GADFLY

THE

the undergraduate philosophy magazine of Columbia University

Existential Stage-Fright: Dostoevsky and Identity [p. 6] Systematic Criticism: Marx, Nietzsche and the Financial Crisis [p. 20]

Interview: Making Small Talk with Bruce Robbins [p. 14] Debate: How far can we criticize the Western Canon? [p. 17]

GADFLY
THE

Fall 2010

Shorts Philosophy Talks Upcoming Conferences, Talks, Lectures Branching Out Philosophy-Related Courses A Treatise to Spirit Dragons The Paradox of Reductionism Features Existential Stage-Fright Toward A Functional Definition of Religion Systematic Criticism Marx, Nietzsche and the Financial Crisis On Public Art Criticism Making Small Talk with Bruce Robbins An Interview How Far Can we Criticize the Western Canon? A Debate A Review of A Clockwork Orange

2 3 4
Joshua Maslin

6 10

Shai Chester Thomas Sun

20 Peter Licursi 24
Arton Gjonbalaj

14 17 28

Rebecca Spalding Bart Piela Puya Gerami Evan Burger

From the Editor

[A plain, empty common room. Four chairs arranged around a central table. In the middle of the table lie three copies of a magazine. A fly buzzes around the room. Enter Vlada philosophical sort of chap, Descartes Meditations in towand Estronot.] Vlad [excitedly]: A table! Existent or not? [Pauses.] I. The same question. Estro: You cogitate. I sit. [He sits.] Vlad [under his breath]: Heavybody. [More loudly.] Whats that? [He sits across from Estro and peers at a magazine.] Estro: What? Vlad: That! With the queer fellow on it. What a beard on him. He doesnt look so good. Estro [looks down]: Looks fine to me. Vlad [noticing another copy, flipped]: Ha! A kind of mask. Exhibit A: cool, composed, calculating. Exhibit B: rotting. Two sides of the same shekel, though you wouldnt know it. Or would I? [He opens a copy and begins reading From the Editor. The hand holding the magazine begins to fade.] Vlad [shouting]: Reductio ad absurdum! Estro: Who!? [Aside.] But enjoy. [The lights go out. With a nervous shout.] Vlad! Vlad [calmly]: Yes? Estro: What are we waiting for? [Silence. He crosses himself, slowly.] [The lights turn on. The same room, empty. In the middle of the table lie two copies of a magazine and a tome of Descartes. Enter a janitor. Tidying, he throws the magazines in the trash. Later. Enter a student. He places three copies of a magazine on the table and, with a smile, he picks up the Meditations. He exits.] Bart Piela Thanks to the Columbia and Barnard Philosophy Departments for their support and assistance. The Gadfly is sponsored in part by the Arts Initiative at Columbia University. This funding is made possible through a generous gift from The Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

STAFF
Editor-in-Chief Bart Piela Managing Editor Puya Gerami Shorts Editor Sumedha Chablani Features Editors Stephany Garcia Alan Daboin Criticism Editors Victoria Jackson-Hanen Rebecca Spalding Copy Editor Amber Tunnell Arts Editor Hong Kong Nguyen Layout Editor Christina Johnston Technology Director Cindy Zhang Business and Finance Manager Michelle Vallejo

ILLUSTRATORS
Amalia Rinehart Louise McCune Keenan Korth Daniel Nyari Ashley Lee Arais Abbruzzi Christina Johnston Rachel Shannon-Solomon

Philosophy Talks
Out and About

Columbia University Spring 2011 Colloquium Series

Thursday, February 24, 2011 Tamar Gendler (Yale University) 4:10 PM- 6:00 PM Room 716 Philosophy Hall Thursday, March 10, 2011 Kathrin Koslicki (U. of Colorado) 4:10 PM- 6:00 PM Room 716 Philosophy Hall Thursday, April 7, 2011 Brad Skow (MIT) 4:10 PM- 6:00 PM Room 716 Philosophy Hall

New York University Spring 2011 Colloquium Series

Friday, February 11, 2011 Rachael Briggs (Sydney/NYU visiting) Friday, February 25, 2011 Jonathan Schaffer (Rutgers) Friday, March 4, 2011 Sally Haslanger (MIT) Friday, March 25, 2011 Anthony Gillies (Rutgers) Friday, April 29, 2011 Shelly Kagan (Yale)

The Center for Public Scholarship at the New School The 22nd Social Research Conference CPS: The Body and the State February 11, 2011 - February 12, 2011 10:30 AM - 7:00 PM Join us as speakers discuss the body as a human rights arena in which many forces, such as religion, science, media, and market struggle for control over policies that control our bodies. We hope to illuminate how the often tacit assumptions about the normal, healthy, and acceptable body lead to policies which are, at their core, unjust.

THE GADFLY Fall 2010

Branching Out:
Philosophy-Related Courses Outside the Department

Aesthetics & Philosophy of History Dorothea von Muecke Germanic Languages W 4:10-6:00 PM Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal Pierre Force French Romance & Philology TR 2:40-3:55 PM German Thinkers & Heidegger Matthias Bormuth History M 11:00-12:50 PM Plato the Rhetorician Kathy H. Eden English and Comparative Literature W 11:00-12:50 PM Philosophy and History of Evolutionary Biology Walter Bock Biology MW 1:10 - 2:25 PM Buddhist Ethics Thomas F. Yarnall Religion TR 2:40-3:55 PM
shorts 3

A Treatise to Spirit Dragons:

The Paradox of Reductionism
Joshua Maslin
Illustrated by Amalia Rinehart
he reductionist has done it! She has found the most basic constituents of the universe: we are all nothing more than spatiotemporal points being blown around by the stellar winds of cause and effect. Humanity has philosophically ascended (descended?) enough to figure out what the universe is made of: reallyREALLYsmall things. Dont believe it? Doesnt matter. Youre still composed of these spatiotemporal points. Better start coming to terms with it. And you know who else has to start coming to terms with this idea? Corn. Someone should really tell corn that it too is made of spatiotemporal points. Corn has spent so much time festering in its unintentional ignorance (ironic for a plant with so many ears). Sure, corn is not as complex as we are; really, its so simple that it couldnt tell a man from a woman, a woman from a pernicious tree fungus! I guess we need to try a bit harder to get through to corn. Find a loud SigEp and get him to yell. Not working? Have him yell louder.

