Kass and Daniel Callahan,
08.06.01, New Republic)
-ESSAY
: Preventing a Brave New World : WHY WE SHOULD BAN HUMAN CLONING NOW
(Leon R. Kass, 05.17.01, New Republic)
-ESSAY
: The End of Courtship (Leon R. Kass, The Public Interest)
-ESSAY
: Dehumanization Triumphant (Leon R. Kass, First Things, August/September
1996)
-ESSAY
: Farmers, Founders, and Fratricide: The Story of Cain and Abel (Leon
R. Kass, First Things, April 1996)
-ESSAY
: What's Your Name? (Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass, First Things, November
1995)
-ESSAY
: Proposing Courtship (Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass, First Things,
October 1999)
-ESSAY
: Educating Father Abraham: The Meaning of Wife (Leon R. Kass, First
Things, November 1994)
-SYMPOSIUM
: The Sanctity of Life Seduced: A Symposium on Medical Ethics (First
Things, April 1994)
-REVIEW
: of Aldous Huxley Brave New World (1932) (Leon R. Kass, First Things)
-REVIEW
: of BRAVE NEW WORLDS Staying Human in the Genetic Future. By Bryan Appleyard
(Leon R. Kass , NY Times Book Review)
-ESSAY
: The Ethics of Human Cloning By Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson (AEI)
-BOOK
SUMMARY : The Ethics of Human Cloning By Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson
(AEI)
-REVIEW
: of The Ethics of Cloning (DAVID PAPINEAU, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying. Edited
by Amy A. Kass and Leon R. Kass (Alan Jacobs, First Things)
-REVIEW
: of The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of our Nature. By Leon
R. Kass (Molly Finn, First Things)
-DISCUSSION
: Human Cloning Scientists at Advanced Cell Technology say they have
cloned human embryos for the purpose of stem cell research. After a Susan
Dentzer background report, Gwen Ifill examines the human cloning debate
with Ronald Green, head of an
ethics advisory board for ACT; and Leon Kass, bioethicist at the University
of Chicago and chair of the President's Council on Bioethics. (Online Newshour,
November 26, 2001, PBS)
-ESSAY
: A Moral Appetite : In a new book on eating, Leon Kass says that we
are not only what we eat, but also how, why, and with whom. (University
of Chicago Magazine)
-PROFILE
:
SCIENTIST AT WORK / LEON R. KASS : Moralist of Science Ponders Its Power
(NICHOLAS WADE, 3/19/02, NY Times)
-PROFILE
: Leon Kass: A national treasure (George Weigel, Ethics and Public
Policy Center)
-PROFILE
: of Leon Kass : Irrationalist in Chief (Chris Mooney, Sep/Oct 2001,
American Prospect)
-PROFILE
: Leon Kass: The ethics cop (Michele Orecklin, 8/20/01, CNN/TIME)
-PROFILE
: Who Is Leon Kass? Ý(Stuart Shepard, Family News in Focus)
-ESSAY
: The Crimson Birthmark (William Safire, 1/21/02, NY Times)
-ESSAY
: Cure or quest for perfection? (Ellen Goodman, 1/24/2002, Boston Globe)
-ESSAY
: Anti-Science-Fiction : Why did Bush's bioethics czar order his colleagues
to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? (Nick Gillespie, January
18, 2002, Slate)
-ESSAY
: Birthmarks and Bioethics : Why is the head of the President's Council
on Bioethics forcing its members to read Nathaniel Hawthorne? (Nick
Gillespie, January 18, 2002, Reason)
-ESSAY
: A novel approach to work : A variety of professionals are turning
to literature to gain insights on the issues they face each day. (Sara
Steindorf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, 1/29/02, CS
Monitor)
-ESSAY
: Kass Warfare : The president's bioethics council enters the cloning
fray. (Andrew Ferguson, 02/04/2002, , Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY
: The newest issue of the Public Interest offers deep insights into some
of the minds on the Kass commission. (David Skinner, 01/24/2002 , Weekly
Standard)
-ESSAY
: Loving Leon : The Weekly Standard's favorite intellectual (Nicholas
Confessore, 1.29.02, The American Prospect)
-ESSAY
: Two Kinds of Spin, Partisan and Literary (Chris Mooney, 1.22.02,
American Prospect)
-ESSAY
: Back to nature : The bioethics czar's new right-hand man is passionately
opposed to abortion, public schools, federal taxes and
Democrats (Arthur Allen, Nov. 30, 2001, Salon)
-ESSAY
: The Kass Council: Some Advice (Glenn Reynolds, 01/23/2002, Tech Central
Station)
DISCUSSION :
-ARTICLE
: EU moving towards an ageing population (Sharon Spiteri, EU Observer,
17.01.2002)
-ESSAY
: Does Human Nature Have a Future? : The end of history, Bobos, and biotechnology.
(Peter Augustine Lawler, 02/04/2002, Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY
: The Cloning Conundrum