FREEDOM IS A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY WINTER, 1973

FREEDOM IS A CLOCKWORK ORANGE*

David Palmer

State University College, Fredonia, New York

In A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess “chooses”, some would say, to raise his sword-pen against the attempt of an insensitive, sinister, and repressive government”. . . to impose . . . laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation” upon a bezoomny malchick named Alex. By describing the imposition of such controls upon Alex, Burgess wants to show “. . .that it is preferable to have a world of violence undertaken in full awareness-violence chosen as an act of will-than a world conditioned to be good or harmless.”l Doubtless the imposition of these controls does raise difficult moral and perhaps metaphysical issues, but the issues are complicated and confused by the particular “rehabilitation” process used (Ludovico’s Technique), as well as by the a p parent quirks of Alex’s character. Nevertheless I should like to examine the novel to determine to what extent it is successful in demonstrating that Alex at first exercises, then loses, his human freedom or free will or his ability to choose as an act of will, and thereby to what extent it is successful in arguing the thesis that Burgess has set out.

Briefly, A Clockwork Orange does succeed as a justifiable attack on heavy-handed and ill-thought-out attempts to change patterns of behavior. But I maintain that claims such as the one above (about the preferability of violence to conditioning) presuppose that we have (but would lose through conditioning) free will in the libertarian sense. Further it is not clear from the novel that Alex has, or loses, free will in that sense; and ultimately the horror and revulsion we feel at Ludovico’s Technique results from Alex’s loss of freedom in quite another, soft-determinist, sense. Moreover, the loss of freedom in even this sense is but the illusory result of an unrealistic account of the consequences of the conditioning process. Let me begin the analysis with a brief attempt to understand Alex’s character.

A quick look at Alex’s character will reveal that he is truly an Aristotelian “bad man”, presumably one of few around and surely one of few in western literature. That is, he understands what sorts of (and what specific) actions are morally tolerable and which are not; he is aware of alternative courses of action; and yet he does, and (because) he likes to do, the bad. In a description of a night club scene when he evaluates the behavior of others Alex recognizes the difference between right and wrong actions:

I felt myself all of a fever and like drowning in redhot blood, slooshing and viddying Dim’s vulgarity, and I said: ‘bastard. Filthy drooling mannerless bastard.’ Then I leaned across Georgie ... and fisted Dim skorry on the rot ... ‘What did you do that for?’ he said in his ignorant way ...

‘For being a bastard with no manners and not the dook of an idea how to comport yourself publicwise. 0 my brother.’ (p. 32).

David Palmer received his A.B. and A.M. from Oberlin College in I966 and 1967, and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1970. He h a s taught 4t SUNY College at Fredonia since 1970. Although he has published primarily in the history of philosophy, he has a wide range of philosophical interests

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While Alex’s reasons for his action imply a sense of fairness as well as a respect for (at least some) other people, the description of his action strongly suggests that it is neither deliberated nor chosen-that violence in this case is more of an involuntary reflex than it is violence chosen as an act of will. But of that, more later.

A further indication of Alex’s rather well developed sense of fairness or justice is offered when Alex learns of the death of Georgie who was killed by an old veck he had beaten and whose home he was vandalizing:

The starry murderer had got off with Self Defense, as was really right and proper. (p. 78).

Though these passages point only to Alex’s awareness of the demands of fairness and justice in relationships among others, he also has a well-enough developed moral and prudential sense to know that his own behavior is anti-social and should not, cannot, be condoned:

AU right, I do bad, what with crasting and tolchocking and carves with the britva and the old in-outin-out, and if I get loveted, well, too bad for me, 0 my little brothers, and you can’t run a country with every chelloveck com- porting himself in my manner of the night ... ‘Fair, but a pity my lords, because I just cannot bear to be shut in ...’ (p. 43).

And much later, in the attempt to avoid undergoing further episodes in the conditioning process, he cries out:

But sirs, 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 ...’ (p. 11 6).

