something about “A Clockwork Orange”

A violent young hoodlum is caught, imprisoned, and behaviorally conditioned to be sickened by violence. He changes from a living thing into a machine—a clockwork orange.

I watched Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” in my teens. It stays with you: Kubrick’s striking scenery and artful shots, Malcolm McDowell’s boiling performance, and the characters’ affected speech.

 

The story and the speech—supposedly a mix of Russian-derived slang terms, cockney constructions, and archaic English—are the creation of author Anthony Burgess. I read A Clockwork Orange after seeing the movie, though, and now I have reread it. I love it.

The end of Kubrick’s movie, released in 1971, famously differs from Burgess’s book, published in 1962. The movie ends with Alex, the young hoodlum and protagonist, cured, so to speak, of his behavioral conditioning and once again aspiring to violence and criminality. Kubrick’s version follows the American edition of the book, which omitted the book's original final chapter in which Alex begins to lose interest in the wanton violence he pursued aggressively in youth, instead thinking more and more of relaxing and making something—a family, maybe.

The rest of the world had that chapter, yet Kubrick’s film is probably still the seminal version of the story. Burgess explains his take on the omitted ending in a new introduction he wrote in 1986:

When a fictional work fails to show a change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of the field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory. The American or Kubrickian Orange is a fable; the British or word one is a novel.

One of several nice passages in the book and not in the movie comes after P.R. Deltoid, the Post-Corrective Adviser from Alex’s time in a reform school, leaves Alex’s house the morning after one of Alex’s late nights of destruction. Alex is reflecting on society’s efforts to improve the behavior of young people like him. He shrugs his shoulders at the idea of getting arrested again and locked up in some jail or reform institution.

So if I get loveted and its three months in this mesto and another six in that, and then, as P.R. Deltoid so kindly warns, next time, in spite of the great tenderness of my summers, brothers, it’s the great unearthly zoo itself, well, I say: “Fair, but a pity, my lords, because I just cannot bear to be shut in. My endeavor shall be, in such future as stretches out its snowy and lilywhite arms to me before the nosh overtakes or the blood spatters its final chorus in twisted metal and shattered glass on the highroad, to not get loveted again.” Which is fair speeching. But, brothers, this biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchick. They don’t go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that’s because they like it, and I wouldn’t ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by Bog or God and in his great pride and rodasty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? I am serious with you, bothers, over this. But what I do I do because I like to do.

 

Notes:

"A Clockwork Orange" seems subversive even now, and in 1962 it must have been nuts.

In the same introduction mentioned above, Burgess suggests the term clockwork orange was first Cockney slang for a gay.

I read this in the website The Ringer (which is taking this part probably from the New York Post):

When McDowell improvised a version of “Singin’ in the Rain” on set during the scene in which Alex paralyzes the reclusive writer Mr. Alexander (Patrick Magee), he unlocked a contemporary, Hollywood-aimed variation on Burgess’s point, which Kubrick then wove brilliantly into the overall design of the film. Alex uses “Singin’ in the Rain” to express his joy at inflicting pain. In the process, Kubrick “taints” the music in a manner that foreshadows the methodology of the evil scientists’ brainwashing Ludovico Technique (not to mention the pale imitation of Quentin Tarantino, whose use of “Stuck in the Middle With You” in Reservoir Dogs as Mr. Blonde’s own private ode to joy is a tribute). 

 

a poem, sort of, for a morning in winter

Sunshine in the rear-view mirror in your eyes breaks lines on the wave. Scolds coldly you on the rooftop for time though you are only a victim of sunrise and its move to reverse space. Down how many stairs and salt lakes on landings he steps into. Routine trap. Cutting you down and to wish south where one can be reborn.

Nobody talks to you, it's just how people describe you after you shuffle past. Outside with dormant sedans, see stars float like fall’s leaves in the creek.

No more people are knowing about you now. Who lost everything could always return and hug the trees like family.