Fine, fine, the yelling is useless. Get that bro out of the cornfield. At the end of the day, we know what constitutes corn. If corn doesnt want to listenif corn doesnt even know we existwe might as well exploit the hell out of it. Plant it in rows, harvest it, turn it into syrup, maybe even a pseudo-efficient gasoline substitute, and distribute it to the masses! Corn will never know the difference. ait a minutelets pump the brakes for a second. If living corn is completely removed from the complex reality we experience, does that mean that human beings...No. It couldnt be. Could it? Could we be the corn? Of course we arent actually the corn. But are we like the corncould the universe be farming us? Are spirit dragons farming us?! Corn experiences the universe in its own corny way, for it lives and reproduces. But corn is missing out on so much! Is it possible that we are, too? Is it possible that we are equally bound by our humanity, just as corn is by its corniness?

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umor a thought experiment and take actor Haley Joel Osment. As Our vision of this universe will always a child, he played a superhuman be strained through a human sieve. introvert in M. Night Shyamalans family classic, The Sixth Sense. Before we all h, Reductionists: As long as were acbecame disillusioned with M. Nights complex knowledging the possibility of these cinematic writing formula (arbitrarily selecting unknown unknowns, you guys should plot twists from a hat during drug-induced probably send someone over to apologize to states of consciousness), we were shocked the corn. After all, were all reto find out that (spoiler alert) ally in the same boat. A little our young protagonist could empathy could do everyone see dead people. This was his sixth some good. sense. Like everyone else, he So, just to summacould, ostensibly, taste rize: there are spirit dragcake, hear Ke$ha songs, ons farming us, and corn see double rainbows, deserves our respect. touch furry rabbits Stated another way: and smell gas leaks we exist in an incomfrom the stove. But he prehensible universe could also perceive dead filled with incomBruce Willises. While I prehensible things. often dream about dead Our vision of this Bruce Willises, I have yet universe will alto perceive his mopey ways be strained ghost in a waking state. through a human Those spirit sieve. Reductionist dragons! Who logic, born of huknows what they manity, is subject can perceive? to infinite regression Dead Abe Lincolns? (and progression). To Intelligent Republicans? I conceptualize the fabric bet theyre laughing at our spatiotemof the universe in terms of poral points right now. Jerks! Theyll never parts could be an entirely false paradigm, if understandoh. If we cant understand corns not physically, at least philosophically. place in the universe, how could spirit dragons Disagree, oh mighty Reductionists? (coughgodcough) understand humanitys? Then I am at your mercy, omnipotent Gods of If they could, theyd be just as simple as us. Corn. And if you like manipulating the fates of So why even speculate about these spirit drag- the ignorant and disconnected, consider capions? We dont have the hardware to deal with talizing off of the wildly popular Farmville. their issues, nor do they have the means to un- You could catapult Universal Farming Religion derstand ours. to the forefront of human consciousness!

shorts

Existential Stage-Fright
Shai Chester
Illustrated by Daniel Nyari
A version of this article previously appeared in the Journal of the Undergraduate Writing Program. of her masks. Freed from the obsolete notion of the soul, Pluralistic Man defines himself more or less as he wills. he Underground Man, the antihero of Dostoyevskys novel Notes from the Underground, is the epitome of the pluralistic personality masquerader. Throughout the novel, the Underground Man deliberately assumes identities ranging from debauched aristocrat to radical social critic, culminating in his stirring sermon on vice and redemption to an enraptured prostitute, which is ultimately revealed as a cynical intellectual self-indulgence with no true pathos. The Underground Man does not feel liberated by his radically different personalities; rather his acute realization of his masks undermines his masquerade. The jarring contradictions between his different personae make them feel phony and reveal his terrible disconnection from his true self, which Dostoevsky, unlike modern pluralists, fervently believes in. Dostoevsky employs the Underground Man to prove that the individual who knows thyself cannot comfortably wear pluralistic masks. The vestment of the sanctimonious is the most uncomfortable mask for the self-perceptive man because the honest preacher, constantly aware of his own sins, hesitates to cast the first stone. Dostoevsky demonstrates this with the Underground Mans failed speech during the goodbye dinner of Zerkov, a successful army office and former school mate. The protagonist prefaces this episode by describing his childhood jealousy and hatred

niversal truth is an outdated concept. Traditional philosophers explained reality through a single system of precepts which, though often abstracted to the point of meaninglessness, provided the singular satisfaction of complete and absolute truth. Contemporary thinkers are skeptical of such grand unifying theories. To them there is no one objective vision of reality, only various perspectives, all equally valid and limited.

The vestment of the sanctimonious is the most uncomfortable mask for the self-perceptive man.
This pluralism subverts the laymans conception of the soul. While one might at first assume that each person has a single, unchanging soul and that the wildly contradictory emotional states that possess us are merely superficial masks, a pluralistic interpretation would assert that there is no single, unchanging soul, rather that each of these emotional states is its own distinct soul. All of these emotional states are bound by their common physical location: you. The absence of an absolute identity would not seem to be so troubling though, as it validates a plurality of masks. (Here and throughout I have in mind Wendy Donigers essay, Many Masks, Many Selves.) This relativism is liberating in a world that demands many identities, allowing a career woman to change from doting mother, to cutthroat capitalist, to sultry temptress without undermining any

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of Zerkov, a typical aristocratic philistine blessed with beauty, moral indifference, and social graces. This last attribute particularly vexes the Underground Man, as it is what he lacks and longs for most. To prove his moral superiority and disdain, he decides to don the smirking mask of satire and interrupt the dinner with a diatribe that he thinks will shatter Zerkovs

conceit. In the middle of his philippic, though, he is struck by the hypocrisy of his cynicism. After all, he invited himself to the dinner originally out of a vain attempt to ingratiate himself with the very men whose vanity he is attacking. Crippled by this revelation, his tirade trickles into confused and sentimental rambling, which only fuels his opponents contempt.