These passages demonstrate Alex’s knowledge of right and wrong and his desire to do wrong, but they do not explain what clearly needs explanation given Alex’s knowledge-namely , the motivation for his actions. The discovery of his motives may help determine the range of choice open to Alex, and hence the degree of freedom Alex has, both before and after the application of Ludovico’s Technique.

The most notable single feature of the characters of Alex and his droogs is enjoyment of the contemplation and act of violence, approaching what might almost be described as a reverence for violence. When asked by Dim what he thinks about the question of life on other planets Alex replies:

‘Come gloopy bastard as thou art. Think not on them. There11 be life like down here most likely, with some getting knifed and others doing the knifing. And now with the nochy still molodoy, let us be on our way, 0 my brothers.’ (P. 24).

Other, more down to earth, examples provide an indication of the pleasure all of them derive from a variety of sadistic actions. These passages describe parts of the ride to the home of F. Alexander:

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. . .the Durango 95 ate up the road like spaghetti. Soon it was winter trees and dark, my brothers, with a country dark, and at one place I ran over something big with a snarling toothy rot in the headlamps, then it screamed and squelched under and old Dim at the back near I laughed his gulliver off-‘Ho ho ho’-at that. (p. 25).

This is immediately followed by:

Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, lubbilubbing under a tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, then we bashed into them both with a couple of half-hearted tolchocks, making them cry, and on we went. (p. 25).

The narrator then describes part of the scene at F. Alexander’s:

. . .that was old Dim’s cue and he went grinning and going er er and a a a for this veck’s dithering rot, crack crack, first left fistie then right. . . (p. 28).

Some descriptions, like the one of the night club scene (p. 299 above), seem to go a step further toward showing what motivates Alex. The night club passage suggested that Alex’s action seemed to be unconsidered and perhaps involuntary, that unlike the “bad man” he might have been blinded by his passions. Similarly helpful descriptions include those in which the enjoyment of sadism is described in other physical terms. For example, when Alex is in jail there is a fight in his cell in which he plays the primary role in beating another prisoner to death:

Anyway, seeing the old kroovy flow red in the red light, I felt the old joy like rising up in my keeshkas. . . .I fisted him all over, dancing about with my boots on though unlaced, then I tripped him and he went crash crash on the floor. I gave him one real horrorshow kick on the gulliver and he went ohhhh, then he sort of snorted off like to sleep. . .(p. 89).

The final scenes of the book when the effects of Ludovico’s Technique have been neutralized or removed provide even a better awareness of the physical as well as psychological concommitants of the contemplation and act of violence. For example, Alex describes the dreams that he has begun to have again and again, about which he is overjoyed:

And there were lovely and horrorshow dreams of being in some veck’s auto that had been crasted by me and driving up and down the whole world all on my oddy knocky running lewdies down and hearing them creech they were dying.. .Also, there were dreams of doing the old in-out in-out with devotchkas, forcing them like down on the ground and making them have it ...(p. 169).

When he awakens in the hospital room his parents are there to ask him to come home:

‘I’ll consider it,’ I said. ‘I’ll think about it real careful.’

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‘Owwwww,’ went my mum. ‘Ah, shut it,’ I said, ‘or I’ll give you something proper to yowl and creech about. Kick your zoobies in I will.’ And, 0 my brothers, saying that made me feel a malenky bit better, As if all llke fresh red red kroovy was flowing all through my plott. That was something I had to think about. It was like as though to get better I had had to get worse. (p. 170).

Alex likes contemplating and doing violence. Hearing others cry out in physical and mental anguish, seeing others bleed-these things give him joy, make him feel alive and invigorated. Further, the feeling of joy goes hand-in-hand with the feeling of physical well-being. He feels the old joy rising in his keeshkas (guts); he feels the red blood flowing all through his body. And when he is deprived of his ability to contemplate and commit acts of violence he obviously recognizes that he feels ill. It is no accident that he con- ceives the deconditioning process as one in which he “gets better”. The motive, then, for the behavior which Alex knows is wrong is this feeling of physical well-being which he derives from performing violent acts. Given these accompanying feelings can anyone doubt that in committing acts of violence Alex is actually and honestly doing what he wants to do?

