By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
Society should not do the wrong thing for the right reason, even though it frequently does the right thing for the wrong reason.
History has shown us what happens when you try to make society too civilized, or do too good a job of eliminating undesirable elements. It also shows the tragic fallacy in the belief that the destruction of democratic institutions will cause better ones to arise in their place.
– Stanley Kubrick on “A Clockwork Orange”, an interview with film critic Michel Ciment
An obscure Texas political consultant named Bill Miller once said “politics is show business for ugly people”. It’s true for the most part, aside from the consequences. This is because the theatrics of politicians result in policies that affect the lives of others; often against the will of the governed. In books and movies, however, the characters are much ado about nothing. Until, that is, life imitates art.
So it is with the futuristic dystopian story of “A Clockwork Orange”. Both the book, by the author Anthony Burgess, and the film by director Stanley Kubrick, serve as moral dilemmas and cautionary tales plumbing such considerations as free will, the duality of mankind, societal anarchy, and the ascendancy of an all-powerful state.
A 1973 review written in Sight and Sound Magazine, stated: “Kubrick has appropriated theme, character, narrative and dialogue from Anthony Burgess’ novel, but the film is more than a literal translation of a construct of language into dramatic-visual form”. Therefore, for that reason, and for others described later, the film will remain this article’s primary focus.
As any perfunctory internet research will show, Stanley Kubrick is known as a visionary artist and director, but also as the subject of multiple conspiracies. In addition to A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick’s oeuvre includes avant-garde films such as Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and Eyes Wide Shut; to name a few. Just as these movies demonstrate the inner workings of mankind operating through the disparate threads which bind reality, so do some claim that a larger picture is presented as well. The big picture, of course, is said to include conspiratorial clues and undertones in Kubrick’s films ranging from Freemasonry, to America’s alleged faked moon landing, to an occultist global financial elite, and the terrorist attacks of 911 being planned as a world transformational event.
There exist multiple published writings, both online and in print, describing the secret meanings hidden in Kubrick’s movies. Furthermore, it has been argued that Kubrick’s “somewhat surreal films” appeal to the viewer’s subconscious and, therefore, “lend themselves to this sort of interpretation”.
That is another reason why Kubrick’s film will remain the focus of this essay, as opposed to the novel: Either these alleged conspiracies are imagined in the minds of the viewers, or Kubrick deliberately inserted these elements into his creations. Given Kubrick’s reputation for perfectionism, one can only conclude the symbolism was specifically placed and for exact reasons.
For example, in Kubrick’s The Shining, there are those who contend it is “laden with symbolism, hidden messages”, and “conspiracy theories”. In Eyes Wide Shut, some contend it was meant to reveal secret societies and sex-magic by means of “evidence” which includes occult symbolism and references to Ishtar, the ancient Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war and sex.
In his other films, like 2001 A Space Odyssey, it has been argued the strategic placement of the sun, or other circular lights, were utilized by Kubrick as symbolic movie projectors of sorts, whereby time and events unwind before the audience like a clock. Additionally, even in movies not directed by Kubrick, there are those who say mirrors are used to demonstrate mind control. It is a fact both of these visualizations are present in A Clockwork Orange.
Once again, and for all of the reasons delineated heretofore, the following presentation will analyze Kubrick’s film as opposed to the novel from which it derived. The story, and Kubrick’s alchemy, will then be analyzed through the lens of three separate realities followed by some concluding comments at the very end.
THE UNWINDING
In Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, the viewers witness the tragic life and circumstances of a teenager named Alex DeLarge navigating a decadent post-modern world. In the film, Alex is played by the actor Malcolm McDowell. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a futuristic dystopian society that has descended into anarchy and violence; especially within the younger generation.
The very first scene focuses on the evil-eyed Alex adorned with a black fedora and sunray eyeliner beneath his right eye. As the camera pulls back, the boy is shown with three of his young friends identified in the narrative as “droogs”. The youths are shown sitting in the Korova Milk Bar where they imbibe “Milk Plus”; or milk laced with recreational drugs of various types.
Upon leaving the bar, the boys come across a drunk lying in an alley and singing what Alex calls the songs of the drunk man’s “fathers”. This implies a line of separation between the previous time and the new; between the old and the young. This separation of time is actually confirmed when the drunk tells the young hooligans he no longer wants to live in this “stinking world” because there’s “no law and order anymore”, where the young “get onto the old”, and “it’s no world for an old man any longer”.
The boys commence to beat the old boozer senseless.
In the next scene, Alex and his droogs come across a group of five other boys who, on an abandoned theatrical stage, are attempting to rape a young woman. Seemingly, the stage implies the violence unfolding as melodrama, causing this viewer to question if the descent into societal violence was staged as well? The boys assaulting the woman were wearing military-style camo clothing and adorned with Nazi accoutrements. Alex taunted them in a near Shakespearean manner, and the rival gangs went to war. The battle also appeared as theatrically choreographed and was set in sync to Giaochino Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra overture.
In the next scene, we see Alex and his gang fleeing to the countryside in a red sports car, looking very much like four demons racing towards hell.
Chaos ensued until Alex eventually ended up in prison and, thus, in possession of the state.
In prison, Alex sat before an open Bible and fantasized he was a Roman soldier whipping the back of Jesus Christ. His voiceover narration said he didn’t like the New Testament’s “preachy talking” as much as the Old Testament’s violence and sex. He furthermore envisioned slicing open the throats of ancient enemies and later eating grapes fed to him by the naked wives and handmaidens of his vanquished foes.
In the privacy of the facility’s library, Alex petitioned the prison chaplain regarding a new treatment that could help him secure his freedom. The chaplain informed Alex the new treatment was called the Ludovico Technique and that it was dangerous. The boy then tells the priest that in spite of any potential danger, he wanted “for the rest of his life to be one act of goodness”.
In response, the chaplain tells Alex that “goodness is chosen” and “when a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man”.
The next scenes showed a group of prisoners walking outside around a circle on the ground. Before the men are lined up for inspection, a cadre of dignitaries exit from a long hallway, and walk before the prisoners. In so doing, one man tells the others that, soon, the “prisons will be full of political prisoners” and that the “petty criminals need faster reconditioning”. Standing in line, Alex speaks up and the man selects Alex from the group. The viewer later discovers the man was actually the new Minister of the Interior who was visiting the prison that day.
Soon, Alex is admitted into the Ludovico Treatment Center and begins his reconditioning. He is strapped to a chair with brackets forcing both of his eyes open so they can’t be closed. He then watches violent videos of which he greatly enjoys at first. When a man begins to bleed on screen, Alex’s bloodlust is quenched, and speaking in the Nadsat lingo (a combination of Cockney English and Russian), he says: “It’s funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on a screen”.
After the first video, another film is shown where a woman in a red wig is being gang-raped. Due to the drugs being injected into Alex’s bloodstream, he begins to feel ill, but he can’t avert his gaze due to the brackets on his eyes. Even trying to move his eyes away, he says: “I still could not get out of the line of fire of this picture”.
In another scene, Alex views another session which consists of Nazis marching, paratroopers jumping, bombs falling, and all to the light and airy melody of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement”. When Alex realizes the soundtrack is Beethoven, he begins to scream pitifully, begging the doctors to stop the treatment; because he once enjoyed that music as a free man.
Certainly one of the most challenging and difficult social problems we face today is, how can the State maintain the necessary degree of control over society without becoming repressive, and how can it achieve this in the face of an increasingly impatient electorate who are beginning to regard legal and political solutions as too slow? The State sees the spectre looming ahead of terrorism and anarchy, and this increases the risk of its over-reaction and a reduction in our freedom. As with everything else in life, it is a matter of groping for the right balance, and a certain amount of luck.
– Stanley Kubrick on “A Clockwork Orange”, an interview with film critic Michel Ciment
His treatment complete, Alex is then presented to a group of onlookers as the Ministry of Interior addresses the audience. The man tells them his political party promised Law and Order and “to make the streets safe for ordinary peace-loving citizens“.