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een through the lens of pluralistic selves, the Underground Mans moralizing is defensible. His supposedly sinful true self is no more fundamental than the righteous persona he adopts, so

The self-aware comprehension of the artificial source of his mask inhibits his ability to naturally masquerade.
the latter is not hypocritical, but merely different. A pluralistic self that wears conflicting masks is no more duplicitous than a single actor who plays separate conflicting parts in the same eternal play. Such a carefree possessor of antithetical ethics is acknowledged by Dostoevsky. He longingly describes the rogue [who] can be absolutely and loftily honest at heart without in the least ceasing to be a rogue. Yet such innocence is limited to those who have a faculty for the most contradictory sensations, i.e. unreflective laymen. The perceptive mans visceral aversion to conscious hypocrisy cannot be assuaged by an intellectual recognition of the plurality of self. The self-aware individuals comprehension of the artificial source of his mask inhibits his ability to naturally masquerade, as Dostoevsky exhibits again with his hapless protagonist. In a surge of anger, after being humiliated at the dinner party, the Underground Man imagines an elaborate revenge involving an honorable duel, years of stoic suffering in Siberia, and finally a climactic confrontation with the grand perpetrator, Zerkov, whom the Christ-like hero magnanimously forgives,

attaining absolute moral revenge. The integrity of this mask of righteous anger is quickly undermined, however, by the Underground Mans realization that the entire revenge fantasy is merely a trite rehashing of plots lifted from Pushkin individuals and Lermontov. ppropriating personae from art is not unique to rarified literati such as the Underground Man. How often do you find yourself repeating jokes you have heard on television? And how many of the almost meaningless cutsie phrases that unnecessarily replace simple words in our sentences are lifted from trite TV characters and ads? We all imitate art, and usually not even the sort of meaningful art that the Underground Man apes. The externality of our masks is not an issue to the pluralistic interpretation though, as it denies the existence of a wholly internal mask to begin with. We are never ourselves to ourselves, but always in relation to others, so the difference between the Underground Man quoting Pushkin versus Pushkins original exhortations is just a matter of degree. To Dostoevsky though, this matter of degree is crucial because the wearer of the mask is conscious of it. All ideas may be necessarily external because they are ultimately an amalgamation of reactions to others ideas, but they do not immediately appear so to their conceivers, even those who are perceptive. Conversely, when the Underground Man copies directly from Pushkin, since art is artificial by default, he is unavoidably aware that he is uttering artifice. Again, the confidence

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of the masquerader is determined by his awareness of the masquerade, not the theoretical validity of the mask.

disquieted by the contrast of her masks. oth the contemporary conception of self and Dostoevskys older conception have their consolations. The former does not posit a single fundamental identity, but effectively replaces it with the pluralistic self. Dostoevsky denies the feasibility of this pluralistic self, but believes in an ultimate

mask worn in its proper scene can appear authentic; during the transition between scenes, however, the absurdity is naked. Dostoevsky illustrates this with the Underground Mans final interaction with the prostitute Eliza. The penitent harlot comes to his house seeking the holy man who During the transition between had lectured her on sin. Although masks, the absurdity is always her savior begins his address appropriately, sanctimoniously extolling naked. his humble abode, he is soon distracted by his hated manservant and starts authentic identity: a soul. Although the squabbling with him over some petty mis- Underground Man may have lost his soul deed. Pathos turns to bathos, and the Un- through lack of fitting environment, derground Man is reminded once more of through divorce from real life, and rankling the silliness of his masks. Note that moral spite, his Notes serve as corrective punhypocrisy is not the issue here. The man- ishment for himself, for the reader, and perhaps even for the author, urgEven the model career woman, ing them to avoid his mistakes and coming home from a day of merciless return to their true selves. When layoffs to bake cookies, would be viewed through each others lenses disquieted by the contrast of her though, these consolations cancel out. The Pluralistic Underground masks. Man can neither blithely exchange servant may have deserved a tongue lash- masks, nor piously pursue the sacred aspiing as much as Eliza merited more flowery ration of the non-existent true self. He is words. It is the awkward juxtaposition that the tragic archetype of modernity: mastery undermines each persona. of reasoning has allowed him to penetrate This damning disparity is not just the minds substrata of comforting deluapparent during abrupt switches. No mat- sions and fantasies, only to find nothing ter how brief and fluid the transition, the beneath. Doniger optimistically assures perceptive individual will always note the him that as we strip away masks, or faces, momentary non sequitur. Even Wendy each time we see more in the hall of lookDonigers model career woman, coming ing glasses. The Pluralistic Underground home from a day of merciless layoffs to Man only sees infinite reflections of his bake cookies for her children, would be plastic face, endlessly mocking him.

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Toward a Functional Definition of Religion

Thomas Sun
Illustrated by Christina Johnston
he conflict between religion and science is still contentious today. One prominent view holds that there is a clear division between the two camps and that one is either a scientist or religious believer. The opposing side asserts that there are similarities between the two fields and notes particular counterexamples of scientists who are religious. I do not wish to side with either camp but rather to draw atten-

Science cannot make one embrace pain, suffering or death with enthusiasm.
tion to the fact that we often put the cart before the horse when engaging in such debates, for we do not have a sufficiently clear grasp of the concept of religion to begin with. What should be considered a religion is a debate in itself. The famous philosopher William James famously proposed a set of criteria to define religion. I wish to show that none of these criteria are sufficient, and that a better approach would be to analyze what unique function religion holds in society, and then to define religion as that which performs this function. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, James divides religion into the institutional and the personal. In defining religion, he focuses on the latter, for he claims that religion in its most fundamental sense is personal. This claim is justified in at least the following sense: the founders of institutional religion must themselves have had personal communion with the divine.

James proposes that we take religion to be the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. He takes care to describe the object of worship as the divine, not God, and thus avoids excluding from his definition religions, such as Buddhism and Emersonianism, that do not worship a God in concreto. But we ask: What is the divine? In clarifying this, James adds that the divine must satisfy two criteriathe divine has to be the primary truth, and it has to be treated in a solemn and serious manner. However, we run into a problem here. Scientists revere the primary truth of the universe; the main purpose of science is to discover the universes lawsits secrets through experimentation. And, certainly, scientists treat the primary truth with the utmost rigor and seriousness when they pursue a life of scientific investigation and institute specific social practices to protect the truth (e.g. peer review). Surely science, regarded by many as the antithesis of religion, is not a religion itself. And yet, the pursuit of a life of scientific investigation fits James definition of religion quite well. further distinguishing characteristic of religion, James says, is that religious believers undergo emotional states of passionate happiness. Witness Julian of Norwich or St. Augustine during their religious catharses. Unfortunately, the addition of this criterion does not rule out science as a candidate either.

