Rousseau’s Discourse is jammed packed with so many profound, controversial, and thought provoking ideas that it’s hard to do it justice in just one blog post. While reading Discourse, every few sentences there was something written that made my mind jump to another relevant form; everything from contemporary writers, to long dead philosophers, to situations in game theory, to topics in anthropology. However, for the purpose of this blog post I am going to focus on one of the many subjects brought up in Discourse. Towards the end of Part One Rousseau talks about the human savage, his ability to do good or evil, and the general morality surrounding him. The reason why I’ve chosen to write about this idea is primarily because it immediately brought me back to a metaphysical question that is at the core of A Clockwork Orange, and I can never shy away from an opportunity to write about a book I love as much as A Clockwork Orange.
A Clockwork Orange deals with several profound questions but the one most central to the books is, “is it better for humanity to have everyone always be doing the “moral thing” or is it better for everyone to have freewill?” Before extrapolating from Discourse Rousseau’s thoughts on this questions, let’s look into A Clockwork Orange and see how this book and its author, Anthony Burgess, deals with this question.
The general situation in A Clockwork Orange is that an objectively bad teenager is arrested for murder and rape and goes through a series of experiments that leave him physically unable to commit acts of violence in place of a normal prison sentence.
When Alex, the teenager in question, tries to commit an act of violence after said treatment, a conditioned pavlovian response causes him crippling pain. When the prison’s warden is showing the effectiveness of the treatment, the prison chaplain objects, “Choice. The boy has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He cease to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.” This sentiment is reflected by many characters in the book and almost all characters fall into one of two opposing groups of thought: The most important thing for society is doing the “moral” thing (even if that means taking away free choice) or the most important thing for society is maintaining freedom of choice.
Based on how the book ends, the language used by the narrator, and the light in which Burgess depicts characters in the former group compared to the characters in the latter group, it seems that Burgess is of a mind of the latter group — maintaining freedom of choice is essential to humanity’s on going success, even more productive to society than everyone doing the “right” thing.
The situation that Rousseau approaches is slightly different, but has enough overlapping ideas that Rousseau’s ideas can be applied to this same metaphysical question. Towards the end of the first part of his discourse Rousseau talks about the savage man, who is primitive, untouched by society, driven by primal urges, and is “good”.
An initial read of this text might make is seem like Rousseau believes the civilized man should emulate the savage man’s inability to commit evil. Clearly, on at least some level, Rousseau does admire aspects of the savage man, "Above all, let us not conclude with Hobbes that because he has no idea of goodness, man is naturally wicked, that he is vicious because he does not know virtue”(159). Rousseau contends that savage men, acting purely from animal instinct, are often good, "it follows that this state was the most conducive to Peace and the best suited to Mankind” (160) This is a profound and controversial statement as it goes against two major forces. First all of all, it goes against Hobbes, which Rousseau clearly spells out in his opening sentence of this paragraph. But more importantly, it goes against the bible. According to the bible, all men are born with sin and must repent; however, here, Rousseau is saying that this savage men are not born with sin and can be good without knowledge of the bible, without repenting, and even without conscious reasoning. But this statement is also profound because Rousseau is expressing the idea that the savage man, who lacks reason and the ability to consciously choose, follows a course of action that benefits society more than a civil man.
Rousseau believes that when savage mans acts without reason, that is to say when he acts without freedom of choosing his own action, relying purely on animal instinct, he commits good acts.
However, Rousseau values the choice of action over the action of doing good. While he acknowledges that the savage man is more conducive to peace than the civil man, and that he may even lead a happier life than the civilized man, evidenced by the lower rates of suicide, Rousseau makes no sign that man should try to revert back to this way of life or try to emulate it fully. When discussing how the savage man thinks just of “food, sex, and rest”, he does not speak enviously; it is clear he values the ability to reason over the ability to always do moral acts.
Burgess’s answer to the question, is it better to always act morally or to have free choice is much more obvious than what Rousseau’s would be. Burgess dedicated a book to dealing with this topic, admittedly, amongst others, and his thoughts seem clear: free choice is better. Rousseau never answers this question directly but his answer can be extrapolated based on his thoughts expressed in Discourse. The savage man does not reason and does not have a freedom of choice, yet this type of man is also extremely conducive to peace within society. However, despite this, Rousseau does not believe that we should resort back to the Savage, rather just learn from him, as our ability to reason is too important to give up. In the end, it appears as though if Rousseau were a character in A Clockwork Orange, he would be in agreement with the prison’s chaplain.
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