Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A Clockwork Worker
A Clockwork Worker
The essays by Louis Althusser and Randy Martin, Ideology and Ideological Apparatuses and Where Did the Future Go?, respectively, examine society in financial terms, reducing people to little more than commodities and a means of production. In A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) the main character Alex is shown to be a sociopath that, through experimental behavioral conditioning techniques, is reformed into a productive member of society. By the films end the viewer is left wondering if the crimes committed by the protagonist are as heinous as those committed upon him by the state. The repressive nature of “the state” that Althusser describes is evident in multiple forms throughout the film, both overtly and subtly. Althusser also discusses the true purpose of education in our society: one that does little more than condition the students to be mere cogs in the gears of what he terms “the reproduction of the conditions of production”. There can also be a direct parallel made between the preemptive planning of control over a post invasion Iraq as discussed in the Martin essay and the forced control created by the Ludovico treatment that Alex is submitted to.
Alex Burgess, as his name is revealed within the film, is a prototypical sociopath. He is shown to be a depraved, savage individual that is prone to committing crimes of both a sexual and violent nature. His need to perform these vile, villainous acts is juxtaposed against his love for classical music, specifically the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Despite his obvious high level of intelligence Alex is clearly consistently truant from school, purposefully avoiding developing what Althusser calls “the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour”, evidenced by his complete disregard of “rules of morality, civic and professional conscience”. Through an emotionally repressive procedure, involving torture and Pavlovian conditioning techniques, Alex is eventually conditioned to be a non-violent, law abiding individual. This forced personality reformation, repressing Alex from behaving in the manner that naturally comes to him, is one of the examples of the repressive state that Althusser discusses. In his own way, Alex also represents a repressive force by keeping his “droogs” in line under his control. Alex would be considered an almost 'unperson' in society since he would be unable to serve any of the useful positions that would help to serve production (manual work, as a technician, as an engineer, higher management, etc.)
These careers that help continue the reproduction of production are a by-product of the educational system. Children from a young age are conditioned to a 9 to 5 work schedule and taught only skills “which are directly useful in the different jobs in production”. Alex falls into one of the “professional of ideology” as described by Marx, but not in a way that society would deem acceptable. Alex is an exploiter in the purest form, completely unfiltered in his exploitation of the people around him. He uses everyone that he come in contact with: his parents, his principle, his “droogs”, his various victims, the prison minister, the system itself. Every encounter was simply another opportunity for Alex to find a way to exploit someone or something. Its not until Alex is forcibly transformed, re-educated if you will, that he becomes someone that should be able to become a contributing member of society. The problem arises in that Alex has been removed of the very thing that created the exploiter within him, so instead he would be forced to become another “professional of ideology”, only this time it would be in his unnatural position of the exploited. Alex is transformed into his natural opposite, from hunter to hunted, and, despite being made into a contributing member of society, he is robbed of his humanity due to the removal of his free will. Instead of wanting to do the right thing simply because it's the right thing, Alex now does the morally right thing because otherwise he is greeted with nauseating pain. Even in the world of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, where thoughtcrime is a punishable offense, protagonist Winston Smith asserts that “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull”. For Alex even thoughtcrime has become an impossibility, since even the thought of any type of sexual or violent behavior leads to crippling physical pain.
Martin suggests that the only way to properly deal with those that are perpetually placing the general populace at risk is to deal with them prior to them being able to commit these heinous acts; preventative policing, if you will. In essence, it can be argued that the United States has attempted to perform a nationwide Ludovico technique upon the Iraqi peoples. The U.S., much like the State in Clockwork, along with countless previous “civilizing missions” by nations in the past, is attempting to enter an area and change the natural behaviors and beliefs held in that particular place or, in the case of Alex, person. These types of missions are always wrought with difficulty and met with resistance, and almost never occur with massive amounts of casualties on both sides.
The structured control of the powers that be has created a society that continues to reproduce more members for the means of production. There is an appearance of free will in both our society, post-war Iraq, and the dystopian world that Alex inhabits. Through the school systems some children are “destined” for certain types of employment, i.e. upper management, while others await a different path, i.e. manual labor. Post-war Iraq is led to believe that they are being rescued, but in essence they are simply being added to the capitalist gears, and the whole time it was made to appear that they wanted these changes to occur. As for Alex, in the films end he is liberated from his “cure” and once again has the free will to return to his violent lifestyle. His eagerness to return to his sadistic lifestyle begs the question: was the removal of his free will really such a bad thing?