The list is thousands long. It will follow you all the way. Tell me about breaking your will and what needs to happen, what you belong to.

 

about the storm in the distance

Every act is one of intimidation and threat. If that was all, that would be fine. But it intends to act—to act, then push the limits. Just a matter of how far it will go before it declares victory. 

 

something about "There Will be Blood"

"There Will Blood" tells the story of an oilman building his empire during Southern California's oil boom in the early 20th century. This masterful epic (distantly inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil!) was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the oilman, Daniel Plainview. The film also features Paul Dano playing Eli Sunday, a charismatic young preacher and Plainview's foil. I watched the film again a while back, and considered it as an exploration of the relationship between rhetoric and truth.

Not a word is spoken during the first 15 minutes of the film. During that time, a baby whinnies, Daniel Plainview signs his name to a contract, and later he holds his black-coated finger up to silently signal that he struck oil.

The first spoken dialog in the film comes when Daniel, now with a foothold in the oil business, offers his drilling services to a new oil-struck community. Seated before them, Daniel establishes his ethos: "If I say I am an oilman, you will agree." Throughout the film, characters call attention to their speech acts. Here, Daniel goes on to say he is an experienced oilman with a simple offer: if the town agrees to work with him, he will consume fewer profits than a contractor and be more reliable than a speculator. He points to his young son, H.W., as proof that he runs a family business: honest and trustworthy. But when the town bickers and appears unable to immediately accept Daniel at his word, he leaves and doesn't look back.

Sales pitches--negotiation and manipulation, a play between rhetoric and truth--are heard throughout the film.

The next pitch is Daniel (again with his son at his side) at a kitchen table, an older couple facing him. This time Daniel closes with, "I need you to know what you want to do." This new closing technique is a reaction to the dissolution of his last prospect. The couple acquiesces in silence.

The film establishes that Daniel's voice, with its apparent directness, and the proximity of his young son are a big part of how Daniel communicates. With these tools he signals authority and legitimacy. However, we soon discover that Daniel's plain speaking is not so plain.

In the next pitch scene, roles are reversed, and Daniel finds himself in the role of customer. Paul Sunday (Eli Sunday's twin brother) comes to Daniel looking to sell information: the Sunday family farm is oil-rich: "If I told you I know a place that has oil, what do you think it would be worth?" When Daniel asks questions, poking around at the edges of Paul's secret, Paul flattens: "I'd like it better if you did not think I was stupid." When the cash-for-details trade is done, Paul closes: "The oil is there. I'm telling you."

Again, a character calls attention to his speech act.

With his interest piqued by Paul's revelation, Daniel and his son H.W. visit the Sunday family property posing as quail hunters. H.W. has learned to be the silent partner, and we get the impression that he has some awareness, if only vaguely, that he is a prop in these negotiations and his presence speaks volumes. When Daniel finally gets to negotiate--under the false pretense of buying the land for quail hunting and recreation--Daniel starts in, saying, "I believe in plain speaking." But this is a lie; his plain speaking is anything but. Eli steers the negotiation toward oil, and they all agree to deal.

Again and again, facts are minimized or misrepresented in speech. And with the introduction of Eli, we walk into a rhetorical web-tangling business masking brutality.

Later, when H.W. is alone with Mary, a young Sunday family member, she asks about the money that could be made from the oil pumped out of her family's land. H.W. withholds. After buying up all the nearby land, Daniel makes his pitch to the surrounding community. He appeals to them on the grounds that he comes to them without ceremony or intermediaries; he is there to talk to them "face to face" so that his motives and character are "no great mystery." Again he says, "I like to think of myself as an oilman," and then, "I hope you will forgive old-fashioned plain speaking." Then he describes how he believes family is important, and he enumerates all the benefits he will bring them, including schools, wells, crops, and roads.

