Ultraviolence Essay

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A few years ago I wrote an essay on Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange" for English class. I'd like to share a part I wrote about the term itself with you guys. Feel free to comment, and maybe even start a discussion  

 

"According to the Collins English Online Dictionary, ultra-violence can be defined as

acts of extreme violence, esp those shown on television or film.

Burgess claims that he was inspired by violent teenage gangs. The members were dressed à la mode, 

in neo-Edwardian suits.

The gangs represented the zeitgeist of the Post-World War II time in 1957 and 1958. Dissatisfaction, disappointment and anxiety about the future - these factors conducted the youth to violence.

I finally decided to be prophetic, positing a near future - 1970, say - in which youthful aggression reached so frightful a pitch that the government would try to burn it out with Pavlovian techniques of negative reinforcement. I saw the novel would have to have a metaphysical or theological base - youthful free will having the choice of good and evil although generally choosing evil; the artificial extirpation of free will through scientific conditioning; the question as to whether this might not, in theological terms, be a greater evil than the free choice of evil.

In his novel, Burgess decided to maximize the violence to a point where an extreme intervention, in this case the Ludovico technique, on behalf of the government would be inevitable. The collision of improving the common weal and erasing ultra-violence by the aforementioned technique and the moral aspect of taking someone’s free will which enables to choose between good and evil, between avoiding and committing violence leads to the question if it’s compatible with the religious belief and its fundamental values, such as choosing your own destiny, choosing between sinning and being faithful. Brainwashing someone into losing his free will might be perceived as an act of ultra-violence in a metaphysical sense since the victim’s liberty is endangered which is comparable to his victims enduring ultra-violence in a physical way and losing their liberty and decision capability during the violent act."