If lewdies are good that’s because they like ... and so of the other shop .... What I do I do because I like to do. (p. 43).

It is upon this youthful, exciting, fun loving character that the state works the evils of Ludovico’s Technique.

Ludovico’s Technique consists of negative reinforcement procedures designed to evoke physical distress leading to avoidance behavior in certain situations. In Alex’s case the situations are those in which violence is present, or in which he contemplates acts of violence. The reasons I earlier called the technique heavy-handed and ill-thoughtaut are (1) in the process of conditioning the avoidance of violence, the technique also conditions Alex to avoid lovemaking as well as listening to the music he had previously found enjoyable. These actions appear to be socially unobjectionable and they ought not to be made impossible for Alex; (2) the program purportedly conditions against all kinds of violence whatever (presupposing the existence of the concept of violence) rather than against specific kinds of acts of violence which, even in the event that it is possible, is a tactical error. In Alex’s case it leads to, among other things, his inability to defend himself against attack; (3) the reinforcement is all negative rather than positive; and (4) at the conclusion of conditioning and even after he is back on the streets Alex still likes violence and brutality, and likes to think about them, but finds that he cannot without being nauseated. Consequently there is an incredible dissonance between what Alex can do and what he likes to do. This, perhaps, ought to be attributed to the author’s ignorance of the psychological effects of dissonance of this sort in changing attitudes and beliefs, or more generously to Burgess, to the extremely short period of time between treatment and Alex’s return to the streets. Realistically, with more time Alex will no longer have the desire to perform acts of violence.

The contrast between Alex before conditioning and after conditioning is especially shocking and contributes heavily to our feeling that the conditioning is cruel and unusual punishment. The change from a person who feels good, does what he wants, and is happy

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to be alive, to one who feels ill, cannot do what he wants, and doesn’t enjoy being alive is clearly undesirable. Furthermore, on Burgess’ part it is a display of either ignorance or dishonesty. It is unlikely that anyone could be conditioned as Alex was, to be always nauseated by violence, and yet still want to perform and think about violent acts. It is only realistic to believe that Ludovico’s Technique would have the consequence that Alex dislikes seeing, performing, or thinking about violence.

These objections to, and suggestions for changes in, Burgess’ portrayal of the situation may go some way toward eliminating the (somewhat illusory) ghastliness of the conditioning process. They do not dissolve the main philosophical and social problem which many people think the book raises.

Burgess clearly implies in his statement about the point of the novel that the conditioning deprives Alex of his freedom, and Burgess has certain characters within the novel make this point. But the arguments in the novel which are supposed to support that claim are not convincing.

Aside from F. Alexander the most outspoken critic of the use of Ludovico’s Technique is the prison chaplain. He claims that it deprives those subjected to it of the ability to choose, and hence of the freedom essential to being human:

The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man. (p. 84).

Alex, of course, hears but does not heed this warning. He has also overheard the prison guards talking about the treatment as a means of shortening the prisoner’s stay in prison and hastening his return to the streets. In spite of the chaplain’s warning Alex under- standably agrees to the treatment even though the chaplain again voices his hesitations:

‘Very hard ethical questions are involved. . .You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the desire to commit acts of violence.’ (p. 95-96).

And again after the treatment and a demonstration of the new Alex, an Alex who is incapable of defending himself against attack, a voice from the back of the auditorium offers the following criticism:

‘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.’ (p. 125-126).

The chaplain’s objections presented here are basically two: (1) that after conditioning Alex is incapable of choice; and (2) Alex no longer has the desire to commit acts of violence. Presumably the chaplain intends that we understand by these claims that Alex has lost his freedom; that although he was capable of choice before, he is now subject to laws and conditions appropriate only to a mechanical creation. But it is not clear from the novel (a) just how the notions of choice and desire are related to the issue

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of human freedom, or, in other words, in just what sense of the word ‘freedom’ freedom has been eliminated, or (b) that after Ludovico’s treatment Alex has no desire to commit acts of violence. Both of these points need to be discussed.