In a demonstration that ensues on a raised dais, or stage, in front of the group, Alex is verbally and physically bullied while remaining unable to fight back. As the bully exits the stage, an overhead spotlight, appearing very much like a film projector, or the sun, follows the man as he bows and waves to the audience.
Next, Alex was presented with a gorgeous, nicely tanned, platinum blonde who stands topless before him wearing only a pair of cotton panties. As Alex, on his knees, reaches upward to touch her breasts, he becomes sick once again. The blonde then exits the stage similar to the bully, waving and bowing in dramatic fashion.
As the minister touts the new and improved Alex, the boy’s old prison chaplain rises up to challenge him, claiming Alex had been deprived of choice, and that his “reformation is insincere” because his conditioning requires “self-interest merely to avoid pain”. The chaplain then says: “He ceases to be a wrongdoer, he ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice”.
In response, the Minister exclaims: “We’re not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics; we are concerned only with cutting down on crime and with relieving the ghastly congestions within our prisons”. He then added:
“He will be your true Christian, ready to turn the other cheek. Ready to be crucified rather than crucify. Sick to the very heart at the thought of even killing a fly. Reclamation. Joy before the angels of God! The point is that it works!”
The State had set Alex free. Literally. More chaos ensued; but, this time, it is all directed against the boy. As Alex eventually returns to his old self, and the State even apologizes for not knowing any better, it remains clear the government still views Alex as a political pawn to be played in its next theatrical production.
The viewer is left with the impression of the cycle continuing; or merely more of the same as the sun rises and sets over the spinning world.
Alex is characterised not only by his actions against society, but in the actions of the State against Alex. The two are equated in the film, his charm reproduced in its durance, the principal difference – a perhaps considerable one – in the State’s coarsely institutional and indiscriminately committed immoralities that Alex can only practise on a restricted scale.
– Daniels, Don. “A Clockwork Orange”, Sight & Sound, Winter 1973
[A clockwork orange is] an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odor, being turned into an automaton.
– Burgess, Anthony. 1987 prefatory note to “A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music”
…the attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this, I raise my swordpen–”
– Burgess, Anthony. The character F. Alexander, “A Clockwork Orange”, p. 25
Through the Lens of Psychology and Violence, Chemically Enhanced
When I was a young man at college more than three decades ago, I asked one of my friends what he thought of the film A Clockwork Orange. Now, this guy had a high IQ. When younger, he was identified as a gifted child who then became member of Mensa, and later the dean of the psychology department at a large American university. I’ve never forgotten his answer. He said: “The future is sex and violence”.
Obviously, both he and Kubrick were proven correct.
Over the past four decades, global academia has made ignorant the youth in Western Societies. Whereas emphasis was once placed on critical thinking, logic, classic literature, science, and math, today’s schools now prioritize identity politics while the youth, especially boys, fall through society’s cracks mesmerized by television, violent video games, and drugs; prescribed or otherwise.
In A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his gang of droogs demonstrated awareness and cleverness, but simultaneously lacked compassion and empathy in ways that were near reptilian. Moreover, Alex’s parents were goofy enablers; the mother in particular, who had purple hair and seemed blind to her son’s evil. They were, in fact, perfect representations of the modern real-world parents who go on television, after their child murders and maims, to say: “He seemed like such a nice boy. We never saw it coming”.
This has remained true since the Columbine shooters through the most current of events in even the bucolic U.S. Midwestern state of Iowa, where two separate girls were recently brutally assaulted and murdered in as many months. Both the killers of Mollie Tibbets and Celia Barquin Arozamena were young men in their early twenties. In the latter case, the murderer, Collin Daniel Richards, admitted he had “an urge to rape and kill a woman” and the meme for his Facebook cover page said: “Let’s go commit a murder”.
Obviously, we no longer live in a Norman Rockwell world. Even so, we can’t say we weren’t warned by Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange.
The famous psychologist, Sigmund Freud, presented the idea that humans operate by means of a trinity of cognitive processes as follows: The Id (instincts), Ego (reality) and Superego (morality). Freud furthermore speculated these three systems (i.e. tripartite) developed at different stages of life.
In the case of Alex in Kubrick’s film, he was representative of the Id, acting out of his desire for childish satisfaction. It is therefore possible the Ego in the film was represented by the modifying presence of the prison chaplain, and with the State acting as the Superego taming Alex’s Id by means of chemically conditioned censorship of action.
The Id, Ego, and Superego could also be perceived as manifested in the body (impulse), mind/soul (cognitive) and spirit (conscious /law).
As both the film, A Clockwork Orange, and present reality indicate: When balance is lacking, chaos follows in the form of hell on earth. But, on the other hand, if proper balance can be restored, then both individuals and society are better off.
But what is the proper balance and who decides? The State? Or, is there another way to unify mankind into peace and harmony?
By definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange–meaning he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhumane to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.
– Burgess, Anthony. 1986 introduction to “A Clockwork Orange”
I think this suggests the failure of culture to have any morally refining effect on society. Hitler loved good music and many top Nazis were cultured and sophisticated men but it didn’t do them, or anyone else, much good.
– Stanley Kubrick on “A Clockwork Orange”, an interview with film critic Michel Ciment
Through the Lens of the Occult, Sun Worship, and Ancient Knowledge
Again, a simple internet search of “Stanley Kubrick occult” will yield a number of online links and even a book on the topic entitled “Kubrick’s Code: An Examination of Illuminati & Occult Symbolism in Stanley Kubrick’s Films”. In A Clockwork Orange, specifically, there are those who contend “subliminals” are present therein, including references to MK Ultra/mind control, Freemasonry, Sun/Solar worship, Templar/Iron Cross, Black Sun, the Eye of Horus, and more.
Having personally seen the movie, and recently, I will say these elements are definitely incorporated into the film. I was intrigued by the “Clockwork Orange as Sun” angle but, upon viewing the movie again, it appeared to me the solar aspect was presented (similar to Kubrick’s other films) as more of a film projector of sorts; whereby the viewers could nearly perceive themselves as projections in the screen, along with the fictional characters, as the story unwound.
A Clockwork Orange. Mechanical. Circles. Time.
It is also said the sun can affect people’s moods; as does film.
In the earliest written creation epic, the “Enuma Elish”, claimed by some scholars to have influenced the Bible’s Book of Genesis, Marduk is the Babylonian god who defeats the female water god, Tiamat. Marduk is then awarded fifty other names. In Mesopotamia and Sumeria, Marduk is known as the sun gods Shamash and Anu (Utu), respectively. In Egypt he was worshipped as Ra.
According to ancient lore, Marduk’s act of creation marks the start of time. He was also worshipped as Bel Marduk the God of war.
In the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, Marduk and Tiamat were first identified as the humans Nimrod (In Genesis, chapter 10, called “a mighty hunter before the Lord”) and his wife Semiramis (later known as the mythological Queen of Heaven).
There are those who say it was Nimrod who established the first state religion by unifying mankind and building a tower in the Tigris/Euphrates region of antiquity. However, after he incorporated, and then diversified, he went public:
– Source
Did it all start on the plains of Shinar after a great flood, when the male sun overcame female water?
In A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his droogs were certainly warlike and sought to ravage the females in their paths. Moreover, perhaps as another clue, one of the songs on the film’s soundtrack is titled “Overture to the Sun”.
In the scene previously described, when the rival gang was in the act of melodramatically wrestling a woman in order to rape her on a stage, it did appear Kubrick incorporated elements of the “Enuma Elish” into his film: namely the expanse of sky above and a winged sun god overlooking acts of sex and violence (Chaos) below.
Within the occult, there are those identifying the Sun as being a symbol of Lucifer the Light Bringer and with the accompanying “illuminating rays of knowledge”; all supposedly essential to the ancient sun worship cult called “The Illuminati”.