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Scientists undergo euphoric states just as much when they admire the beauty of the galaxy or the complexity of the brain. Richard Dawkins, in an article entitled Is Science a Religion?, describes this well: The merest glance through a microscope at the brain of an ant or through a telescope at a long-ago galaxy of a billion worlds is enough to render poky and parochial the very psalms of praise. If deep euphoria isnt the distinguishing characteristic of religion either, then what is? James, I think, mentions it in passing: In the religious life, on the contrary, surrender and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case is necessary. Unlike religion, science cannot make one embrace pain, suffering or death with enthusiasm. At best, it can teach one to be patient and accepting of the ways of the universe. Science can ease pain, suffering and death by reducing them into sums of chemical reactions or parts of biological cycles, but it would be extremely difficult for science to transform them into something worth embracing. Here we finally have the distinguishing characteristic of religionthe ability to make easy and felicitous what is necessary. nstead of defining religion to be the personal, solemn worship of the primary truth, as James approaches it, and therefore running the risk of characterizing science as a religion, I propose that we take a backwards approach. Instead of looking at the different emotive or doctrinal components that build a religion, why not look at what religion is uniquely able to accomplish? This unique

ability is to make what is necessary, such as suffering and death, easy and felicitous. A religion has to prepare one in such a way that one starts to positively embrace suffering. It does not have to make demands on its believers, nor establish rituals, nor create social gatherings, nor worship the divine, so long as it accomplishes this functional task. This functional approach to defining religion is helpful in eliminating the vagueness inherent in other approaches, particularly James. When James tried to define religion in terms of belief in the divine, he found himself in muddled water. The chief trouble was in

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hinging the definition of religion on the nebulous concept of the divine, itself a term laden with connotations of a religious nature, when James was attempting to puzzle out what religious nature was in the first place. To explain the divine, James asserts that it is any object that is godlike. When pushed further, he explains that what is godlike is the primal truth. The overall strategy seems to be defining one ambiguous term in terms of another. If, on the other hand, we define religion in terms of its function to us, a subject we probably know more about than nebulous concepts, then we can

If we define religion in terms of its functions to us, then we can avoid dependence on illusory terms and ideas.
avoid dependence on illusory terms and ideas. preliminary test will show that the major religions of the world will fit the functional definition. Christian and Islamic followers believe in the presence of Heaven and Hell and an impending Last Judgment. The doctrine that suffering in the current life will be reciprocally compensated by rewards in an afterlife is one of the most effective tools religions use to ascribe positive attributes to suffering. Critics of Christianity such as Nietzsche criticize just this ability of Christianity to make suffering contagious. Indeed, Christianity is so effective at this that occasionally we hear of followers who not only embrace sufferingtheyask for more. Julian of Norwich, in her Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love, begs to be sent a bodily crisis so that she can gain intimate knowledge of the suffering of Christ. In similar veins, suffering and sacrifice are positively espoused in Buddhism and Hinduism. In the former, suffering is cast as a necessary step towards achieving nirvana. In the latter, sacrifice in the current life is said to accumulate and be proportionally rewarded in the next world.

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n immediate objection to the functional definition of religion may be that, according to our common experience, religions are not the only entities that can render suffering and sacrifice in a positive light. The most strik- Instead of looking at the different ing counterexample emotive or doctrinal components that is nationalism. Many war heroes have cho- build a religion, why not look at what sen to sacrifice their religion is uniquely able to accomplish? lives not for their religion but for their nation. This line of criti- answers to the premed student who finds cism insightfully points out that the func- himself behaving more and more like a retional definition of religion offered thus ligious follower during his weekly MCAT far is not a sufficient condition, just as I Bible study, his communion in weekend have pointed out that James definition of study groups and his relentless sacrifice of religion in terms of the solemn treatment social fun. He may be a zealot, but he is of the primary truth does not sufficiently not a religious zealot.

qualify religion. Perhaps a sufficient definition of religion should combine these two necessary conditions: a religion must (1) revere the primary truth of the world in a solemn manner and (2) positively espouse sacrifice and suffering. This definition will rule out science as a religion, for science does not render sacrifice and suffering in a positive light. It will also distinguish religion from nationalism, for nationalism is about the pursuit of things like freedom and independence, not of the primary truth of the universe. In order for this two-part definition of religion to stand, a more detailed analysis will have to show that other recognized religions of the world, besides the ones discussed above, will continue to be qualified as religions under the definition. The search for a precise definition of what it is to be a religion does not only have theoretical value, but also practical value. It can help the Internal Revenue Service in drawing the line between religious and non-religious institutions and the Supreme Court in judging cases related to the separation of church and state. And, considering a case we are perhaps more familiar with, it will give

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Making Small Talk with Bruce Robbins

Rebecca Spalding
Illustrated by Ashley Lee

Bruce Robbins is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities in Columbias English and Comparative Literature Department. His primary interests include nineteenth and twentieth century fiction, literary and cultural theory and postcolonial studies. A prolific author, Professor Robbins has published such works as Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress, The Servants Hand: English Fiction from Below and Secular Vocations: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture. From 1991 to 2000 he was co-editor of the journal Social Text. He regularly teaches courses on contemporary literary theory, modern comparative fiction, and intellectual history. Recently, I sat down with Professor Robbins to discuss his undergraduate years, the important relationship between literary theory and philosophy, and the Core Curriculum.

(i)

How did you first get into your field?

I was a history and literature major at Harvard, which was a combined program for those students who hadnt quite figured out which field they were more interested in. I had gone into college thinking I would become a philosophy major. I had read Plato, Nietzsche, and Sartre during my adolescence, in the heyday of existentialism. I remember I once told my high school friends that I was interested in existentionalism. I was, of course, mocked and put down in the way that people are severely put down in high school for being pretentious. Anyway, I was familiar with those thinkers before I got to Harvard but I never ended up taking a philosophy course during college. Instead, I was turned on to literary criticism through a close reading course that I took freshman year. The best way the history department and literature department had found to combine the two subjects was, in effect, a sort of compromise. We did read social historians who were big in that period, but intellectual history was at the center. Thats what gave me the confidence to take a shot at so-called theory when it took off in the U.S. in the 70s. At some point in senior year, I went more in the literary direction. I guess it seemed to me that literary criticism was more open than other fields. The philosopher Richard Rorty said it well when he said that philosophy had abandoned the goal of asking the big questions, and literary criticism had picked up the ball af-

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ter philosophy dropped it. For instance, around 1972 there was a certain excitement around Claude Levi-Strauss, and a friend of mine, an undergraduate at the time who actually went on to become a professor at the University of Chicago, suggested we form a reading group with an assistant philosophy professor in order to read Levi-Strauss. We did, but it didn't work. The guy in the philosophy department was not interested in answering the larger questions, such as, What is this thinker trying to do? Why is it worth doing? This particular philosopher, not the discipline as a whole, was not prepared to answer these larger questions and I believe I was because there was more room to do so in literary criticism, at least at that moment.