As Daniel makes his final preparations to drill, Eli approaches and says he wants to bless the well when the community gathers there at the beginning of operations. Eli's instruction to Daniel is that "When you see me, you will say my name." Then, according to his pitch, Eli will step forward and give a simple blessing that he describes as "just a few words." But when the occasion arrives and the community gathers, Daniel is the demure master of the ceremony: "I'm not good at making speeches." Then Daniel plagiarizes Eli's "simple blessing."

Daniel humiliates others. The rhetorical situation is an opportunity to wield power.

Midway through the film, Daniel's son H.W. loses his hearing (the music in the soundtrack during this scene is all heavy percussion). But during the disaster that robs H.W. of his hearing, Daniel is intoxicated by the thought of all the oil he has found. But he can no longer be heard or understood by his son, H.W.

When Daniel's half-brother Henry arrives unannounced, Henry does not immediately make his intentions clear, and Daniel firmly demands, "I'd like to hear you say you'd like to be here" and Henry obliges. Eventually, Daniel, drunk, tells Henry that he hates people, and that he does not want anyone else to succeed. Daniel claims that he gets all of the information he needs about a person on first sight; yet, Daniel is deceived when he takes Henry's word that they are related.
 
In exchange for getting the final piece of land he needs to build his oil-carrying pipeline to the sea, Daniel agrees to be baptized in Eli's church. The speech act here is confession. Eli asks Daniel to confess (Eli must make multiple verbal demands: "I'll ask it again!"). Daniel answers, "What do you want me to say?" "Say 'I am a sinner!'" Daniel acquiesces. Eli hammers, "Say it louder!" Amid the church-house fervor, under his breath, Daniel whispers "There's a pipeline!"

As the film draws to a close, H.W. marries Mary Sunday. When he comes to his reclusive father, H.W. tells Daniel of his intention to drill for oil in Mexico. Daniel, enraged, mocks him: "You can't speak, so flap your hands! ... you're killing my image of you as my son." Daniel claims H.W. was adopted and used so Daniel would look more sympathetic and honest during negotiations. H.W.'s inability to speak is Daniel's weapon; Daniel's conception of others can only survive if nurtured by speech.

Eli arrives at the recluse Daniel's mansion during the film's final scene. Eli needs money. Daniel asks Eli to confess aloud that he is a false prophet and say that there is no God. "Say it like you mean it!" Daniel demands. Eli waits for the Lord's Word. In a most undivine ending, Daniel kills Eli by pummeling him to death with a bowling pin. Exhausted from having delivered the beating, Daniel announces, "I'm finished."

Notes:
Additional material:
When Eli asks Daniel about money owed to the church, Daniel physically abuses Eli and shoves his face in the mud. Humiliated, Eli later berates his father, Abel. Abel pleads, "I followed his word" (Daniel's word). Eli says Paul told Daniel about their oil-rich land. These speech acts have built an empire. In speech we see tension between business, brutality, honesty, and religion; we see and hear how voice relates to authority.

Later, Daniel meets with oil executives and they ask about H.W.; Daniel explodes, "Did you just tell me how to run my family?...You don't tell me about my son." The executive responds, "I'm not telling you anything. I'm asking you to be reasonable!" The threat of speech draws violent reaction from Daniel. Daniel takes Henry along on negotiations and business trips. But Daniel discovers that Henry lied. Daniel kills Henry because Henry misrepresented who he was.
 
Once H.W. is returned to Daniel's custody, the father and son go to lunch and encounter the oil executives. Daniel hides his face under a napkin and barks out so that the executives can hear, "I told you not to tell me how to raise my family ... I told you what I was gonna do." The executives' (implied) speech act is what injured Daniel, and Daniel's spoken vow affected reality.

about how "words matter" (part 1)

 
In August 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump said the following at a campaign rally:

Hillary wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her judges, there's nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people--maybe there is. I don't know.