Furthermore, others have connected both Freemasonry and the Illuminati as having originated in ancient Egypt:
Popular history texts and encyclopedias generally paint the Illuminati as having its origins in 1776 Bavaria. However, the origins go back much further. The Illuminati are tied directly through masonry to the sun and Isis cults of ancient Egypt.
– Source
In truth, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange has more occult symbols than even a U.S. dollar bill; along with specific parallels to Freemasonry. All of these visuals, like the Eye of Horus right on the money, are hidden in plain sight:
The checkered pattern is found in Freemason lodges and is known as “Moses Pavement” which symbolizes the duality of man. Of course, the Eye of Horus, snakes, and phalluses, are all symbols of the occult as well.
Why would Kubrick have included these in A Clockwork Orange and, also, in his other films?
Coincidence? Art? Conspiracy?
Let the readers, and viewers, decide.
Additionally, as addressed before, Kubrick’s film does include some peculiar references to Christianity. Complementing Alex’s aforementioned prison fantasy of being a Roman soldier in the act of whipping Christ, there was an earlier scene in his room where he fondles his pet snake before the snake appeared to act as a phallus between the legs of a naked woman pictured on his wall. The buttocks of the woman looked to have been held up by the raised arms of four naked Jesus Christ figurines; complete with crowns of thorns. Then, as a rapturous Alex enjoyed the music of Beethoven in a near masturbatory manner, he envisioned himself a vampire and saw a woman in a white (wedding?) dress being hung by rope, along with fiery explosions and men being crushed by rocks.
These examples, along with the symbols of Alex’s pet snake and the Eye of Horus on his right sleeve and right eye, leave the viewer with the impression the boy’s worldview was nothing short of Luciferian.
Moreover, just as western holidays like Christmas (Sol) and Easter (Ishtar) have their originations in ancient sun worship and female pagan fertility deities, so too, it seems, does A Clockwork Orange. In another example, one of the droogs in the Korova Milk Bar, with sun/projector overhead, drew milk from the breasts of a replica nymph that he called “Lucy”.
Are all of these occult references designed to point the viewer’s attention towards Lucifer? Was Kubrick trying to warn his audience that the future for both individual and state belonged to Satan? Or, is it possible the director was actually advocating for such?
Either way, Kubrick’s futuristic vision may have been right, on many levels correct, and in more ways, than most people today realize.
Through the Lens of the Established State, Modern Politics , Time, and the Circular Cycles of Man
There are those who have tied Donald Trump to Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange:
And, paradoxically, it now appears the Satanists are even threatened by The Orange Jesus as they seek to convert the younger generation.
Founded in 2012, The Satanic Temple (not to be confused with the Church of Satan) is a non-theistic organization that has gained prominence since President Trump’s election. The group reported it gained “thousands of new members” after Trump won the presidential race.
…Since the election, The Satanic Temple has launched multiple campaigns aimed at challenging Christian influence in the political sphere. One example is their After School Satan Clubs.
Obviously those on the Political Left, and some in the middle, view Trump as similar to the right-wing, authoritarian (law and order) party in Kubrick’s film; who brainwashed naive dupes into supporting misguided policies. Yet, to the other half of the audience watching the political theater on their screens, it appears that Trump is more comparable to Alex; who, after creating carnage in the proverbial political swamp, is now undergoing reeducation by the Established State right before their very eyes.
Could Kubrick have foreseen the inevitability of time’s passage delivering an Orange Reality TV Star to the world stage? It’s doubtful, because he didn’t write the book. Even so, is it still possible that Trump is a clockwork man, arriving right on schedule?
Since the times of the first songs, the elite have cynically oppressed the proles while telling them it’s for their own good; for their safety, or for the good of Mankind overall. That is the commonality of gangsters, thugs, neocons, corrupt politicians, fascists, and tyrannical collectivists. They abrogate timeless moral principles for their own benefit and tell us it’s for ours.
In the narrative of A Clockwork Orange, there is a contrarian to the current government, an author, who played dual roles in the film’s plot. Towards the end, he argues on the telephone with an unseen coconspirator that “the common people must not sell liberty for a quieter life”.
Yet, isn’t that what we’ve done today in the once free nations of the western world?
In many ways, A Clockwork Orange is a mirrored representation of modern America. In the movie, a right-wing party is the established power suppressing the rights of commoners in order to sustain its continuity of control; and the media, and opposition party, were fighting on the side of liberty.
Paradoxically, in the real world currently, the media, the Political Left, and lukewarm conservatives, are in singularity with the Established State; as Trump and his Deplorables wreak havoc before the global towers of power.
Based upon raw intuition, instinct, and Tweets, Trump is the political manifestation of Freud’s Id. Therefore, he and his gang of supporters must be reformed via electronic programming and conditioning (punishment and reward) by the state as it seeks to secure its everlasting continuity.
Play ball and society will experience harmony, but only on the state’s terms. Disobey at your own peril. This is one of the themes in A Clockwork Orange. Other undertones of the film speak to secrecy, smoke, mirrors, and mind control, where the state vanquishes the violent urges of its citizens by creating a new reality via cyclical, or looped, feedback. Consensus will be manufactured and contrarian views need not apply. Not acceptable? No problem. The state has a pill for that.
As humans, we have free will, and that is a right that cannot be denied to us. The Ludovico Technique represents the government’s, or any authority figure’s, interference with our personal liberties, and the dangers of these interferences. The battle of good versus evil is presented an innumerable amount of times in literature and cinema–but A Clockwork Orange puts a twist on this common theme. Which is worse, chosen evil or forced good? According to A Clockwork Orange, chosen evil is the lesser evil, because it demonstrates it allows us a choice. If humans lose moral choice, they become machines. Free will to choose between good and evil is the central theme and message in A Clockwork Orange.
– Source
Whether or not Trump is real or just an actor, like in Kubrick’s films, he has revealed certain realities. The fact remains the state does not now endorse free will and it has, instead, resorted to electronic conditioning to form its new reality.
This will work until it doesn’t. Then the process begins again, just has it always has throughout history; as predictable as seasons, or the sun crossing the sky.
Conclusion
In researching this article, and Stanley Kubrick’s life’s work, I discovered many websites that were a strange combination of profoundly perceptive insights, unique observations, and batshit craziness. But one interesting theme presented in Kubrick’s storytelling is the idea of mankind’s Odyssey: Seeking meaning through faith, action, and fortune, upon the world stage; overcoming base instincts, then rising on a tide of reason and rationality, before the cycle rounds another bend and mankind falls again.
When watching A Clockwork Orange, the viewer is forced to consider the ironies of individual and state. In turn, this blogger now questions if both entities are not merely two parallel paths to hell on earth.
The sun rises and sets on individuals and nations alike. Yet, throughout history, Man’s Id was successfully moderated at times by his Ego and Superego thus allowing, for the most part, periods of equilibrium and justice; even if only for a season.
Fate or free will? That is the question. Given the cycles of history, where does hope now reside? Why would anyone have optimism at all?
In A Clockwork Orange, the Ludovico Technique was meant to fix dystopia’s problems. Today, in the real world, it is media narratives that are meant to address what ails us. Unfortunately, however, these are twin movies unspooling separately and all at once. In turn, it means certain worldviews must be reprogrammed, as it were.
This explains why social media companies are purging “incorrect thinkers” on their respective platforms. They are viewed as subversive moles, and petty criminals, damaging the fertile ground of the new world order.
It’s also why a bogus Russian dossier was utilized to derail the Orange Criminal. One wonders if he was wound up as part of a plan to place asunder the old ways; like the tide rolling out before the dawn of a new day.
The lesson learned from A Clockwork Orange is to beware the algorithmic hammers of conformity; always watching, ever ready, and waiting to shine down from on high; ceaselessly smiling, shaking hands, and kissing babies on the way.
Before new experiments and orthodoxies can be tried, there must be good reasons to do so. For out of chaos comes creation. The circle runs like clockwork and always on time.