In response to the first problem, (a), I propose to consider Alex’s situation in light of three alternative definitions of ‘freedom’. I do not care to argue here for the truth of any one of these, but only to determine in which sense(s) Alex is free. I want to know if and when Alex is “free” where that means either in the usual libertarian terms

x. at some level, for example at the level of desire or choice, the agent does not operate as part of the larger causal chain, i.e., the action is uncaused in the sense that somewhere in the analysis of the action there must appear an uncaused cause

or, as the soft-determinist would claim

or y.

z.

he can do what he desires

he is not coerced into performing the action he performs, or into refraining from an action he does not perform.

These latter two soft-determinist positions, (y) and (z), are alike in admitting that every desire, choice, action, or other event or state of affairs has a cause, and that given the causal conditions it could not have been other than it was. They are also alike in denying that this determinist thesis entails a lack of human freedom. They differ, in the obvious way, from each other and from the libertarian analysis, on just what ‘freedom’ means.

With these (perhaps not exhaustive, but at least popular) alternatives before us, I can t y to assemble an argument from the chaplain’s statements about desire, choice and freedom. On the basis of the preceding comments of the chaplain the argument would look something like the following:

1. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man. (p.303 above) 2. When one does not (cannot) desire X, he cannot choose X. 3. Alex does not desire X (p. 303 above) 4. .Alex cannot choose X. (2,3) 5. ..Alex ceases to be a man. (1,4)

But this argument clearly will not do the job the chaplain intends. In the first place it is invalid for it does not follow from the fact that Alex cannot choose X (say, one action from the class of violent actions), that he cannot choose at all or even that he cannot make moral choices. Yet surely having no choice at all, or at least no moral choices, is the condition stated in the first premise. Furthermore, there seems to be no plausible way of making the argument valid.

One might suggest that the argument could be salvaged by altering the first premise, for example by changing it to

11. When a man cannot make moral choices he ceases to be a man or

111. When a man cannot choose X (either a particular violent act, or some violent act or other), he ceases to be a man.

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In the case of (11) salvaging the validity of the argument would still require altering additional premises so that they would claim that Alex could make no moral choices. But there is not one line of support for that thesis in the entire novel, and surely no one would contend that the ability to choose violence is requisite to making moral choices. With respect to (111) suffice it to say that not only does the chaplain not offer it, but no libertarian would accept it.

Alternatively, premises 2 and 3 cannot be altered to save the argument because there is no evidence provided in the novel to support the conclusion that there is not a variety of (moral) choices open to Alex throughout the novel, and hence no evidence on which to generalize premises 2 and 3.

The argument appears to be an attempt to show that Alex has lost his freedom in sense (x), the libertarian sense. It hinges on the claim that he is caused to have, or at least not to have, certain desires. It implies that his action is caused and therefore not free. But given the limited kinds of things Alex is prevented from doing the argument is puzzling. The libertarian, like anyone else, recognizes that many desires, and hence choices and actions, are caused and therefore not free. At most he is committed to the claim that some desires and actions are not caused. Neither one’s freedom nor the truth of mechanism, according to the libertarian, can be determined by discovering that a few, or even a great many, actions are caused.

In addition, if we see the chaplain as arguing that Alex has lost freedom in the libertarian sense, there is a second problem. As I have already pointed out it is hard to make a case for saying that Alex’s behavior either prior to, or after reversal of, Ludovico’s Technique was any less determined (that his desires, choices and, consequently, behavior, was any less caused) than it was when he was under the influence of the treatment. The physical sensations associated with many of his actions are strong and reinforcing. Fur- thermore, as one can see from descriptions of Alex’s actions before conditioning there is little if any evidence of calculation, deliberation, or choice. In fact there is some evidence that there is more deliberation and choice of action on Alex’s part after conditioning than before. What then is the source of our feeling that Alex has in some way suffered harm at the hands of the technicians?

