The Birthmark, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, THE BIRTHMARK



Are Hawthorne's stories too ambiguous to be well understood? That's a common accusation. I don't agree. Yes, his stories admit of more than a single interpretation, but reality is like that. I recommend getting started with Hawthorne by reading his exceptionally profound short stories.



Hawthorne wrote during the middle 19^th century when American optimism reigned. Hawthorne's well known nearby neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist and poet, eschewed his Puritan past in favor of a pantheistic god indistinct from creation. His contemporary intellectuals ignored personal sin, thus laying the groundwork for our contemporary sense that mankind is progressing toward some higher state.



Hawthorne was an intellectual anachronism. Think of him as the last Puritan. He knew that our immutable human nature was flawed and that people were strongly inclined towards sin. In The Birthmark, he took issue with those who were the forerunners of our contemporaries who suppose they can create a perfect society.



In the plot, Alymer, a brilliant scientist, is married to the stunningly beautiful Georgiana. Her beautiful features were marred only by a crimson birthmark, shaped like a small hand, on her left cheek. Already the story may remind you of Sleeping Beauty, the girl blessed with everything. She was a princess, possessed of beauty, intelligence, and wealth. However at her Baptism, an evil fairy cursed her with endless sleep. The point is that we all are blessed with at least some positive attributes. Nevertheless, because of original sin, we all share the curse of death.
Alymer became obsessively determined to remove Georgiana's
birthmark, “a visible mark of earthly imperfection.” The mark was a “symbol of his wife's susceptibility to sin, sorrow, decay, and death.” Eventually, he convinced Georgiana to perceive her birthmark as repulsive. Alymer is a figure of those Americans that morphed into the religious and political Progressives of the early 20^th century. Today we call them liberals. They are determined to build a perfect society, to cure every ill. Idealistic secondary teachers and college professors now encourage students to “make a difference” in the world.



Herewith an apropos note on conservative as opposed to liberal political theory. The fundamental difference lies in their respective perception of human nature. Like Hawthorne, the conservative believes, along with the Catholic Church, that human nature is immutable, and, according to the doctrine of original sin, it is basically good but flawed. As G. K. Chesterton said, original sin is the only Church doctrine that can be proved. The evidence is in the daily news.



The liberal believes that human nature is not immutable but malleable. Therefore, human social engineers can reshape human nature and thus bring about the inevitable perfectibility of mankind.



Denying original sin, the liberal must postulate other basic causes of human misbehavior. In 1789, French revolutionaries attributed evil acts to inequality. The 19^th century socialists taught that evil resulted from an unequal distribution of wealth. The Russian Communists created a socialist society, expecting that, in time, there would emerge “the new Soviet man.” Unfortunately, after 70 years of socialism, Russians were still engaging in stealing, lying, and violence. Freudian psychology, dating from 1900, taught that repressed sexual desires caused evil and thus insisted on the need to express ones volcanic inner inclinations. Contrary to that theory, there are good reasons for disciplining concupiscence—a strengthened will is not only good in itself, but also produces an elevated and more powerful intellect. I may cover that in a future review. Freud may be all but forgotten by now, but unleashed sex is now the American norm. It has done nothing to eliminate evil. Americans have historically put their hopes in education. Educate the masses and they will behave. Except that even well educated people commit crimes, even violent crimes. Now the so-called feminists think they know the cause of violence—testosterone. And so the American schools are attempting to re-socialize boys so that they will be more like girls. Truth be told, some re-socialized boys will be more docile and thus unable to function as males must. Moreover, many will counter their socialization and become super-masculine, more prone to violence.



There is partial truth to the liberals' belief of why evil is rampant. But the various claims of root causes are actually vices associated with and in support of the original sin doctrine.



Because they deny the concept of an immutable human nature, they deny conservative objections that all proposed liberal solutions are contrary to human nature. Why is that important? Because--any attempt to remake humans will produce some intended results, but only at a huge price—the price being the necessity of police and/or cultural control of the populace. The Soviets, for example, forbid people from unauthorized buying or selling of goods, but compliance necessitated strict policing. Few realize it, but buying, selling, trading, swamping, or bartering of goods and services is inherent in human nature. It must be; archeologists now know that humans have been freely exchanging goods and services for centuries prior to recorded history. The book to read is The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley, c2010.