The Id of Man will be tempered by a new religion; or perhaps an old one by another name.
Self-control and self-discipline are acquired traits, rarely inherited. Even in the minnows of the stream. They return to their roots again and again upstream against all odds.
Now, I’ve read through the tome and have to admit you have some imagery and visuals I find surprising. Perhaps the re-read will clarify the subtle meaning you imply. Am really glad to see such a large body of writing from you in one post.
It’s probably too long for it to be picked up by other sites, so readers will just have to come here instead. If I cut any more then I already did, it would have been incomplete. That said, however, it’s quite possible the words not directly stated are the most meaningful.
I think it an important piece and hope to see it picked up elsewhere, but even so… a fine contribution.
Steve Quayle posted it. That will get it a large amount of reads.
Just saw it posted on SHTFplan.com
Nice work! BTW, Eyes Wide Shut was quite explicitly about secret societies , with some of the scenes and costumes based on pictures from a Rothschild party in the 1970s..It was also explicitly about child rape and sacrifice, which is why the studio demanded that Kubrick remove 24 minutes of the film…When Kubrick refused, he was murdered and the 24 minutes was taken out. But the last scene clearly reveals that the daughter has been given to the two old men…
I’ll put it up. More comments below.
It is almost 10:10 by your clock on the page and I am listening in. What a wonderous way to begin my SUN Day. Thank you Doug.
Some may recall my trope inspired by the Pankey Cross of a clock with 4 teeth at the ordinal points – 12, 3, 6 and 9. With teeth at each point signifying work, worship, play and family (love) as elements of life. Work: doing something of value for others. Worship: study and PRACTICE the sacred and secular. Play: recreate those things in life that make it worthwhile and you wish to pass on; Recreation. Family: where you belong and come from, kin kine tribe etc, and hopefully learn and practice what is generally called love.
It is my religion, or a decipherable causation and code to emulate and follow; to attempt to explain, delineate, exalt and honor the indecipherable cause of the human condition.
Spend Time wisely as the moments of ticking time passes around you, through you and in you.
The conflicts inherent in and between fundamentalist religions and dogmas deserve elimination. Competitions will always exist and persist granted, however these world wars deserve an alternative. To reconcile different schemes of existence is my thought in this.
Just my $0.02 thoughts as I prepare to entertain my two grandkids by making French toast with maple syrup.
time4teeeth
light a light
be the light
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
Edmund Burke.
Scott: Aristotle would agree with Burke that justice is a personal virtue (Nicomachean Ethics). But on what basis and with what justification are Burke’s “fetters” place on men? Alex’s case is simple: he receives Aristotle’s corrective justice for his transgressions. Shall we shackle all men preemptively?
Before free will can be realized, free thought must exist. Control thoughts and the will is controlled. The relentless coordinated thought control programming of the social media companies, MSM, hollywood, academia and governments is designed to break our free will and transform individuals into a mere clockwork, who will readily accept tyrannical rule, whatever the tyrannical flavor may be, with no free thought or will to challenge it. If you look at the thoughts that are being promoted by the aforementioned institutions today, a world of increasing deviant sex and routine violence is indeed in our future.
But it will not be the violent ones sitting in that chair with their eyes forced open to receive the clockwork programming, it will be the free thought/free will, freedom loving individuals.
Rocky: does the causation flow from free thought to free will, or the other way around? Hegel would argue that without the Will you don’t even dare to have the Thought. Whaddya think?
I guess you have to first define both terms, thought and will. I am not a philosophy major, so my definitions are probably less than academic. To me, will is action and thought is an idea, so will (a particular action) would be the result of a specific idea (thought).
The Id (instincts), Ego (reality) and Superego (morality) – a true balance must be maintained or problems arise.
In the movie “Forbidden Planet” starring Walter Pigeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Neilsen, and Warren Stevens, directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox, the advanced civilization of the Krel were destroyed in a single night by the unleashing of unlimited power to just one of those. In that movie it was ‘monsters of the id.’
In our current society we also see an imbalance. Ego (reality) and Superego (morality) are in decline.
Will we face the same fate as the Krel?
I’ve not seen Forbidden Planet but checked it out on YouTube tonight. That one could be fun to write about as well. Lots to unpack there, not from a conspiratorial standpoint, but the cultural impact, psychology, etc. If the forbidden planet was viewed as an allegory to our brain, what would that make the “monsters of the id”? It could be fun trying to answer that one.
In any case, after viewing the first few seconds of the trailer, I gathered George Lucas must have seen the movie and was quite impressed by it. Just a hunch…
Original impressions of SW was that it was funny, with robots that looked like a walking gas pump. The viewers of that day were young Boomers who had grown up on replays of the 50’s sci-fi movies. There is no need to treat Lucas as a visionary. In fact, Alien took us back to the serious sci-fi genre. Of course, moranic Disney crowds always fetishize stupid movies with ready made souvenir dolls and lame tv comedies like BBT because reality is too scary.
It probably would make a good write-up.
The storyline is sometimes compared to William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”
Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) loved it.
One the parts I cut from my above essay, was how the main character, Alex, was based upon Shakespeare’s Richard III.
Maybe it really is true that all the world is a stage and nothing is new under the sun. ?
Man does not have free will. But man has the potential to develop and exercise free will. The human mind is a computer that is programmed from birth by culture and education. This forms our personality. We all know the saying about computers: garbage in garbage out.
Go into any public library or book store today and one will find that majority of the books are rubbish. Most all entertainment in the form of movies, video games, and television is a giant wasteland of rubbish. All this garbage constantly being fed into the minds of our people is producing the social problems we are having today.
I will say this: In this country if we seek out good books we can find them.
In my long life I have discovered that people who can exercise free will are those that live by their conscience. And I want to clarify that do gooders are not people who live by conscience. I also want to clarify that those who live by the “rule of law” i.e. the letter of the law do not live by conscience. Conscience is a trait we are born with and we can see it demonstrated by young children. Most people lose this trait young in life because they are trained out of it by our society.
Most people by the time they reach their teenage years have become automatons. They don’t know it but that is what culture and education have done to them.
The State is an automaton. An automaton is a machine. In America we can live free in our mind if we know this.
No, free will exists, and must exist, or we would live in a deterministic universe, which would be pointless metaphysically. But since quantum physics has established that the universe is not deterministic, determinism is nonsense.
Do animals have free will? No, they live by a pattern nature gives them. Man has a dual nature; animal and spiritual. When man lives by his animal nature he has no free will. Unfortunately today many live by their animal nature.
Perhaps there is a middle ground somewhere between determinism and the indeterminate god-hood that is the logical absurdity of “free will” – In addition to Thunderbird’s points, see JR Wirth’s comments below for some obvious limitations to free-will, to which I will add: death. Death is the de-facto end of free-will; since all life (NOT energy) ends, bacterium and beast alike, free-will is, itself, determined. And, of course, none of us may sprout wings of flesh and fly to the moon, but if I had true free will, I would do so without hesitation, the vacuum of space be damned. Also, humans exist at the mercy of many “gods” – earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wild-fires, flash-floods, diseases, et cetera, any one of which may reveal to us our limitations and utter lack of control over our own environment(s); so, perhaps our truest expression of freedom of will (and choice), then, is revealed not in how we choose to act but in how we choose to REACT. That is, we can either act to be part of the problem or act to be part of the solution.
Interesting, if one has time for analyzing such imagery. I would say Kubrick most likely was simply producing a product for public consumption and motivated by economic necessity to make a name for himself. Or maybe he just liked to be talked about. IMO, man is a much simpler mix of impulses, both good and evil. When basic resources are plentiful for population densities, mankind’s better nature emerges, and when those resources are strained, he becomes aggressive. The times are evil because we have never had so many people chasing the same dwindling pool of resources. Sanity, kindness and responsible activity will return sometime after about 98% of us are food for worms. When the great population reduction begins, Clockwork Orange, Kubrick and all the associated goblins will be promptly forgotten.
