Civilization Critical Investigation on the „Clockwork Condition” described by Anthony Burgess

The negative effects of the civilized lifestyle are widely discussed by many authors (for example Marx, Wells, or Max Nordau) in the nineteenth century, showing that industrial society and its mechanic requirements make a hard mental and physical impact on people who build and constantly change the modern world. In the twentieth century, many authors also dealt with the problem of adaptation to technology – a process that deeply changes people – that pushes them to a direction that leads towards an obedient, man-machine condition of life. Taylorism and its heritage, plus the culture, sport, sex, etc. industries and above all politics with its satellite media determine people how to live their lives. This makes a lifelong discomfort for those who want some autonomy but gives redemption for others who flee from constant decision-making. Burgess’s „clockwork condition” is a great depiction of the (post)modern man whose actions are mostly mere responses to a mechanic milieu created by „the state” that uses people as tools. Even democracy can turn into a spiritless, alienated sequence impregnated with boring or obviously mad plans of a governing minority if citizens forget how to be conscious, creative, and responsible when they make decisions. Beyond the topic of the novel A Clockwork Orange the problem is general: do we choose the „forced marriage of an organism to a mechanism” and follow the given patterns, let the conditioning happen, or insist on being imperfect, but capable of making decisions, even if many of them are bad.