It is not a good moment for literary theory. All across the country, partly due to financial pressure, scholars have pulled back into a narrowly historical understanding of their field; many only work within that particular period. Not many people are asking questions that transcend their period. Theory exists to impose these larger questions on the discipline. Are we really talking about the same object as in earlier periods? Or are we relying on the lazy assumption that these texts are the same simply because they are all called literature? To a certain extent, literary criticism is a place where that still happens, just less so. As a

(ii)

Have things changed for literary criticism?

historical fact, t h e impulse of French theory in the 60s and 70s does not seem as strong now. Today, people are looking elsewhere for that philosophical excitement that we got from French theorists.

(iii) (iv)

Is there anyone working in theory now who gives you that philosophical excitement?

Etienne Balibar, for one, who is actually teaching a seminar at Columbia this fall. He is asking very interesting questions about violence and civility. He and Judith Butler are working on the same problems, particularly the problem of universality. Is there such a thing as the Western Canon as taught in Literature Humanities and

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Contemporary Civilization and is the Core an adequate way to teach that Canon? I have never had the good fortune of taking Lit Hum or CC or teaching either course. It is something I would like to do while Im still walking. The Core is great when I want to refer to a certain philosophical tradition in my other classes because students have read Herodotus, Kant, etc. There are not many other universities where you can do that. However, I think it would be a good thing if the Core were revised in some way by integrating other traditions into Lit Hum and CC. Not as other options on the side but at the centerI would like to see the Core tell the story, the true story, of the communication between these traditions and the Western tradition. This could happen in the Core. This currently happens through institutes around campus that bring together people

from different intellectual backgrounds to explore the same problems.

(v)

Which philosopher or philosophical tradition has most influenced your approach to literary theory?

The Kantian tradition. It is Kants interpretation of the aesthetic that makes literary criticism a viable discipline whether critics acknowledge that debt or not. That being said, traditions that are hostile to Kant are also influential for me and for the discipline; Hegel, for example. A great deal of contemporary theory is based, at least in part, on readings of Chapter 4 of the Phenomenology of Spirit. And in turn, the anti-Hegelian traditions of French poststructuralism have also become important to me and to the discipline.

(vi)

Whats your favorite novel?

Dickens' Bleak House. But I will put in a good word for Franzens new novel, Freedom.

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How far can we criticize the Western Canon?

Illustrated by Rachel Shannon-Solomon

Debate:

A Useful Convention

Bart Piela

he more we know about something, the better we can place new information about that thing: the better we can make connections, advance our understanding, go beyond our immediate knowledge set. Even when new information complicates old information, we have the hope of working through the complication towards a better understanding. This is the value of dialectic (and, hopefully, this debate). To be able to place any information, we need to start somewhere. We cannot remain intellectual blank slates for long. So where should we start? Thats a complicated question. Should we begin by gathering scientific knowledge and go from there? Or religious knowledge? Philosophical? Political? Should we start with the East and move West, or the other way around? In an important sense, it does not really matter. We can start anywhere with any canonand move outwards, as long as we are careful, discerning, curious intellectual agents. Where we start is a matter of convenience. In our case, it is roughly a function of geography. t is useful to take the evolution of thought, bind it by relatively arbitrary geography and study that evolution. This offers us a way to explore how critical thought originates, evolves, overlaps,

diverges and converges in a fairly well defined historical set of works. It gives us somewhere to begin investigation into our very humanity. So, does the Western Canon exist? Yes it doesand weve invented it. We, as an intellectual community, have attached more or less permanent labels to works, one of these being Western, and we exploit these labels for our own ends, one of these being learning. And these labels truly are useful. As our ends (gradually) change, so can the labels. This explains why the syllabi of Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization have evolved over the years. This is not to say the labels are perfect, even when most everyone agrees upon them. We make mistakes, and we have to acknowledge our larger intellectual community does as well. We resist change and so does the community. ut, overall, learning happens and it happens within a specific framework. Without this framework, we would be much worse off. We would have nowhere to start. We could start somewhere else, but this would take immense energy and efforta complete reorientation of Western academia. If the current method isnt broken, we shouldnt try so hard to fix it. Its not perfect, certainly. It ignores some questions too permanently,

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when these questions should come up. But it gives us our all-important starting point. And by virtue of its obvious imperfections it brings up the obvious questions. In this sense, it is more valuable because it is imperfect, because it is something we must revaluate, question and probe. Our revaluation, though, should not be too vicious; in a way, we should be just as cautious in criticising the Canon as we are in accepting it.

We cannot deny existence or usefulness to something because it is, at bottom, arbitrary. This would undermine the very notion of a convention. Few endeavors would ever get off the ground. As long as we can move from the point we have decided upon towards new horizons, as long as we do not become trapped within the Western Canon, its value is immediate and important.

The Canon and the Status Quo

Puya Gerami
he selection of a Western Canon involves a flexible manipulation, conscious or not, of the past what to remember, and what to forget. It is not a fixed collection of unquestioned masterworks, celebrating the inexorable progress of human civilization. Nor is it a monolithic body of aesthetic and philosophical texts that will remain eternally relevant. It is a battleground for constant cultural self-definition. Because of this, the formulation of the Canon is implicitly informed by various interests which probably affirm and reenforce the prevailing values of the current order rather than substantially challenge them. And just as we must always be suspicious of who is writing our historysince, as Orwell reminds us, those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the futurewe must be equally wary of those who claim the intellectual capability to determine a Western Canon. More often than not, the

reading of a canon uncritically reflects the patchwork of principles and hypotheses which bolster the intellectual foundation of the reigning political-economic system. urthermore, it is important, I think, to dispel the dangerous notion that the authors of the Canon are undeniably ingenious thinkers who, through intellectual meditation and open dialogue, built the extraordinary foundation of contemporary society. This triumphalist account denies the competitive nature of philosophical discourse. If the place of the Canon is to be justified, then readers must recognize the divisive upheavals in intellectual history that have glorified some authors while condemning others to oblivion. We must also be aware of the often questionable factors that are involved in the formulation of a Canon. For example, it is now discreditable to insist

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on some sort of Western civilization, and if we are to defend a Canon, then all attempts must be made to discard the notion of the West as a separate culture representing enlightenment and intellectual progress. Similarly, it is no coincidence that in a society defined by patriarchy and the sanctity of private property, a great deal of the Canon respects these characteristics and provides fodder for their defense. I am, of course, pointing to the repeated and not unconvincing claim that the support of a Canon reproduces the intellectual foundation for a flawed and starkly unequal society. Nonetheless, granted that one acknowledges the dangerous implications of a Canon and notes the obvious effect

that such a project will often signify an underlying approval of the status quo, I think that one can reasonably argue that it is a supremely valuable educational tool if re-directed for different purposes. It ought to be used first to rigorously interrogate our own fundamental political assumptions. In the process, readers will be able to find relevance in certain authors while dismissing others as no longer theoretically valuable; in this way the Canon will be constantly re-made. In that case, the Canon exists, surely; but it is not a collection to inspire passive awe, but rather a body of thought to be perpetually challenged, reinterpreted, destroyed, and re-built.

