A Clockwork Orange: A Whig Tale of Absolute Evil
As with all great films, works of art or music and books, it is always the subtle, the partially said and unsaid, the understated but pervasive theme that is most alluring. That which the creator wishes to state clearly and consciously can be powerful, well-developed and sophisticated to a fault. But it is the subconscious, the message which is communicated by the mere whim of the spirit, at the muse’s inexplicable behest, that is most memorable, even if incoherent to the mind.
Kubrick’s films are sophisticated and complex to the extreme, pregnant with many conscious and subconscious elements that have confounded and impressed critics and audiences alike.
A Clockwork Orange stands out as a film which, by covering so many different themes, conceals something which is not merely profound, but prophetic. On the face of it, the film (and the novel with the same title, which the film follows closely in most things, with only one significant deviation) is a story of unrestrained, extreme youth violence, and an oppressive state which uses a novel technology to suppress it. It is a story about the importance of free choice, and whether we can be truly human without it. It can also be interpreted as a critique of Foucault’s theories of punishment and imprisonment.
However, these subjects, profound as they are, are very much on the surface. The much deeper theme is political as well as religious. It concerns the political theology of the whig state. It is also a prophecy about the last man, a creature defined by absolute moral evil and total depravity, created by a society which actively cherishes and promotes evil.
Metaphysically put, Alex represents a true follower, if not a forerunner, of the Antichrist-morally depraved, incapable of repentance and evil by nature, addicted to illicit pleasure and lawless violence. This reference to the Antichrist is not a fanciful exaggeration or some coincidence. When unlawfully arrested by his erstwhile comrades in depravity, now servants of the state as Police officers, we can briefly see the shoulder number of one of them is 665 and that of the other is 667. Alex is in the middle- that is, he is the missing number 666, the number of the beast. This clearly communicates what Alex is intended to represent, and this becomes ever more manifest as the film unfolds.
The society and ideology which have created Alex are very much our own. It is the society of whig liberalism, with undeniable continuity from early modern England. What are the layers and core elements of whig ideology, as we have it now? It is Francis Bacon’s notion of power-knowledge, the quest to control nature and bring about utopia by scientific means. An idea of secular progress (Locke), unrestrained secular, materialist freedom tightly controlled by a totalitarian but benevolent state (Hobbes). The concept of the ‘harm principle’ (Mill), the utilitarian hedonic calculus (Bentham) and the notion of consent as the ultimate virtue, even if it is consent to do evil, as Goethe’s Faust, that great epic of consent and capitalist contractual morality, demonstrates.
This complex of ideas finds its embodiment in the world which Alex inhabits. The society of A Clockwork Orange is totalitarian in a peculiarly liberal way. Pornography and violence are ubiquitous. There is no art, but only pornography, graffiti and modern ‘art’. The architecture is, externally, that of Corbusier’s totalitarian imagination, and internally, that of Bauhaus-style functionality and soullessness. The young use a strange language, a mixture of broken Russian and a Cockney accent, with some Shakespearian undertones, which is nonetheless infinitely superior to the lingua franca of today’s youth, which is cross between TikTok shorts, emojis and almost prehistoric sounds. What we have is a world without aesthetics, religion or moral feeling.
Kubrick is unambiguous that this society is the product of the whig ideology. He communicates this brilliantly, first and foremost, through his selection of music. The choice of an electronic rendition of Purcell’s Funeral March for Queen Mary to be the main theme of the film is no accident. Symbolically, this piece not only represents the funeral of merry old, pre-whig, England and that of Alex’s soul, but is also a direct link to the thoroughly whig affair that was the Glorious Revolution in England, over which Queen Mary II and her husband, William of Orange, presided. This amounted to the first formal institutionalization of whig liberalism and constitutionalism, and subjugation of the King, Parliament and the country as a whole, to whig principles, which were declared to be eternal verities. Kubrick correctly identifies this as the beginning of the end-state in the film, the indispensable first step towards today’s world totalitarianism.
