On Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:20:27 -0500, Jim Dougan wrote: > Well, I am slogging my way through Gravity's Rainbow this > summer. There is LOTS of Psychology in it - particularly Pavlov - > but as you know if you have read it, it is probably not a great > choice for intro. > > A Clockwork Orange is good for behavioral stuff. I think that a closer reading of Anthony Burgess will reveal at least three psychological themes:
(1) The issue of free will and its subjugation to coerced good behavior via the use of aversive conditioning. One problem is that the Ludovico technique, as presented does not work in real life (if I am wrong, I welcome pointers to the research that demonstrates that it work as advertised in Clockwork Orange) though, for purposes of the novel, it has to work in order to make the point that coerced good behavior is not "good behavior" at a deeper level, that is, the person behaves in a good manner because of fear of punishment not because he/she wants to be good. Pragmatists will see this as a difference without substance while others, including the theologically inclined, would claim that this distorts the meaning of "good behavior" and may place the person's soul at risk (or, worse, fixated at a low level of moral reasoning). (2) The "boys will be boys view of adolescent violence". For those who have read the complete "A Clockwork Orange" (the novel version available in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s omits the last chapter and Stanley Kubrick based his film on the shorter version and was horrified to learn about the last chapter which he believed invalidated his film), Burgess seems to imply that Alex and his colleagues activities engaged in such brutal behavior because they were young and that as they grew into adults and had children, they would stop behaviing in such ways -- thus the Ludovico technique is not needed, only making sure that teenagers are appropriately controlled until they achieve adulthood. I'm not sure why Burgess holds such a view but it is an extremely naive view of human development. The films of Martin Scorcese came after Burgess had written Clockwork and one wonders what he would have thought of "Goodfellas", of Ray Liotta's "Henry Hill" who loved being a gangster and the gangster life as did his colleagues (it should be remembered that "Goodfellas" was based on the nonficition book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pilleggi -- now that is a book that could stand psychological assessment even though not all relevant information is available). I'm not sure how a "psychological" review of "A Clockwork Orange" would work given the six theoretical frameworks that one has to work within as well as the faulty assumptions that Burgess seems to be making. (3) A book like "A Clockwork Orange" inevitably raises issues of political control, class inequality, the failure of the family, schools, and other agents of socialization to produce "good citizens". One can try to explain Alex's behavior and his "cure" in purely psychological terms but this would be a wholly inadequate job of explaining why Alex behaved as he did. Were the causes of his behavior purely dispositional (i.e., internal to him, including genetic, biological, emotional, and cognitive factors) or situational (i.e., he is a product a failed civilization being run by authoritarians and social dominants out to grad and maintain as much power as possibly -- he is the fallout that such systems produce) or both? I don't know but it seems to me using a purely psychological framework to interpret "A Clockwork Orange" would miss much in the novel as well as the metathemes that Burgess was trying to explore. > Shutter Island has some interesting psychobiological themes. I'm not sure that this qualifies as a "classic novel" or a "great book" but operationalizations of these terms were not provided. I think that they are supposed to mean something more than merely popular at a particular point in time though technically one could say that "classic novel/great book" refers to the "canon" of great literature (see Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon"; also see Alex Beam's "A Great Idea at the Time" about the scam-ish "Great Books of Western Civilization" series -- both books are available on Amazon where one can get more info about them and related titles). Isn't "Shutter Island" just a novel? In what sense is it a "classic novel" or a "great book" and who decided it? If I can play along, I would suggest Paddy Chayefsky's "Altered States" the novel and not the movie version by Ken Russell (Chayefsky wrote the screenplay for the film, saw how it was going, and "disowned" the film). One will be amazed at how well it portrays part of the world of academic research. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3343 or send a blank email to leave-3343-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