In the same way the sun is forgotten by people who have no time for analyzing such imagery.
Are the current times really evil? Are you not persuaded at all by Steven Pinker’s statistical arguments that things have been getting better and better? Or are you more in Nassim Taleb’s camp that average statistics don’t capture the potential for cataclysm? Kubrick’s apes from 2001 suggest that technology is a veneer and that violence shadows us always and everywhere. I’m not sure.
Will, I am not into identifying myself with any group or individual. I read as much as I can absorb and then use my intuition combined with a formula of keeping the issues as simple as possible to arrive at a conclusion. The times are unpredictable and dangerous, so I call it evil.
I always avoided anyone who could actually watch that movie (since that time and before I was a Christian). What’s hiding underneath?
Predictive programming or just programming?
Also I think that movie probably inspired the ‘ads’ we see here on this blog.
Guest, you probably don’t watch or read science fiction or anything paranormal, either. Just stay in your little Christian box prepare to be a shell shocked zombie when things happen that don’t fit into your idea of the end times.
Yes, it’s a hard movie to watch and I wouldn’t spend all my time watching the offerings Hollywood. The people who would enslave us will give us clues before they do, because they think it absolves them of any responsibility, and in a way, they are right.
Following Christ means you need to understand the culture you are living in and don’t under estimate the supernatural weirdness of the Bible.
The Bible is a guide book to the supernatural.
Yes it is. This is a good vs evil story. The forces of evil rebelled against good. Man was created to replace the rebels. The forces of evil seek to foil this plan by enticing man to the dark side. I guess you missed the class where the Star Wars/Bible allegory was discussed. EC
Why don’t you cut your penis off if it brings you so much trouble.
“When watching A Clockwork Orange, the viewer is forced to consider the ironies of individual and state. In turn, this blogger now questions if both entities are not merely two parallel paths to hell on earth.
The sun rises and sets on individuals and nations alike. Yet, throughout history, Man’s Id was successfully moderated at times by his Ego and Superego thus allowing, for the most part, periods of equilibrium and justice; even if only for a season.”
It boils down to the question of, are some men entitled to coerce others? What a man of the state has to offer those who support him is the rental of sanctioned coercive power. He can legislate or enforce in a manner that enhances a special interest group or weakens it’s competition and also transfers resources to the group. The result being a system of abuse where the ends justify the means and there is a standard for the man of the state and his benefactors which is different than the standard imposed on the rest of society.
So we have the Utilitarian/Bentham principles of justice, complete with the “all-seeing eye”/sun panopticon imagery in the movie (Clockwork Orange), versus your libertarian conceptualization of justice, for which I suspect Burgess has affinity, as do I. But if we’re right, we’re going to have to tolerate some Droogs, at least until they can be brought to justice.
The inevitable dilemma of justice is the one described in the movie and raised by your question. In a democracy you could easily see how the question could be resolved against you.
Yes, no doubt life is not fair.
“Yet, throughout history, Man’s Id was successfully moderated at times by his Ego and Superego thus allowing, ..”
This is Freudian theology and has no basis in fact. One observation we can make from history is that the state culls the weak in mind and body. The state fosters education and contrives war for the purpose of eliminating useless eaters. Social Darwinism is still in play even as ‘progressive’ forces seek to nurture effeminate males and macho females.
You may be right, El Doggy. Psychology is not neuroscience. Not sure if it can be proven either way. I tend to look at it as more of a construct, or point of reference; like mind, body, spirit, or the three branches of government. When in balance, things are better than when they are not. I’m pretty sure I think that’s what I meant
I am not El Doggy.
I meant it like wassup, Dog? Or how you’re always doggin‘ me about one thing or another, like grammar, or speling, or the disingenuity of specific theories regarding psychic structure and stuff like that.
It’s my job. No breaks for nobody. Especially you.
Although I do say nice things about you behind your back.
“It boils down to the question of, are some men entitled to coerce others?”
You just gave a concise definition of “government”. Right?
One curiosity about the film is it was based on the US version of the novel, which contained 20 chapters; the original novel, since released in its entirety in the US, had 21. The final chapter follows Alex as he finds his droogs have all moved on from their previous shenanigans, and can be summed up as ‘Alex grows up’.
One can only hope Western society, as did Alex, can move past the false dichotomy of selfish indulgence or overbearing government control to regain the equilibrium necessary to maintain a cohesive culture. But, as in Alex’s case, it will take a lot of pain, misfortune, and ‘growing up’ to reinstate some semblance of rationality.
I, however, don’t engage in the futility of hope. Western Civilization (and the US in particular) is hell-bent on committing suicide, as have all other great cultures throughout history, by letting the inmates plunder and tear apart the asylum at their leisure while the rest of us are distracted by the daily effort required to survive. The 4th turning is part of a cycle, but all great cultures are organic and have their own life cycles; after nearly 600 years of ascendancy, ours is in its death throes.
Prepare accordingly for the new Dark Ages..
There are some who might interpret “the futility of hope” as this essay’s conclusion. However, be assured the questions posed therein are not necessarily the contentions of its author.
As I’ve stated before, hope springs eternal but reality is inevitable.
Kubrick’s films are great vehicles to nudge the Overton Window. I’m working things out and write in order to inspire others to respond in ways that might bring new perspectives; as others here have inspired me.
Upon reading the excellent commentary thus far, I’m definitely not disappointed. All I can say, is “thanks for that” and I’m glad to know you’re there.
What is the opposite of hope? Is it despair?
We are not useful to ourselves or anyone else if we lose all hope. It’s where our hope is placed that can lead to despair.
I think your dissection of these movies is a very powerful tool to help us see where we are being lead and how we are being deceived.
Thanks for doing it and for watching this dark movie so I don’t have to.
If you read the short story, The Cat, the opposite of hope is patience.
@ OK,
Also – my research for this piece indicated that Kubrick felt the 21st chapter seemed contrived; as if Alex’s redemption was forced upon the author by those desiring a happy ending (perhaps for for purposes of profit)
Interesting; my recollection was as previously stated. In any case, I read the novel after seeing the film for the first time in the early 80’s (I was around 9 years old when it was initially released), which had only 20 chapters. The ‘complete’ version was released in the US sometime around ’85 (?), and the additional verbiage felt tacked on after becoming so familiar with the ‘original’ and film versions of the story.
A novelist said he wrote according to what should have happened, and made the imperfect perfect in his novels. It may be Kubrick employed this literary licence. He certainly pissed off Stephen King.
The novel is a masterpiece, in which Burgess created a new vocabulary of mixed Russian and English and made many subtle observations about modern civilization. The movie is more accessible, and remains in the public consciousness. One of my sons has had the movie poster since he was 10 years old, though he was born long afterward.
“One of my sons has had the movie poster since he was 10 years old, though he was born long afterward.”
Was he born-again?
I thought the point of Kubrick’s interview was that when TSHTF, a society needs the Bad Boys to defend it from predators. America, for example, clearly has an excessive number of castrated males and “nice” people, or it wouldn’t be in this fix.
I disagree.
If a person returns to his or her life of crime after being conditioned to be good, it proves that good and evil are innate. Choice is an illusion. We didn’t choose the place in time in which we were born. We didn’t even choose to be born at all. We didn’t choose the demographics in which we were raised, the education level of our parents, of our peers, in the end we choose nothing. Most people are horrified by that thought. Hell, I live in California, I can’t even choose to have my groceries bagged in disposable plastic bags.
Also, a God who allows his people to “choose good” would be the ultimate absentee father. Some people are born to be good, and others born to be bad, and that’s just the way it is. You have saints who were raised in grotesque environments with awful circumstances. You have the worst killers and thieves who can be raised in pristine suburban environments by Ward and June Clever. Just look at Wall Street.