Many people accused Trump of implying that "Second Amendment people" could react with violence if Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate, won the election. Clinton acknowledged and condemned the allegedly veiled threat, using the phrase "words matter." (Trump, of course, denied he was making any allusion to violence; he claimed he was referring to the National Rifle Association's considerable lobbying power.)

In August Trump accused President Barack Obama of being the founder of ISIS. These words drew criticism because they were, interpreted literally, untrue. Trump later said that if Obama had not mishandled foreign policy in the Middle East, then ISIS would not exist. So, for Trump, calling Obama the founder of ISIS is an incendiary way of saying the President, because he withdrew American forces and left a vacuum in the region, bears responsibility for the terrorist group's genesis.

In the second example, the problem seems to be that others might only hear what Trump said and would not infer any meaning beyond his words. In the first example, the problem seems to be that the language Trump used was too open to interpretation. What mattered was the words he did not use but others possibly could hear.

In one example, words matter because people take Trump literally. In the other, words matter because people might not take Trump literally enough.


Notes:

• This post is sophistry.
• The phrase "words matter" seems to be popping up a lot lately. Is it?
• The bit about Hillary wanting to abolish the Second Amendment drew no criticism even though that statement, interpreted literally, is also untrue.
• Explore how the phrase "words matter" relates to the concept of "political correctness." 
• Explore the example of using the term "illegal" versus "undocumented immigrant" when discussing immigration.

something about "The Birth of the Clinic" by Michel Foucault

In The Birth of the Clinic, Michel Foucault mines late 18th and early 19th century changes in medical practice (this, significantly, is around the time of the American and French Revolutions, following on the heels of the Enlightenment). These changes shaped modern medicine.

The discourse on human rights inspired by these revolutions led to an overall concern with society and health; and the move toward egalitarianism pushed physicians (and teaching physicians) out of the the aristocracy and reassigned them to general society.

The new imaginings of hard science dictated that we let truths reveal themselves to us. In The Birth of the Clinic, Foucault feels out what he calls the medical gaze--a way of seeing in which the physician allows the disease to reveal its own truth. The human body gives off signs, and the physician uses his knowledge and observations of the body to translate the reality of the disease.

The physician talks to the patient, observes him, examines him, orders tests and whatnot. Mysticism is abandoned for a discussion of the body; the physician relies less on bookish medical wisdom and instead reads the body. The physician's eye sees in space symptoms and physical signs.

The physician’s observations affect the gaze; the gaze affects the physician. Doctors systematically describe diseases using medical jargon. The physician's power is now his experience rather than his status. The gaze has scientific credibility. And we've successfully achieved truth in spite of the doctor's status, not because of it. (So we think.)

about "The Course of French History" by Pierre Goubert

In this tidy one-volume history, Pierre Goubert fairly encapsulates the social, political, and economic evolution of France, from the blurry edges of the monarchy in 987 to the present (about 1980). More fluid and narratively organized than a textbook, but too sweeping to fit neatly with most modern nonfiction historical works, The Course of French History maintains enough momentum to avoid drying out, but never approaches being a page-turner. Goubert, who has done his research, tempers and delivers his own informed judgements passively. This volume suits anyone doing independent study of French, European, or even World History, giving you all the basics with just a taste of the details.


Note
Recounting the contents here would be pointless.

something about psychology, in general

All psychology is armchair psychology.

anything but about idealism

Countries speak to ideals, but are never kind to idealists.

something about "The French Revolution and Napoleon"

The French Revolution and Napoleon distills with flourish the fiery, priority years of French, Western, and arguably world history from about 1789 to 1815. The bulk of those years encompass the reign of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte; but in his book, Charles Downer Hazen gives equal time to the relatively brief epochal years of the French Revolution.