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Marx, Nietzsche and the Financial Crisis

Peter Licursi
Illustrated by Keenan Korth
s the dust begins to settle in the aftermath of the recent financial crisiswhich has caused the deepest economic recession since the Great Depressiontwo different positions have emerged among various intellectuals, politicians and activists. The first,

Systematic Criticism

What is needed today is a totalizing theoretical critique of the political-economic system.

popularly touted by fundamentalist proponents of the free market, views the crisis as a result of inhibiting state-imposed regulations which compelled the private sector to design more mystifying financial innovations. The second, advocated by the more moderate defenders of liberaldemocratic capitalism, oppositely argues that the crisis was sparked by massive deregulation, the growing power of financial managers, and in certain cases, the greedy ethical deficiency of those in positions of economic responsibility. And yet, few if any of these vocal analysts have approached understanding the crisis in systemic terms. None have surmised that the essential calamity debated between moderate and fundamentalist liberal capitalists can be found within liberal capitalism itself. Contrary to these flawed patterns of mainstream political discourse, I believe that what is needed today is a totalizing theoretical critique of the political-economic system. To do this, we must use the tools first provided by two philosophers whose works undermined the

prevailing, embedded religious and ethical values of their societies: Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. I argue that their works remains relevant and can be utilized to call into question the seemingly ubiquitous belief in the fundamental sustainability of liberal capitalism. The primary triumphs of Marx and Nietzsche, within their respective methodologies, are that they re-historicize morality, subvert ethics and call into question the very foundations of so-called Judeo-Christian religiosity. From these groundbreaking critiques of the fundamentally universal, one can derive the impetus to envision

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our societal catastrophes, and conceivably their resolutions, on a systemic level. Marxs historical materialism is central to his account of human consciousness in society and its manifestation in religion and morality. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx posits the materialist argument that religious sentiment is a purely social product. This leads to a basic methodological innovation: in understanding religion and morality, philosophy must not consider the abstract individual, but rather a particular form of society. Ideas are the by-products of economic material relations. Morality, religion and other ideologies do not stand by themselves, independent of these relations. Nor do their corresponding forms of consciousness. All ideology, whether religious or secular, relies exclusively on the material experience of human beings: Life is not determined by consciousness, Marx writes, but consciousness by life. his underlying materialism is key to understanding the manner by which Marxs conception of religion is fruitful in constructing a systemic critique of contemporary capitalism. For Marx, the critique of religion is the key to the critique of all ideologies and institutions. Mans reluctance to understand his material reality, including that of his situation under capitalism, is clearly manifested in religion. This fundamental concept also allows us to deconstruct some of the misguided criticisms of the financial crisis. Rather than appealing to a very vague conception of business ethics to target particular managerial trends as perpetrating this crisis, we can attempt to understand how capitalism as a complex social system produces these trends. Rather than understanding this incident as an abstract psychological or ethical trend, one must insist upon analyzing it as a material reflection of capitalism. In essence, the crisis represents

a series of trends that were first identified by Marx. However, these patterns have accelerated and developed to a degree that Marx could not have foreseen. arx describes the power of capitalism to alienate man from his labor and mediate all social interactions as relations of production, resulting in a commodity fetishism in which the socially produced material goods seem naturally produced. In this crisis, one observes a level of alienation in which the material product has been removed. Even the innovators of complex derivatives admit that their financial speculations occupy a fictitious realm divorced from material production. With this level of sustained alienation from the means of production and productive forces, according to Marxs logic, man loses his ability to exert influence over his material reality, and thus, his human essence. This complete mystification of productive relations

Ideology is a mere construct, utilized to further the aims of those in positions of dominance.
leads to the false consciousness that Marx analyzes in his critique of religion. Furthermore, as Marx suggests, capitalism today is no longer merely an economic system, but rather a complex social structure in which individuals devoutly trust. As Slovenian philosopher Slavoj iek warns, one should never underestimate the infinite plasticity of capitalism. It has adapted and regenerated through a number of crises, and yet despite this it has become increasingly clear that neither the market nor the state can solve the infinite problems that face our world. Still, contemporary political discourse largely disregards the possibility of a systemic critique of liberal capitalism. For its most
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ardent supporters, the crisis occurred precisely because capitalism, they argue, was restrained. Like religion, capitalism, both as ideology and complex social system, is fetishized and masked as a naturally occurring phenomenon, despite its roots in our material reality. If, as Marx insists, man is the human world, the state and society, then the status of capitalism is far less certain, and we have much more control over our social, political and economic organi-

As iek warns, one should never underestimate the infinite plasticity of capitalism.
zation than presumed by those who defend this system. In order to add another level of nuance to this critique, it is gainful to turn to Niezsches critique of morality. n On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche sets out to disprove the widespread notion in the philosophy of ethics, from Plato to Kant, that morality is a priori to society. These doctrines search for the metaphysical criteria for judging any action good or evil. But for Nietzsche morality is an a posteriori phenomenon, and religion is merely a mode of valuation with tangible historical origins. Nietzsche characterizes the emergence of religion, beginning with Judaism and continuing with Christianity, as a triumphant slave revolt in morality. This act, on behalf of the weak, is prompted by the resentment of the once powerful knightly-aristocratic class, and produces an inversion in which good qualities (nobility, aggression and strength) become Evil, and bad qualities (impotence, weakness and simplicity) become Good. Nietzsches argument is embedded in an understanding of human history similar to Marxs materialism in that it is concerned with the a posteriori ori-

gins of ideology. Unlike Marx, however, Nietzsche assaults these values as man-made constructs. In fact, in an evaluative sense he posits that everything considered Good in Judeo-Christian ethics is merely a set of defensive constructs, hypocritically imposed on society, without any inherent meaning. In doing so, Nietzsche establishes a mode of criticism that calls into question the most foundational ideological presumptions of society. It is in this methodological tradition that one can pursue the systemic criticism advocated above. As Nietzsche deconstructs the entire teleology of European ethics, we too can deconstruct the teleology of capitalism and its insistence on its own permanence via democracy, human rights, and the free market. n important deviation from Marx in Nietzsches critique is the notion that ideology, even broad ideological systems like Morality, is a mere construct, utilized to further the aims of those in positions of dominance. Marx, on