Alymer's refusal to accept Georgiana's barely visible birthmark is akin to a fairly common phenomenon. In this less than perfect world, all too often the perfect is the enemy of the good. For a social example, think of people who refuse to vote for a particular candidate because they find fault, a real fault perhaps, with his stance on a particular issue. Their ideologically pure refusal often leads to a more seriously flawed candidate taking office.

That Georgiana became convinced that her spouse was right—that her birthmark was hideous, speaks to another contemporary phenomenon. Given time and frequent propaganda, a large mass of people can even come to detest themselves for what they are. Caucasian liberal Americans, descendants of those who made America the greatest country in the history of the world, are now ashamed of what they are—ashamed even to the point that they tolerate any accusation hurled at them, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it is hurled from approved minorities—blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans.



Alymer had a laboratory assistant named Aminadab. I first read the story long ago, as an undergraduate. Only on later readings did I notice that Aminadab spelled backwards is Bad Anima, anima being Latin for soul. Clearly Aminidab was an evil soul mate, a demon no less, to Alymer.



When Georgiana expressed doubt about surgically removing the birthmark, Alymer responded with confidence bespeaking hubris. “I have spent much thought upon the subject...I am convinced of the perfect practicality of its removal.” That reminded me of the liberals' theme song of the 1960s, the one about dreaming the impossible dream. So they gave us the Great Society, as President Lyndon Johnson labeled it, and now, a couple of generations later, his unprecedented spending ladled out money to all kinds of groups, has metastasized into the entitlement society, for which there are insufficient funds to pay for its upkeep, not to mention horrendous unintended consequences. To make a deplorable story short, the net result is millions of people burdened with counter-productive dependency needs. Such people live in a culture of poverty in which they believe they are incapable of functioning without government aid. And so they don't.



To his credit, Alymer addressed the possibility that scientists might discover nature's secrets and then misuse their power. To his discredit, he said that “a philosopher [read: scientist] who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it.” Don't believe it. In the 1930s, the German Nazi government decreed, and their scientists implemented, a eugenics policy. Supposed super men and women, i.e., Ubermenschen, would inter-marry thus producing super children. Now because what is known about DNA allows medical professionals to more or less predict certain positive qualities in offspring, many unwed women have opted for pregnancy via sperm from unknown, but presumably superior, donors. As if fathers in the home are superfluous. I don't doubt that our contemporary biochemists will produce much that is good. However, I am also certain that scientists, well funded and highly knowledgeable but not religious and unbound by moral limits, will produce unfortunate and unintended consequences and even some monstrosities.

Alymer believed that we should trust science. But science, which deals only with material things, is itself value-neutral. Our most troubling problems come from the intellectual and/or spiritual realm. In other words, what scientist do with their knowledge is the problem, not the knowledge itself. History certainly affirms that weakened human nature cannot be trusted with certain matters. Besides test tube babies, there are other sinful consequences, include the destruction of soul-bearing embryos. Expect eugenics to make a sophisticated comeback, and this time many of the consequences will be horrific.
Georgiana, awed by Alymer's successes, said “It has made me worship you more than ever.” The keyword is “worship.” In our time, science, disdainful of religion, has taken on the cult status of a pagan culture.

Near the end, Alymer realized the danger into which he was placing his loving, trusting wife. “Know then..that this crimson hand [birthmark], superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception.” But he was not deterred.



To begin the operation, Georgiana drank from a goblet. “She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his [Alymer's] hand. ““Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain.”” The Eucharistic symbolism is clear—Science is crossing into matters reserved to religion.



The operation was a success, the birthmark was removed, but with unforeseen and most unfortunate consequences. Lesson: Solving human problems at the expense of limiting freedom inherent in human nature leads to dreadful consequences.



Incidentally, Hawthorne's religious thinking, whether he realized it or not, was essentially Catholic. That Catholic sense must have affected his daughter Rose. She joined the Church—something highly unusual in 19^th century New England, and became a Catholic nun. Well known for her work with the sick and for her exceptional sanctity, she has been proposed for canonization.