Quote 1
Deltoid: “We
study the problem. We’ve been studying it for damn well near a century,
yes, but we get no further with our studies. You’ve got a good home
here, good loving parents. You’ve got not too bad of a brain! Is
it some devil that crawls inside of you?”
Deltoid, Alex’s probation officer, speaks
these lines to Alex in an early scene in the film when he visits
Alex at home. Deltoid is referring to the problem of youth violence
and rebellion. When he says, “We’ve been studying,” he means that
science and the social sciences have long tried to understand and
control humanity’s destructive impulses through rationality. Adults
have tried to understand and control youthful rebellion and impulsiveness.
Social reformers often suggest that an unstable home produces violence,
but Deltoid can’t find the culprit here. Ultimately, the film suggests
that these violent impulses are irrational and innate and cannot
be eradicated by science and rationality. The dark and destructive,
the disorderly and the rebellious, are part of who we are. The state
cannot get rid of that part of us except by making us inhuman. Alex
may be simply an animal, a creature of instinct—but he may also
be human, capable of moral choice. The film leaves ambiguous the
question of whether or not we as individuals have control over ourselves.