That, I suggest, can be discovered by examining the chaplain’s prediction (p. 303 above) that after Ludovico’s Technique Alex will have no desire to commit acts of violence. I suggested earlier that this claim was questionable and I think a couple of examples will show it to be false. The first two such examples are from the initial demonstration of the results of the treatment. Alex is being subjected to physical and psychological brutality to demonstrate that he will not (cannot) react violently:

Now I knew that I’d have to be real skorry and get my cut-throat britva out before this horrible killing sickness whooshed up and turned like the joy of battle into the feeling I was going to snuff it. . . .I got this like picture in my mind’s glazzy of this insulting chelloveck howling for mercy with the red red krovvy all streaming out of his rot, and hot after this picture the sickness and pains were rushing to overtake. . . (p. 124).

Obviously the conditioning has not yet extinguished the joy of and desire for battle, though the pain of even contemplating acts of violence is overwhelming. Similarly his sexual desires and attitudes are unchanged after treatment:

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. .the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I would like to have her right down there on the floor with.the old in-out real savage, but skorry as a shot came the sickness, like a like detective that had been watching round a corner and now followed to make his arrest. (p. 127).

Then later at the “disc-bootick MELODIA” when the clerk makes fun of him for asking for a Mozart symphony Alex reacts in his preconditioning fashion:

I could feel myself growing all razrez within, but I had to watch that, so I like smiled at the veck. . .(p. 139).

And yet again when he wants to escape F. Alexander and cronies Alex’s desires still appear to be unchanged:

‘. . .We have you friend, and we keep you. You come with us. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.’ And he came up to me like to grab hold of my rooker again. Then, brothers, I thought of fight, but thinking of fight made me want to collapse and sick, so I just stood. (p. 162).

These passages show the chaplain’s prediction of the effects of Ludovico’s Tech- nique to be mistaken, and they at the same time provide the chance to see the issue of freedom from a different perspective. Perhaps Alex’s prior freedom is freedom in sense 0.). Perhaps it consisted of his ability to act in accordance with his desires. If so his current lack of freedom consists in his inability to act in accordance with those desires. This is indeed a straight-forward soft-determinist analysis. All of Alex’s desires, choices and actions may be caused but sometimes his choices and actions cannot coincide with his desires and it is in those cases in which he is not free.

This alternative would account for some passages which suggest that all of Alex’s behavior, pre-treatment as well as post-treatment, is unfree in the libertarian sense, i.e., it is caused or conditioned. For example, it would account for the chaplain’s suggestion that Alex does not really make a free choice in “choosing” to undergo Ludovico’s treatment. Furthermore it does accord with and perhaps accounts for Burgess’ claim and our feeling that Alex has been deprived of his freedom.

It is important to note that this analysis rules out any objection to conditioning on the grounds that it imposes “Laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation”. The soft-determinist contends that we are all subject to such laws and conditions ir- respective of whether we have undergone Ludovico’s Technique. ‘Freedom’ in this sense does not imply our immunity to or isolation from the rest of the universe and the causal regularities or laws which describe its operation. But we must also note that, in this context at least, the loss of freedom in sense (y) is an oversimplification. Obviously Alex’s lack of freedom does not consist only of his inability to act in accordance with his desires. There are innumerable situations in which each of us is unable to act in accordance with his desires and yet there the issue of freedom is not at stake. For example, one might desire to run a three minute mile, or live like a billionaire, or to publish a novel, or to solve the free willdeterminism issue, but for various reasons we may not be able to do all or even one of these things. We usually do not think that our inability to do them implies any lack of freedom. But Alex’s case is a bit different for he is in a sense

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capable of doing the things he wants to do-he did them before conditioning and he does them again after the conditioning is obliterated. Instead of a simple inability to act in accordance with his desires, Alex is forced to avoid, or restrained from, acting in accordance with them. In other words, in crucial ways our feeling that Alex has lost his freedom results from our acceptance of the claim that an agent is not free if he is coerced into performing or to refrain from performing a particular action (freedom in sense 2). So Alex is not free (a) because he cannot act in accordance with his desires, and (b) he is coerced into acting against his desires.