Beethoven’s music too is fundamental to our understanding of the film, and this was intended by both Kubrick and Burgess. For the latter, a composer in his own right, Beethoven represented the pinnacle of music, and the 9th symphony was his best. In both the book and the film, Beethoven’s music is the conduit of violent sexuality and physical brutality. It is the soundtrack to Alex’s greatest misdeeds, and thereafter, when the Ludovico treatment is administered to him, it becomes the theme of scenes of rape, footage of the Nazi death camps and a young man being beaten to death. This does hark back to old debates about genocidal murderers and tyrants ordering the slaughter of millions during the day, and then, listening to Mozart and Beethoven at night calmly, without a care in the world. For Alex, Beethoven’s music acts like a drug that enhances his experience of the enjoyment of evil. Is great music inherently moral, or just an amplifier of our inner state, whatever this might be?
Pomp and Circumstance March No. I by Elgar, the quintessentially British patriotic tune, originally written for the coronation of Edward VII, is also used to great effect, for it is played upon the Minister of the Interior’s entry into the prison on his quest to find the perfect test subject for the totalitarian Ludovico technique. Thus, it becomes the background tune of the triumph of totalitarian evil, with that particular coronation ceremony taking place, aptly, in prison. A land of hope and glory indeed. Upon inspecting the prison cells, the Minister stumbles upon Alex’s cell, which reveals the contents of his soul. On his wall we see a crucifix, next to a number of pornographic images, all hanging above a bust of Beethoven. This blasphemous and confused picture is a projection of Alex’s inner state.
The other movement, Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 (Abridged,) serves as the background of Alex’s transfer from prison to the hospital in which his inner state of evil will be turned against him as a tool of control, destroying his ability to make any kind of free choice for good in the process, through what is a manifestly unethical, experimental treatment. All thanks to dispassionate whig science and progressive thinking, all put into practice by a high-minded politico-scientific establishment.
The society of this brave new world (exactly as per Huxley) no longer has any moral considerations. Its only concern is reconciling the competing, and inherently contradictory, ideas of the whig project. Pornography, stupefaction, sexual liberation and the abolition of all criteria are not without consequences. Alex and his droogs, conscience-free and liberated, engage in what they call ultraviolence. They rape, pillage and attack anyone they see, including the weak, the elderly and the disabled.
For the state, which too has been liberated from morality, Alex and his gang represent a problem of a different sort. By following the ideology of the liberated individual promoted by the system, in their violent outbursts, they offend against the other core liberal principles of consent and the avoidance of harm. The solution is quintessentially Baconian: the control of such impulses through science, but without inner change. In other words, change without alteration.
The Minister of the Interior, who visits the prison and selects Alex for the Ludovico treatment, gives the game away very quickly. These new criminals are absolutely evil, punishment does not reform them. In fact, by being kept together in prison all one gets is concentrated criminality, as he puts it. By means of the new treatment, they get to stay as they are, but the reflex that leads them to enjoy their evil acts is turned against them by the technique. As soon they are about to commit an act of violence or one of a sexual nature, they get physically sick and cannot carry it out.
In relation to sex, curiously, the ‘cure’ leads to sickness whenever sexual desire arises (whether inspired by love or depravity), thus promoting that other great whig cause, Malthusian sterility. For the liberal system, all sexual desire and all affinity to violence are the same, regardless of inner motive. Thus, lawful self-defense is treated the same way as attempted murder by the now ingrained reflex of aversion to violence, as Alex finds out when attacked by the homeless and his former droogs.
Undoubtedly, the only positive figure and hero of the film and book, is the prison chaplain, known as Prison Charlie. Unlike other clergymen in Kubrick’s films, in particular in Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon, Prison Charlie is presented in a positive light. He tries to change Alex and the other prisoners. He does not mince his words, and in addition to kinder calls to repentance, he does not exercise any restraint in preaching about Hell, damnation and eternal torment for all sinners. Despite his best efforts and genuine concern for Alex, all is in vain.