The state makes most of our choices in 2018 because we, as a society, are in a state of moral anarchy and the nature of a vacuum is to be filled. Evil exists merely as a teaching mechanism. Evil is like a physical classroom, it is the white-board, the chairs, the walls, the markers, and the physical reality of this planet. Good is what’s taught inside that classroom. You can’t see a light unless it’s enveloped in darkness.
You make some very valuable points that I can agree with. I would like to add that the society which we live in today with no concepts of aim, of obligation or purpose of it’s existence is on the path of it’s own destruction.
I was born in California and joined the military one month before the Vietnam war. It was a beautiful place to live then. When I came back eleven years later I found the people ruined by drugs. The mindset had changed and ever since the state has gone downhill. I left the state three years later.
In man the transformation of the power of choice into individuality is the meeting point of fact and value. When the people of my generation chose drugs and free love over aim, of obligation and purpose of their existence this is what started the deterioration of our society. They passed their hubris on to their children without a thought of what this was instilling in their minds. The State is only a reflection of this hubris because the State is run by people coming out of society.
Educating people without values give power to monsters that abuse their power over others. This is what we got from the free love generation.
For those that can remember there was a rumor going around that one day America would become like the Russia under the Soviet Union and vice verse Russia would become like America. Funny how today that rumor is coming true.
I have never seen the movie clockwork orange and frankly would not want to. It seems depressing like the movie 1984.
All I can say is it sure seems like our society is headed for a catastrophic breakdown which I believe started back in the 1960s with the free love generation of my peers that escaped the Vietnam war.
I can see how you might have had trouble editing this. There is so much more to what you posted than what your final product indicates. Particularly the occult and the breakdown you did on the gods. That deserves it’s own post but it can be quite an undertaking, something I have already looked into. You almost have to have a doctorate to get into how the ancient world of the occult had intertwined as the gods seemed to multiply and/or change names.
I would watch the movie again but it’s a very hard movie to watch and not particularly enjoyable, for me, anyway. Even before I was a Christian, I found it dark and depressing. Twice was enough for me.
There is a deception going on in the evangelical world, what with..well a certain letter of the alphabet which shall remain nameless. Even people who don’t mention the letter will spout nonsense about how everything is going to be alright and, just sit tight. No need to act on anything, just make sure the Rethuglicans win the mid-terms and all will be well. It’s really putting people to sleep who should be paying really close attention to who is behind spouting all of this nonsense. I think that is the whole idea. It doesn’t really matter. It’s all just one big Hollywood movie we are living in. I can expand on this more later but I will just say that Christian dominionism seems to be behind all of this.
I am going to take Keyser S’s idea to heart and get outside to enjoy this stellar fall day we are having.
It’s been decades since I’ve ‘A Clockwork Orange’, but the scene that I always remember is the one where the husband of the woman Alex DeLarge raped earlier in the movie is having a drink with him and in seeking revenge he has slipped him a ‘Mickey Finn’. As he hands Alex another drink he looks at him in a way that’s almost as crazed as Alex is and while extending a shaking hand says, “…More wine sonny?”
One is as crazy as the other. Both are a tad out of balance.
The result is predictable…
I don’t think I want to see the movie.
What is especially alarming about the film is when the viewer identifies with Alex, and the state, in terrifying ways.
I hated the movie. I thought it was a waste of $2.50. Of course, I was never a Kubrick fan. I always felt that there was never any resolution in his films. It left you in a state of turmoil. Perhaps, that was his motive after all. Somehow that led you to thinking, hmmm. All the symbolism attributed to Kubrick’s films or to the author’s books are probably unwarranted.
This post reminds me of Cliff’s Notes where all kinds of symbolism and relationships are conjured up and attributed to the author’s genius.
As entertainment, “Clockwork Orange” left me wanting! It was spiritually depressing, why would I want that?
Somehow, wallowing in the base nature of mankind, like a crucifix in a mason jar filled with urine is considered genius. That’s certainly a telling tale.
You’re dating yourself, Homer. I remember reading when movie tickets went to $7 in New York and I told myself: “That will never happen here”. Boy. Was I wrong.
But also keep in mind this piece is not necessarily about “A Clockwork Orange”; if you can believe it.
Ya! Moses and I had the same kindergarten teacher. I don’t dwell on the depravity of mankind. I recognize it and see its ramification, but I try and see every person as a child of God. That doesn’t mean that I accept their evil and that it doesn’t need pointing out. Even the worst person serves as a good example of what not to do!
Doug: I think a visual artist like Kubrick is going to use his medium to explore fundamental philosophical questions in a linear way – via the story line- but also in a sensory way -via immersing the audience in a conscious and subconscious, visceral experience.
You wouldn’t want to sit through a 2 1/2 hour lecture on Gnosticism. But a black monolith and Ligeti’s soundtrack will get you asking questions about the limits of human knowledge and whether we can experience the Divine. What does Dave see at the end? Is he the New Man? Can we learn what he has learned, or must it come from direct experience?
A Clockwork Orange tackles justice and the legitimate use of force by the State. We don’t experience it in the abstract by reading Bentham, Aristotle or Nozick. We’re immersed in the sensory terror of it. That’s the whole point. Justice is irreducibly about force just as it is about virtue.
Aristotle talked about the virtue of prudence governing our powers of reason. Kubrick and Burgess are giving us a visceral, terrifying sensory tutorial on prudence. What’s the limit of our judgments about justice? Are we certain of our reasoning? We had better be.
Captain Willard,
First, I want to say how much I enjoyed your commentary on this thread. Secondly, I have a friend with a t-shirt that says:
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand for you.
Maybe it’s like that.
So, Stanley is just as confused as everybody else. So the movie goes……
“..in the real world currently, the media, the Political Left, and lukewarm conservatives, are in singularity with the Established State;”
I’m not sure if all Mexicans view the state as a large criminal gang but I don’t believe I’m the only one. In is book, Always Running, Luis Rodriguez describes a scene where the dominant male encourages him to stab a young man they have assaulted. From this small gang society, we can infer the larger mafia society. Its the same. From modest beginnings like Jeffrey Dahmer, the state dreams not of electric sheep but something akin; zombie sheep. The media is the means of messing with the minds of the menschen.
The proles are surreptitiously conditioned by movie previews to look forward to the next subliminal orgy of pictures guaranteed to pollute the puerile. How did a group become so inured to gore and submit to even more SAW pictures? Young people flock to Halloween Horror shows, haunted houses and celebrations of the dark arts.
———————————————————————–
– Where would you like to go to?
– Citywalk
I missed the exit off 170 and got off on the Highland exit into Hollywood. There was even more traffic than usual, I had to get off at Highland as best I could, circle onto La Brea and back on Sunset to return to Highland.
– You’re going back into the mess, I thought you had to pee?
– I do but you wanted to go to Citywalk and we’re going there. (I’m feeling dizzy) Do you have any candy?
– Why is there so much congestion?
– I don’t know, people are always looking for something. I would rather go to Vegas and look for it there because even if I don’t find it, I can stop to play on the machines.
We arrive at Citywalk. It is congested. We go cheap and pay for general parking ($25) instead of preferred parking ($35).
– I’m not going to pay extra for them to send me 2 miles down the road to the far end lot.
We go into the small strip known as Citywalk, a fashionable strip mall with a movie theater, various eateries and trinket stores; a sanitized Hollywood Blvd. At the far end is the entrance to Universal studios, the large crowds of young people are flocking to the scene of Horror night thrills.
– I wouldn’t pay to have somebody scare me, she says.
– People are too young here, we look like the only old people here. That’s why I’d rather go to Vegas, where I can be around my age group.
– You have me, I’m old.
She hasn’t said it but she wants to go to Camacho’s, a place I took her to on our first date. It is closed for renovation. Things change, the tide pool in front of the surf shop is gone, the comics store is relocated in favor of a larger souvenirs shop. The old Upstart Crow bookstore is gone in favor of a Sephora makeup shop probably selling Kylie’s crap. We opt for what seems like the last remaining Tony Roma’s. It has cut down their menu, serving fries instead of a baked potato with dinner, instead of a salad, we get tortilla chips along with a small vat of sour cream and another of can salsa.