I suppose I might stop at this point, happy to have discovered the sense in which Alex had and lost freedom. However, it seems to me that the novel strives to be a bit of social gospel, a forewarriing of our impending loss of freedom and dignity should we adopt any program of conditioning, even for the purposes of changing socially unac- ceptable behavior. Certainly Burgess’ claim that it “is preferable to have a world of violence undertaken in full awareness-violence chosen as an act of will-than a world conditioned to be good or harmless” suggests as much.

I should like to point out the danger of the snake in this linguistic grass. An innocent word here, a well turned phrase there, all tend to disguise a lurking libertarianism. The danger of Burgess’ dichotomy is that is suggests that Alex had, but lost through conditioning, freedom in the libertarian sense; that at some point he was not “a clockwork orange”; that in the state of nature he was not subject to laws and conditions; that uny conditioning involves the loss of freedom. Certainly these prophesies and claims are not warranted on the basis of a study of Alex or the novel. It does not argue and cannot show that he loses freedom in the libertarian sense, for it never shows that he has freedom in that sense.

Even beyond that, the novel does not provide good evidence for the claim that conditioning inevitably, or even probably, leads to a loss of freedom in either or both of the soft-deterrhinist senses. There are, after all, a number of troublesome differences between ourselves and Alex, as well as a number of troublesome features of Ludovico’s Technique. It should, for example, be pointed out that we do not often strongly desire to do the sorts of things that lead to restraint and (the recognition of) the loss of freedom. Given our recognition of the probable consequences of certain anti-social actions, and our desire for freedom, we usually act so as to preserve the freedom. Alex, on the other hand, recognizing the consequences, has a stronger desire for violence than for freedom, even though freedom may be necessary for the continuation of violence. In addition, after conditioning Alex often desires to do things which he not only knows he cannot do because of restraints, but which he knows will be incapacitatingly painful to him.

These oddities, I suggest, may result from a flaw in the novel, flaws in the con- struction of Alex’s character, or flaws in the particular conditioning program known as Ludovico’s Technique, but they do not constitute, nor are they grounds for, a legitimate attack upon conditioning per se.

The difficulties may be due to a flaw in the novel for it may be that there could be no conditioning process which instills the kind of reaction to violence which Alex mani- fests that would leave the agent with the desire to engage in violence. On the other hand it may be a flaw in Ludovico’s Technique that raises these difficulties. Perhaps a more intelligently conceived and applied program of conditioning would condition different desires in Alex as well as different actions, or perhaps all that would be needed would be a short confinement after conditioning during which time Alex would lose the desire for

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violence. This is what the chaplain suggested would happen, and it would not be unex- pected. Burgess plays almost entirely upon the fact that the desire for violence has not yet been extinguished, along with the use of negative rather than positive reinforcement. The conditioning of different desires, or even the expected changes in Alex’s desires arrived at through the resolution of cognitive dissonance would of course allow Alex as much freedom in the soft-determinist sense after conditioning (and if one considers the loss of freedom in this sense suffered by one who is imprisoned, more freedom) as he had before, i.e., he would be able to act in accordance with his desires without restraint or force. Thus the novel, and an analysis of the sense in which Alex suffers a loss of freedom provide no evidence for thinking that a well devised and applied conditioning process leads to any loss of freedom whatever.

Notes

*I wish to thank my colleague David Bryant for many helpful comments on an earlier draft of

‘Burgess, quoted by B. F. Skinner, “Freedom and Dignity Revisited,”New York Times, August

2Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, Ballantine Books, Inc., New York, 1972, p. 27. Hence

this paper. The mistakes that remain are ones that I insisted upon.

11, 1972.

forth page references will appear in the body of the paper in parentheses.

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