A Clockwork Orange
Resucked
Anthony Burgess:
the Cultural Fallacy
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Novelist
Scholar
Playwright
Composer
Poet
Broadcaster
Theologian
Etc. etc.
Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange
SOCIAL SATIRE
 “By the time their pathetic
pop-discs had been twice
spun each (there were
two: ‘Honey Nose’, sung
by Ike Yard and “Night
After Day After Night’,
moaned by two horrible
yarbless like eunuchs
whose names I forget)….”
Protagonist: not an “anti-hero”
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A-lex: (Gr)” ‘without words’
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“The dialect of the tribe,” said Dr. Brodsky, “….most
of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal
penetration.”
A-lex; (L.) ‘without the Law.’
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‘dystopia’—broken place: law & order struggles to
contain violence.
St. Paul: the state of man before the moral (divine)
code is given.
• “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by
nature things required by the law, they are a law for
themselves, even though they do not have the law”
(Romans 2:14)
Education Fallacy
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“There was music playing, a very nice malenky string quartet,
my brothers, by Claudius Birdman, one that I knew well. I had
to have a smeck, though, thinking of what I'd viddied once in
one of these like articles on Modern Youth, about how Modern
Youth would be better off if A Lively Appreciation Of The Arts
could be like encouraged.
“Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten
Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized.
Civilized my syphilised yarbles. Music always sort of sharpened
me up, O my brothers, and made me like feel like old Bog
himself, ready to make with the old donner and blitzen and
have vecks and ptitsas creeching away in my ha ha power.”
Education Fallacy, con’t.
“But, sir, sirs, I see that it's wrong. It's wrong because it's
against like society, it's wrong because every veck on
earth has the right to live and be happy without being
beaten and tolchocked and knifed. I've learned a lot, oh
really I have.“ But Dr. Brodsky had a loud smeck at that,
showing all his white zoobies.
“The heresy of an age of reason," or some such
slovos. "I see what is right and approve, but I do what is
wrong. No, no, my boy, you must leave it all to us. But be
cheerful about it. It will soon be all over. In less than a
fortnight now you'll be a free man." Then he patted me on
the pletcho.”
“Sweetness & Light”….
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“Educate an idiot and get an Educated idiot.”
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Clockwork Orange: Alex the Droog:
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Culture makes cultured hooligans
Smarter at being violent
Heightens the intensity of violent experience
Makes violence a cultured æsthetic experience
Conclusion: culture and education is neutral
on moral behavior.
The Arnold Problematic
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Unspoken in Matthew Arnold:
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Christianity was a shared system of belief for England,
which asserted higher values than individualism.
Arnold did not personally believe in the dogmas of
Christianity: helped propagate the idea that Faith was no
longer viable (“Dover Beach” e.g.)
Christianity replaced by Education—i.e. cultural education.
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Culture replaces Religion.
The Pedagogical Fallacy:
• Education—teaching culture—effects moral
behavior
Left Wing
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“All right, all right, eh? What a superb
device he can be, this boy….Anything for
the cause.”
…“Stop treating me like a thing that’s got
to be just used. I’m not an idiot you can
impose on, you stupid bratchnies.”
Right-wing
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Minister: Cram criminals together and what do you
get - concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of
punishment.
Governor: I agree, sir, what we need are larger
prisons - more money.
Minister: Not a chance, my dear fellow. The
Government can't be concerned any longer with
outmoded penological theories. Soon we may be
needing all our prison space for political offenders.
Common criminals like these are best dealt with on a
purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that's all.
Full implementation in a year's time. Punishment
means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy
their so-called punishment.
Right-Wing modified.
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GOVENOR: “I don't suppose you know who that was this
morning, do you? That was no less a personage than the
Minister of the Interior and what they call a very new
broom. Well, these new ridiculous ideas have come at
last, and orders are orders, though I may say to you in
confidence that I do not approve. An eye for an eye, I say,
if someone hits you, you hit back, do you not? Why then
should not the State very severely hit by you brutal
offenders not hit back also? But the new view is to say
no. The new view is that we turn the bad into good. All of
which seems to be grossly unjust. Hmmmmmm.”
Science-wing
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"Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it
belonged to the prison charlie. "He has no real choice,
has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to
that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was
clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He
ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice."
"These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are
not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are
concerned only with cutting down crime--"
God-wing
“It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It
may be horrible to be good. And when I say
that to you I realize how self-contradictory that
sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless
nights about this. What does God want? Does
God want goodness or the choice of
goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad
perhaps in some ways better than a man who
has the good imposed upon him? Deep and
hard questions…"
God-wing con’t
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"You are passing now to a region where
you will be beyond the reach of the
power of prayer. A terrible terrible thing
to consider. And yet, in a sense, in
choosing to be deprive of the ability to
make an ethical choice, you have in a
sense really chosen the good. So I shall
like to think. So, God help us all…"
(2.3.13)