There is nothing here for us to remind us of an earlier date. On the second level, the old Latin dance hall is gone, BB King’s is now a bar where patrons in casual wear wait to get in. Beyond that, there is a group of kids at the dining area, it feels like we’ve wandered into a high school lunch room. A couple of hours later, she invites me to a juice at Jamba juice. We head to our car at the ET parking lot. The entire place seems to be surrounded by parking structures that would make a Las Vegas casino jealous.
– I have said goodbye to Citywalk, she says.
Romantic bullshit promoting women. Can they even cook? Plus, you make out that her crazy mood swings depend on your actions, bullshit!
Diogenes Theory #1: All woman are crazy, it’s just a question to what degree.
Diogenes Theory #2: Take the most ugly woman on the planet, there is a guy somewhere who will
fuck her.
You forgot one.
No matter how good she looks, when the makeup, lashes, wig, teeth, pushup bra, booty panties and false leg come off, she’s quite plain.
Navy guys
It’s a toss up between Ann Coulter and Christine Lagarde
I saw this movie at a premier I was invited to as a member of the media and knew nothing about it beforehand. Blank slate. Needless to say I was shocked by the graphic violence and nudity and never mentioned it on-air. But I think we’re about at that point in our society with gang violence, Human trafficking, crazies slicing up 1 month old babies and terrorists (Fedgov) blowing up skyscrapers filled with people, and illegals chopping peoples head’s off. Directors like Kubrick have helped the process along. I think his best film was “The Shining”.
If you ever find yourself kickin the shit out of someone…que up Singing In The Rain, up in your brainpan to make it a smooth and relaxing experience…then back to the Milkbar for a double plus.
Uncola,
I’ve never watched the movie or read the book, nor had the desire to do so. Your article only reinforced that feeling. However, my guess is that your article is probably more valuable than the movie or book.
Which is worse, chosen evil or forced good?
Two ideas from your article stand out: that morality is a choice, and the state is the ultimate purveyor of evil. If morality is a choice, then there can be no “forced good.” In fact, the phrase is just a variant of the old idea that certain means justifiy certain ends. If the force itself is evil, then there’s no need to get to the question of the alleged good. Allowing anyone, from the state on down, to decide that ends justify coercive and violent means has excused just about every horror from humanity’s beginnings. The only non-evil force against another human being is that used in self-defense. If “forced good” is making people observe traffic signals, and chosen evil is genocide, the latter is worse. If “forced good” is extracting huge percentages of the GDP in taxes, and chosen evil is pulling wings off bottleflies, the former is worse. It’s essentially a meaningless question that depends on the chosen evil and the forced good that cannot be good.
Of course the prime exponent of the “our ends justify our means” thinking is always those who hold the whip of government power. The alleged “twist” on the old story of good versus evil—chosen evil or forced good—is thematically banal, no matter how much it’s dressed up in symbolism and other gimrack. There is no such thing as forced good. A far more compelling theme is individual conscience versus the dictates of the state. The phrase “individual conscience” implies free will and the ability to choose between good and evil, and “dictates of the state” makes no reference to the state’s purported “good” ends, directly implying the evil of all state initiated force against individuals.
It’s late and I’m too tired to argue why evil requires good, but not vice versa. Perhaps some other thread.
You’ve written another incisive and thought provoking article and I’m going to post it. Thanks.
That was fantastic, Robert. Thank you for both your insights and for posting the article on your blog
There is a general misunderstanding of Good and Evil. To believe in Good is to recognize that there is a standard for Good and the same is true for Evil or how else can it be recognized? The question is where does these standards come from and what is the nature of these standards. Some say the standard for Good emanates from God and that the standard for Evil emanates from Satan.
This is the dualistic thinking of Mankind. If there is a God then there must be an Evil counterpart. That everything has an opposite. Up-Down, In-Out, etc. Duality of thinking is a shallow perspective of reality, I think, and that there really isn’t inconsistencies in the realm of God Consciousness. If this is true, what is the nature of Evil, you might ask?
If there is a God of Creation, there’s Laws that govern the Universe that we can discern due to their consistency over time. If the Universe has Laws governing its existence, then certainly there are Laws governing Mankind. What the nature of Mankind and Laws governing Mankind are, has been debated from the beginning of time. The debate will continue until definitive proof of what man’s nature truly is and not a faith based approach.
I assume that if one thinks in terms of Good and Evil that one believes in a God, a Creative Force, or What Ever that has a standard. My thought is not a dualistic thought that Evil is a stand alone product on a shelf opposite Good, but rather that Evil, as we see it, is a misapplication of Good. Through Free Will, we choose not the standard of God, but the selfish desire of our own thinking. This is misapplication that has consequences as all thoughts do. Those consequences we see as Good or Evil.
Rather than projecting the Evil consequences on a Satan, it would be more productive to come to realization that the Evil that we confront in our daily lives is of our own making. “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
Great comment.
I still remember the day my sister handed me a book she had to read for school and said ” I believe you will like this”. I was about 17 and of course it was “A clockwork Orange”. The book blew me away and so did the movie. The book is also a good detector to find out if a person is a moran if they can’t deal with the Russian-English slang. I wish you wouldn’t have tried to tie tRump to the story, kinda pissing on a work of art in my opinion. If you want to do the occult thing big time look at “Eyes Wide Shut”.
Careful, Genes, Uncool may call you a dog.
But dogs are cool.
Thanks Dio. I’m honored by your “work of art” comment. Whenever I post something, I will admit to having some sense of insecurity and questions like: Did I miss the forest for the trees; what else did I miss; will people understand what I’m striving to present to them, et al.
And then, to have comments like yours, Gore’s, and others above, are are reassuring. Not that I need that, per se, but I do consider the outside validation valuable; if only for purposes of feedback.
Definition of essay:
I also understand what you were saying about Trump. I included that portion for three reasons:
A.) The relevancy of the modern political “stage”
B.) The fact that Trump does appear to be orange; as well as the “clockwork” aspect of this time in history
C.) To an extent, readers of blogs tend to be more interested in current events
Thanks again for your input.
Oops. Busted.
Most interesting article UN. There is a guy who has been doing this sort of thing on the site Vigilant Citizen for many years, check his selection of movies he breaks down to show the mind control and masonic imprinting.
Some of us consider this programming 101 and accepted it as part of life on this plane many moons ago. I did not watch the video about Trump with the constant flashing light, that is a technique to imprint mind control messages. Trump is a actor, one you know quite well.
It’s all a show UN, glad you are a new convert and write about it so well.
“Trump is a actor, one you know quite well. It’s all a show UN, glad you are a new convert and write about it so well.”
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Trust in Zeee Plan, Goyim
@ Dio & BL,
RE: Eyes Wide Shut and Vigilant Citizen
In the 7th paragraph (just above the sun clock), if you click the “secret societies…” embedded link – it takes the readers to the Vigilant Citizen site. I don’t believe I could add anything more, regarding Eyes Wide Shut, than VC’s series of three articles published five years ago; other than it’s easier to look at the sun when one’s eyes are wide shut, ya know?
It’s easier to look at the sun simulator when one’s eyes are wide shut.
Dio, that’s a good one and yet few people understand the truth in your quip. Oh well, it’s a small club and you and I ARE in it. 🙂 BL
1)- I didn’t enjoy this piece all that much. (I could have said “great job!” and moved on, but I don’t believe in bullshitting. And you don’t like liars.)
2)- Mostly (probably) because I hated the movie. Bad filming, bad acting, characters I could give a shit about (especially Alex). Crappy dialog. Terrible accent painful to the brain. The last third of the movie was beyond boring. Tried to read the book … didn’t care for it much either.
3)- Not thrilled with you using the word “oeuvre”. It’s a damned pretentious word. No one really uses it, except if they want to show how smart they are.