When this history begins, monarchies exercised feudal rulership over Europe, mostly. France—nine-tenths of which was peasants—was suffering the mismanagement of Louis XVI and massive class inequalities of wealth, privileges, rights, and justice. By 1789, the treasury runs dry and a series of national assemblies, constitutional conventions, and emergency committees gather in Paris. Political factions spring up, feuds begin, and revolutionaries quarrel with each other and with the keepers of the status quo. At one point, a draft of the constitution incorporates the Catholic Church with the State, sparking another feud, this time between the elected clergy and the old faithful. This is how the French Revolution begins.

King Louis XVI, of course, is an immediate underdog. But before the revolution reaches his doorstep, France finds itself at war with a Europe full of worried kings and French expatriate clergy and nobles agitating abroad for counter-revolution. Despite a bad start, France somehow manages to fend off and actually beat the primary aggressors, Austria and Prussia.

Fighting this war keeps France from total dissolution and buys King Louis XVI some time. But the war also spurs some of the first ultra-violence, as panicking nationalists find and kill any suspected domestic traitors and terrorists. From here, the feuds between political factions bring France to a boil. As the balance of power tips, the majority at once begins imprisoning and executing its enemies. This so-called Reign of Terror (also known as simply The Terror) ultimately discredits the radical majority, allowing some sense to emerge from the bloody chaos enough so that a functional, albeit ultimately temporary government and constitution are established.

Meanwhile, having fended off domestic mobs from the convention halls at home and then leading French soldiers to victory abroad, Napoleon steps up center stage. He makes use of any time he gets in Paris, networking and then organizing a coup d'etat. Of course, his version of the constitution makes Napoleon Emperor of France. Now head of the state, Napoleon establishes a new norm and order. This order honors the revolutionary principle of equality, more or less, but not liberty, and for the people this is enough for awhile.

But the temporary peace that allowed Napoleon to take the throne dissipates, and France is once again at war with everyone in Europe and Russia. Under Napoleon's direction, France somehow keeps winning against them all except for England, whose Navy has the definite edge. Napoleon feuds with the Pope in Rome, but forms an alliance with Czar Alexander I in Russia, with whom some of France's spoils are shared. Trying a different tactic, Napoleon aims to bleed England of its wealth by declaring a boycott of English goods across the expanded French Empire. But ultimately this causes as much or more hardship for France's subordinate kingdoms, whose peasant class needs the English trade.

So the relative peace in the expanded French Empire withers under this hardship, and again the French expatriate clergy and nobles agitate abroad—including those in Russia—against Emperor Napoleon. Czar Alexander I violates the boycott and Napoleon invades Russia. The Russian military retreats but the Russian climate fights the battle with France and Napoleon, his forces decimated, is forced to withdraw and then struggle to maintain control of rebelling occupied German states. Russia and England join Austria and Prussia in the fight, and Napoleon loses Germany. His determination to keep the remainder of his empire proves hopeless, however, and Napoleon abdicates rule of France and is banished to the island of Elba.

All that, Napoleon's rule from 1804 to 1814, would be a great enough story. But Napoleon authors a powerful final chapter when he raises an army on Elba and embarks on a sequel. Evading the English Navy, the ousted Emperor sails to France and marches to Paris where he is welcomed a hero. The order established in his absence, headed by the installed King Louis XVII, dissatisfies the people. The European alliance that defeated him last time, feuding amongst themselves over how to split up the defeated French Empire, resolve to put a stop to Napoleon once and for all. Napoleon rushes an army to Belgium to beat the allies to the punch, but there he is met by the Duke of Wellington, who defeats Napoleon at Waterloo. Napoleon is banished this time to the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic where he dies six years later.

The French Revolution and Napoleon was published in 1917 when European rivals were still burying millions in World War I. Author Charles Downer Hazen uses his preface to recognize this, urging that "there is much instruction to be gained from the study of a similar crisis." Of course, in its way, WWI begot WWII so, if there were any lessons to learn at all, nobody learned them.


Notes:
At one point, King Louis XVI's attempt to flee the palace in Versailles turns into a freakish parade, the heads of his guards hoisted high on pikes by mocking crowds.