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the other hand, sees ideology as the product of material conditions, functioning as both an expression of those material conditions and as their mask. This theoretical crossroads is key to a critique of contemporary capitalism. Is this system, as both an ideological construct and a complex social organism, buoyed at the insistence of its power beneficiaries and their ideological wardens? It does seem that the victims of this crisis are far more willing to attack the greed of a few managers, like Bernard Madoff or the executives that flew to congressional hearings on private jets, than to seek those fundamentally problematic structures in capitalism that make crises inevitable and recurring. However, this reaction assumes that capitalism requires a balanced ethical outlook; instead, in the tradition of Marx, we must pursue the notion that capitalism, as a system, produces the behaviors that our society has quite clearly deemed unacceptable. In fact, we see that in prosecuting the individuals who perpetrated risky speculations without looking at the inherent causal elements in capitalism that prompt these behaviors, we end up perpetuating and strengthening the system as a whole. Thus, the public embarrassment and prosecution of bank executives is merely a

masquerade, in which the public demand for justice is superficially satiated and a select few take the fall for the inherently problematic elements of capitalism. Thus, using the Marxist and Nietzschean critiques, I believe that the reactive discourse of the financial crisis is a mystification of class-consciousness, in which those with a vested interest in the prolongation of liberal-capitalism dole out what appears to be justice in order to avoid the actuation of real social justice. Those who desire to divert criticism from capitalism disregard it altogether as a subject for critique. Apologists create an assumptive discourse in which the longevity of the system is incontestable, and, in so doing, mystify the ability of the victims of the crisis to understand the totality of capitalism as a historical process. In both the works of Marx and Nietzsche, consciousness of the historical, material

It is the very fact that the permanence of capitalism in political discourse is so staunchly presumed that we must view it with a skeptical, critical lens.
origins of grand ideological systems is key to the intellectual liberation of man. Each thinker posits that the maintenance of these grand ideological systems depends on the unconsciousness of its material origins, which is why these systems are fetishized and masked as natural, rather than social, entities. It is the very fact that the permanence of capitalism in political discourse is so staunchly presumed that we must view it with a skeptical, critical lens. I am not positing a solution to the problem of the financial crisis, as this is not the true purpose of philosophy, but rather a redefinition of this problem as a systemic crisis necessitating a critique of the inherent qualities of capitalism. Marx and Nietzsche provide us with the intellectual tools to make this critique.

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On Public Art
Arton Gjonbalaj
Illustrated by Louise McCune
ublic art faces a challenge that is quite unlike that which is faced by all art: each and every instance of public art has both a time limit and a spatial attachment. That is to say public art has a temporal restriction, an expiration date, a moment when it ceases to interest its viewing public, as well as a site-specific designation. The implications of site-spec-

of art in the museum. Public art is directly restricted to the changing tides of human interest, participation and sensitivity, to the changing face of its viewing public, to the changing times. ublic art is site-specific because it must occupy a specific public space. Complicating matters, it must be relevant to the public space of its viewing public. This is, again, a burden and a challenge placed to the artist. The philosopher Hilde Hein notes, [The] sheer presence of art out-of-doors or in a bus terminal or a hotel reception area does not automatically make that art publicno more than placing a tiger in a barnyard would make it a domestic animal. For example, Maya Lins Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. is an instance of public art, but a public rendition of Salvador Dals The Persistence of Memory in London is not. Some art, like The Persistence of Memory, is essentially taken out of the museum, copied, and placed in a public spacefor the purpose of this article, I shall not consider this public art. Memorials, such as that of Maya Lin, are often highly site-specific, as they should be, but their time-specificity becomes rather complicated and controversial. A memorial is thought to possess qualities that transcend the boundaries of time, to appeal to and communicate with countless generations of people through time. Yet memorials are confined to the time of their installation, the time when they (and their subject matter) were considered relevant. This is not to say that memorials are

Public art faces a challenge that is quite unlike that which is faced by all art.
ificity for public are more obvious and immediate than those of time-specificity. To derive a theory that combines both specificities, I question human nature, with particular emphasis on the viewing publics sensitivity to public art. The specificities, or parameters, of public art are revealed precisely when the viewing public becomes conditioned by, or desensitized to, public art. We can confidently declare the end of public art when we, as human beings qua viewing public, stop caring, talking and thinking about public art. It is crucial to understand first that both the artist and the viewing public play an important role in the timespecificity and site-specificity of public art. Because public art is so exposed, it is extremely accessible to the viewing public. The artist is thus confronted with the challenge of creating public art that retains its viewing public, namely its local community. Due to this over-exposure, public art fails to transcend the temporal restrictions that are less known to works

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unsuccessful works of art; in fact, they are extremely successful, but only if they help the ever-changing viewing public experience or at least imagine the time when the work was installed, when it was important and relevant, when it was alive. It is apparent, then, that public art can link us to the past, taking us out of our time and space. Public art can force us to rethink our habits as well as our habitats. At the proper level of engagement with public art, we are placed outside of our very recognizable selves, outside of the environment with which we were once so familiar. We think that we know our space, but only a drastic modification of the spacethrough public artcan accurately test our familiarity and knowledge. Public art compels us to question our identity as well as our surroundings. Only after this transformation can we truly understand our time and space and, more importantly, ourselves. After we have inevitably exhausted public art of this function, it expires. Public art can take us out of our time and space, but it cannot save itself.

hat transpires in arts transition from the museum or gallery to the park or street corner? Think of the Salvador Dal and Maya Lin examples. On a more personal level, think about the Thinker and Alma Mater on Columbias campus, the first simply copied and placed on campus, and the latter made specifically for the site that is Columbia University. When Columbia students, the viewing public of Alma Mater, tried to destroy the sculpture in the 1970s, as philosopher Arthur Danto recalls, the students were not vandals but revolutionaries, symbolically attacking the public whose values Alma Mater embodies. There is hope that public art can be kept alive if its artist does something innovative and original. To extend its impact and push its temporal and spatial boundaries, public art should provoke controversy and interaction in the

There is hope that public art can be kept alive if its artist does something innovative and orginal.

