The history of mankind is filled with great accounts of discovery, heroism, leadership, and culture. But, at the same time human history is stained with the blood of countless acts of violence: wars, genocide, slavery, etc. With violence being such a large part of our history, it seems only natural that humans have turned to violence as a form of entertainment. Today, people get their fill of violence through books, film, sports, and art. Violence in modern day entertainment has been tamed or toned down compared to the violence acts people would spectate or actively participate in no less than a 300 years ago. Things like live hanging and decapitations would be everyday occurrences back then, but today, due to the development of ideologies, …show more content…
The ideology and morals of the anti-society in which Alex abides has made these crimes acceptable. These, according to Althusser, are known as ideological activities, “These same people participate in other activities – religious, moral, philosophical, etc. – either in an active manner through conscious practice, or in a passive and mechanical manner… These last activities constitute ideological activity.” Althusser uses religious and philosophical activities as examples because they represent modern or acceptable ideology. In the case of A Clockwork Orange, the ideologies which are admissible in Alex’s society are violence and crime. A philosophy one could view the novel A Clockwork Orange from is Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes. In his philosophy, Hobbes makes the argument that unity and peace among a society is best achieved by forming a cohesive group (i.e. community, country, political group) through social contract. More explicitly, one could view the violence in A Clockwork Orange through chapter 13 of Leviathan, in which Hobbes states that the natural condition of man, when it is free from all outside interferences, is a natural state of violence and war. “The desires, and other passions of man are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions till they now a law that forbids them; till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make this.” (Hobbes 78). In the anti-society in which Alex lives in there are no laws restraining him from fulfilling his perverse, but acceptable in his society, passions and desires. If Alex wants some “pretty polly” to put in his pockets, all he has to do is take it, whether it comes from an old “veck” who him and his gang beat up, or a “starry old pista’s” convenience store they robbed. Although