The essays by Louis Althusser and Randy Martin, Ideology and Ideological Apparatuses and Where Did the Future Go?, respectively, examine society in financial terms, reducing people to little more than commodities and a means of production. In A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) the main character Alex is shown to be a sociopath that, through experimental behavioral conditioning techniques, is reformed into a productive member of society. By the films end the viewer is left wondering if the crimes committed by the protagonist are as heinous as those committed upon him by the state. The repressive nature of “the state” that Althusser describes is evident in multiple forms throughout the film, both overtly and subtly. Althusser also discusses the true purpose of education in our society: one that does little more than condition the students to be mere cogs in the gears of what he terms “the reproduction of the conditions of production”. There can also be a direct parallel made between the preemptive planning of control over a post invasion Iraq as discussed in the Martin essay and the forced control created by the Ludovico treatment that Alex is submitted to.
Alex Burgess, as his name is revealed within the film, is a prototypical sociopath. He is shown to be a depraved, savage individual that is prone to committing crimes of both a sexual and violent nature. His need to perform these vile, villainous acts is juxtaposed against his love for classical music, specifically the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Despite his obvious high level of intelligence Alex is clearly consistently truant from school, purposefully avoiding developing what Althusser calls “the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour”, evidenced by his complete disregard of “rules of morality, civic and professional conscience”. Through an emotionally repressive procedure, involving torture and Pavlovian conditioning techniques, Alex is eventually conditioned to be a non-violent, law abiding individual. This forced personality reformation, repressing Alex from behaving in the manner that naturally comes to him, is one of the examples of the repressive state that Althusser discusses. In his own way, Alex also represents a repressive force by keeping his “droogs” in line under his control. Alex would be considered an almost 'unperson' in society since he would be unable to serve any of the useful positions that would help to serve production (manual work, as a technician, as an engineer, higher management, etc.)
These careers that help continue the reproduction of production are a by-product of the educational system. Children from a young age are conditioned to a 9 to 5 work schedule and taught only skills “which are directly useful in the different jobs in production”. Alex falls into one of the “professional of ideology” as described by Marx, but not in a way that society would deem acceptable. Alex is an exploiter in the purest form, completely unfiltered in his exploitation of the people around him. He uses everyone that he come in contact with: his parents, his principle, his “droogs”, his various victims, the prison minister, the system itself. Every encounter was simply another opportunity for Alex to find a way to exploit someone or something. Its not until Alex is forcibly transformed, re-educated if you will, that he becomes someone that should be able to become a contributing member of society. The problem arises in that Alex has been removed of the very thing that created the exploiter within him, so instead he would be forced to become another “professional of ideology”, only this time it would be in his unnatural position of the exploited. Alex is transformed into his natural opposite, from hunter to hunted, and, despite being made into a contributing member of society, he is robbed of his humanity due to the removal of his free will. Instead of wanting to do the right thing simply because it's the right thing, Alex now does the morally right thing because otherwise he is greeted with nauseating pain. Even in the world of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, where thoughtcrime is a punishable offense, protagonist Winston Smith asserts that “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull”. For Alex even thoughtcrime has become an impossibility, since even the thought of any type of sexual or violent behavior leads to crippling physical pain.
Martin suggests that the only way to properly deal with those that are perpetually placing the general populace at risk is to deal with them prior to them being able to commit these heinous acts; preventative policing, if you will. In essence, it can be argued that the United States has attempted to perform a nationwide Ludovico technique upon the Iraqi peoples. The U.S., much like the State in Clockwork, along with countless previous “civilizing missions” by nations in the past, is attempting to enter an area and change the natural behaviors and beliefs held in that particular place or, in the case of Alex, person. These types of missions are always wrought with difficulty and met with resistance, and almost never occur with massive amounts of casualties on both sides.
The structured control of the powers that be has created a society that continues to reproduce more members for the means of production. There is an appearance of free will in both our society, post-war Iraq, and the dystopian world that Alex inhabits. Through the school systems some children are “destined” for certain types of employment, i.e. upper management, while others await a different path, i.e. manual labor. Post-war Iraq is led to believe that they are being rescued, but in essence they are simply being added to the capitalist gears, and the whole time it was made to appear that they wanted these changes to occur. As for Alex, in the films end he is liberated from his “cure” and once again has the free will to return to his violent lifestyle. His eagerness to return to his sadistic lifestyle begs the question: was the removal of his free will really such a bad thing?
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