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form of discourse or deep personal medi- actively implicated in the constitution tation. Public art must respond to and in- of the work of artA works realization teract with the viewing public by reflecting depends on the audiences bestowal of the cultural, historical, philosophical, po- meaning upon it, a contentious social and litical and social interests of the viewing political undertaking. However, the viewpublic. However, in doing so, it is tied to ing public rarely becomes more attached a temporal and regional locality. As it attempts to reenergize and sculpt The ideal instance of public art an often-overlooked public space, demonstrates relevant meaning by transforming the blank canvas of that transcends its installations. bare public space into an artistic and expressive fte, public art pays tribute to to any instance of public art over time. It the local, the ordinary and the vernacular, seems that at some point each instance of deeply time-specific and site-specific ele- public art becomes a fixed entity, merely something we pass by on a daily routine. ments. The interruption of the flow of nature, he role of the viewing public, as of the flow of human traffic, caused by influenced by different times and public art is crucial to its overcoming the localities, is essential to under- specificities. Public art must have redempstanding public art. Public art requires the tive value that implicates an understanding sensational investmentthe active partic- of the spatial and temporal arrangement ipationof the viewing public. As Hilde of the environmentan understanding Hein suggests, we are no longer mere of that which constituted the space before the installation and that which constipassive onlookers. Instead, we tutes it after the installation. are participants The ideal instance of public art demonstrates relevant meaning that transcends its installation in a specific time and space, a meaning that is infused in a new, updated installation. This subsequent installation reflects the artists careful consideration of the criticism of the viewing public, as well as the dynamics and restrictions of time and space. This notion of the continuity of an idea or meaning conveyed through an instance of public art transcends

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that particular instance through a series of generational installations. In this case, the essence of a specific instance of public art is never lost. However, the piece itself, the particular instance of public art, becomes outdated, outmoded, and ignored. Ultimately, this is not a solution to the notions of time-specificity or sitespecificity, nor a solution that is absolutely necessary. In fact, part of the very fabric of public art is its ability to evaporate, to disappear from the eyes and lives of the viewing public, making way for a new local installation.

Public art that is not given any meaning by the viewing public has no meaning.
ublic art is sculpted by the hand of the artist and the eye of the viewing public, from the moment of its installation to the moment of its elimination, its removal. Public art that is neither initially nor ultimately given any meaning by the viewing public, has no meaning. It is therefore toppled, in totalthe idea, the meaning, and in extreme cases, the artist. The timespecificity and site-specificity of art do not necessarily condemn it; instead they challenge the artist to create fresh, new public art that meets the changing demands of the changing viewing public, with hopes of creating and understanding a form of art that can transcend time and space.

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little philosophy books

A Clockwork Orange
Evan Burger
n 1972, Stanley Kubricks masterpiece A Clockwork Orange was released in British theaters. The film ratings board of Great Britain had been especially hard on this viciously violent movie, and the boards harshness was soon justified: a multitude of copycat crimes, supposedly inspired by the movie, broke out across the country. The most horrific of these involved a 17-year-old Dutch tourist raped by a gang of young men chanting just as in the filmthe lyrics to the

film

Illustrated by Arais Abbruzzi

song Singing in the Rain. Kubrick subsequently bowed to public pressure and forbade the showing of the film in Great Britain, a self-imposed ban that lasted until his death in 1999. The public reaction to the movie was motivated by an unspoken theory of art and ethics; namely, that the aesthetic good is inextricably bound to the moral good, that good art makes good people. The great irony is that the work of art in question is itself an attack upon this commonly held (but rarely challenged) assumption. Alex, the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, has the most refined aesthetic taste of all the characters in the moviehe loves Beethoven and appreciates beauty for its own sake, even if that beauty is almost solely restricted to the female form. And yet, Alex has the blackest heart in a cast of villains. This dichotomy induces in the audience an unpleasant cognitive dissonance, conflicting with our assumptions. Despite this conflict, Kubricks mastery of cinematography draws us into rapport with

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the young man. Throughout the first act of the movie, we see Alex beat a homeless man, steal a car only to run other drivers off the road, rape one woman and murder another. It all seems somehow playful. An early scene in which Alexs gang fights with another group of thugs epitomizes Kubricks approach to violence in the first act: the young men fight with stage furniture that shatters upon impact, making the brawl seem lighthearted; Rossinis The Thieving Magpie accompanies the action. Yes, we in the audience think, this violence is morally reprehensiblebut it certainly is fun to watch!

Alex is made a better person by being forced to see the true monstrosity inherent in violence.
his tone is sustained until Alex is arrested and sentenced for the murder of a middle-aged woman. In prison he volunteers for an experimental process that claims to cure criminals of their sociopathy. The so-called Ludovico technique conditions Alex against violence by forcing him to watch footage of crimes and evil acts while under the influence of a drug that makes him feel like he is dying. And it works. Alex is made a better person not by appreciating beautiful things, but by being forced to see the true monstrosity inherent in violence. The transformation central to the plot of A Clockwork Orange enacts a theory that contradicts the public reaction to the film: crime is reduced by showing more violent films, not fewer. Upon release, Alex, without a home, finds himself on the street, where he meets the same characters that he persecuted in the first act. This time they take revenge upon him, assisted by Alexs inability to remain conscious during the violence, a side effect of the Ludovico technique. Kubrick attacked our complicity in

the depravity of the first act: he guided us to enjoy the savagery of the first act, and we gladly consented. Now, he turns the violence upon our surrogate and turns his directorial expertise to revealing the horror of that violence. And this is the directors ultimate attack on the common conception of beauty: he uses his control over the audiences experience to replace the drugs and straitjackets of the Ludovico technique with the pain we feel upon seeing the rehabilitated Alex so cruelly punished. hen the critics of A Clockwork Orange said that the movie promoted violence through the sympathetic but evil character of Alex, they got the story only half right. The first act of the film certainly does this well, but only for the purpose of revealing our guilt in the third act. Thus we should see A Clockwork Orange, a movie banned in Britain for twenty-seven years on the grounds of excessive violence, for the anti-violent, but philosophically radical, work of art that it actually is.
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