4)- Bringing Freud into discussion only made it worse. I HATE that motherfucker vehemently. Satan himself could hardly have a more negative influence on humanity. Fucken Joo, too.
5)- Was never sure throughout what point you were trying to make. But, then you had a conclusion, thankfully; — “Fate or free will? That is the question. ” Oh. OK. Not a bad question! But, a 5000 word “answer” via a crappy 40+ year old movie was a poor choice.
Just my asshole opinion. (I could have said “Just my opinion asshole”, but that would have been bullshit.)
=============================
BELOW IS A WRITING BY THE AUTHOR OF CLOCKWORK ORANGE … where he explains all the meanings behind his book
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/the-clockwork-condition
I didn’t like the movie either Stucky, but UN did a good job on this and if it helps some poor slob understand that the world is a bullshit factory then that is good, no?
If some poor slob comes to see that this world is a bullshit factory, then indeed, the article was worth it.
I said one tenth what you did and I got called an SOB.
EC- I got hammered today for posting and commenting on a article posted by the Bar Assoc., we just don’t get no respect …….. no respect at all. 🙂
Stucky says:
First of all, Stuck, let me say that I liked your comment. Literally. Which is to say, I upvoted you – not only for your perspectives but also your honesty. Always your honesty.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will acknowledge (for the first time here) that I have NOT read the book by Burgess. Truthfully, I wanted to write about the topics that were delineated in the piece and used Kubrick primarily as an excuse to do so. Or, as I stated above in another comment, to move the Overton Window sufficiently enough to allow the discussion of these topics; as well as tie into current events.
I very much enjoyed the New Yorker article by Burgess, and found it insightful in profoundly personal ways. I identified with this especially:
Moreover, I was gratified to discover the article confirmed my suspicions that Burgess was influenced by the authors George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, as well as the psychologist B.F. Skinner.
At the end of Kubrick’s film, Alex said he had dreams that (the viewer realizes) helped to return him to his normal mental state. Immediately, I thought of Huxley’s “hypnopaedia” and that exact term was, indeed, mentioned by Burgess in the New Yorker article.
Setting aside the broad influence of Freud for a moment, here are some more random observations and comments here regarding “psychology”:
In my piece, as you very astutely pointed out, I said the “question was” fate or free will. I also broached the topics of reward and punishment and feedback loops.
Anyone who has ever taken an introductory psych course would have learned about “classical conditioning”, “Pavlov’s dogs”, etc. – but one illustration that I always found interesting was John B. Watson’s “Little Albert” study where he conditioned a little kid by showing him furry objects such as rabbits, dogs, a fur coat, and a Santa mask, then traumatized the boy with loud noises until he later cried at the mere sight of those things.
What I found most concerning were the ethics behind that study. Pavlov conditioned animals. Watson took to the next level. Even worse than that, Watson later joked that Little Albert would grow up one day and, as a man, start crying every time he saw a women wearing a fur coat! Something is out of balance with that. Pure, cold, calculated intellect with no soul. To make it worse, I laughed out loud when I learned it. What did that make me?
Anyway, although Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner were contemporaries in the study of Behavioral Science, Skinner was the youngest of the three.
Why do I think psychology is important? Because it brainwashes the masses and explains Why Shit Happens.
Maybe Homer (above) is right and we are the enemy after all.
Are you thinking of applied psychology? Also, Freud is not a psychologist, he is a psychoanalyst.
Psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques related to the study of the unconscious mind, which together form a method of treatment for mental-health disorders. Wikipedia
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes.
Psyche (Greek) = breath, life, soul
Logia (Greek) = word, reason,
Analysis (Latin / Greek) = anal = butthole + lysis= a “loosening” or “breaking up”
Psychoanalysis is a field in psychology.
But, but, but, I thought you had to have an MD to be a psychoanalyst. How else can they prescribe drugs?
You’re taking this light criticism too hard. I was trying to be helpful.
You analytical method is a bit uptight, here, let me loosen it up a bit for you.
The scatanalysis has been quite therapeutic El Clinician. Who knew such beneficial treatment would have derived from the field of scatology.
Uncola
After arriving home last night from the library I became somewhat peeved at myself. I intended to close with a “Note” of explanation. It would have read thusly;
[NOTE: I hope you don’t take my criticism personally! Just because I didn’t enjoy this one article of yours as much as the others, well, it changes nothing about my utmost respect for your exceptional talents as a writer. Peace.]
So, I logged in today with a bit of trepidation, wondering if I crossed the line, and if I’d get my ass handed to me. You were, as always, nothing but gracious and kind. I should have known better! Thank you.
Who the hell can be pissed off at you, Stuck? Give me his name and he’s good as dead.
@ Stuck,
I remember watching you one time trying to get Llpoh’s dander up over the Volkswagon diesel debacle and, when he was just starting to take the bait, he warned you first that the shitfest was about to commence. Then you acknowledged you were just trying to stir things up for the benefit of the newbs, but it didn’t take hold because of your separation of time zones.
What was wild, is how I thought both of you were right.
I remember asking myself what will I do when Stucky comes for me? Truth is, I wouldn’t take the bait. Admin brought me here, but t’was you, Hardscrabble, and others who kept me here. Therefore, I consider y’all off limits when it comes to the scatalogical dispersion of digital sticks and stones. At least for this particular moniker anyways. 🙂
On another note – my library had Hedge’s “Empire of Illusion. I scanned it some it there before checking it out. I just love the library on cool rainy days; so full of coziness and knowledge.
Thanks for the hat tip.
I have to disagree with the analysis of Kubrick. His movies are in the same category as the lyrics of most Pink Floyd songs: their purported ‘deep insight’ is all just part of an artist’s schtick.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. This lyric has stuck with me most of my life. I consider it a deep insight.
Or it was a subconscious attitude of defeat. As has been said of criticism, the negative comments are the most memorable, it seems to me that the most negative of sayings are more easily accepted by people who are self-defeating, that would be 99% of us. Imagine if Admin had said a blog would never work?
Wow trashing Kubrick and Pink Floyd in the same comment. Keep hitting that vodka.
Bah, I trashed Star Wars above and threw in Big Bang Theory for good measure.
That’s the way to do it, Genes, we are not horsing around here, idols are gonna come down. Welcome to Hollywood, what’s your dream?
What’s my dream? Hmmmmmm. My dream is that my children will have a happy future. I’ve had a good run, I really only care about them. Kinda feel responsible for bringing them into this shit-show. My personal goal is to have as much sex with the wife as possible before my body gives out.
“Kinda feel responsible for bringing them into this shit-show.”
That’s a leftover from the 70’s campaign to reduce family size. In movie after movie, the line was repeated – I don’t want to bring children into this messed up world . People internalized the message and now we are at the point where only illegals, who never got brainwashed watching those movies, are having babies.
Thanks, Vodka! Old Pangloss said that most of the time, authors are not aware of the hidden meanings that readers find in literary analysis. I forget which author said he was too busy writing to waste time throwing in hidden meanings and symbols. Great stories harken back to childhood stories the audience is well aware of. The audience reacts to this familiar fable. I forget which author said there are only 7 basic stories with multiple versions by different authors.
Hey, I got 100 without trying. Yay, me!
I get by with a little help from my friends.
It seems like the entire effort you spent dissecting Clockwork Orange Jesus somehow relates to the idea that many people read into Cheeto Man a lot of purpose that just isn’t there. Every misstep is seen as evidence of a higher game, a visionary intellect far above mortal comprehension.
Waiting for the sun. Will it be a new day? More of the same? Or is the Titanic sinking into the depths of darkness by means of the permanent sunset, forevermore?
Stay tuned and don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back after this commercial break.
Folks are going to be worn out after this confirmation ordeal and the midterm campaigns mudslinging. RMS Trumptanic will be listing, hopefully no more that two compartments are breached by the Muellerberg.