Modern man, as portrayed, born of evil and relishing in it, cannot turn to God and cannot repent. He is simply immune to inner goodness. There is no hope and no salvation. The best we can hope for is that the inevitable excesses individualism and moral depravity can be constrained by scientific control, in order to enable the rest of us to live our equally decadent and meaningless lives in peace. But then, this has the benefit of achieving that other great progressive dream- man is now a living machine, with his pathological and impulsive behaviors, those unwelcome examples of the state of nature, banished for good to the metaphorical Dark Ages. For Burgess, the term ‘a clockwork orange’ is equivalent to that of ‘living machine’. And that is what modern man, as represented by Alex, has become.
Returning to the Minister of the Interior, it quickly becomes evident that the Ludovico technique can only be applied to people like Alex, who are intrinsically evil. Without that inner evil, the technique is rendered obsolete, for without an evil impulse there is no sickness to follow, and as a consequence, the system of control becomes powerless. The Minister lets this slip by saying that though the technique will ‘cure’ the thieves, the rapists and the murderers, the prison will still be needed for political prisoners. Who are the political prisoners? They are, by definition, people on whom this technique will not work, as they are not intrinsically evil. They have, therefore, rejected the corruption around them, and have not internalized it. By rejecting evil, they have also rejected the society and ideology promoting it, and have thus become enemies of the state. And they have done so by remaining morally good, and therefore, free from state-imposed control through their vices.
Alex, once the ‘cure’ is reversed, makes a deal with the state and is promised a good salary. He no longer feels sick when thinking about engaging in violent behaviors. He merely joins his erstwhile friends and partners in crime, who, as mentioned, after years of engagement in ultraviolence, have become policemen and diligent servants of the state. Unsurprisingly, they continue with exactly the same violent behaviors, though now with the authority and blessing of the state.
One can only agree with Kubrick in his decision to remove Burgess’ original ending, with a reformed Alex who has somehow, implausibly, turned away from his evil ways. Instead, Kubrick opted for a realistic ending: an Alex incapable of repentance or change, who has now sold himself out entirely to the state that had transformed him into a monster in the first place, forever immune to goodness.
And this is Kubrick’s assessment and prophecy: whig civilization is inherently morally evil and was so from the start. Huxley’s brave new world of self-imposed slavery through liberation and pleasure will not merely become totalitarian, but it will be the most oppressive system to have ever existed, taking control of every individual’s inner world, and managing it through his vices and passions.
A Clockwork Orange caused a great deal of controversy when initially released and it was even banned in England, though this had more to do with an attempt of the British establishment to blame pre-existing youth violence on the film, as well as that establishment’s customary tin-eared approach of automatic, absolute hatred of any criticism. However, what is most interesting, and was also publicly stated at the time, was how despised the film was by liberals. Malcolm McDowell, the actor who portrayed Alex, infuriated The New York Times by stating that liberals hated the film. Out of defensiveness, the liberal critics admitted they hated the film, but that all liberals ought to hate it anyway, for it portrayed a ‘fascist’ society.
More than 50 years on, it is obvious that Kubrick had the last laugh, for, the society described the film is that in which we live, a product of post-Cold War unrestrained liberalism, for the first time in history. The youth of today has already outdone Alex in ultraviolence and depravity, though it is not at all moved by Beethoven’s music, for which it cares little. Neither Kubrick nor Burgess would have any difficulty in finding legions of clockwork oranges, on a global scale.
It remains unclear whether liberals still profess the same profound hatred for the film’s message as they did in the seventies. If they do, it can only be the same ambivalent hatred Dr Frankenstein held for his monstrous creation, for, Alex is very much that of their ideology. And Kubrick makes this clear. As clear as an unmuddied lake. As clear as the azure sky of deepest summer.
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