Ludovico technique
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The Ludovico technique is a fictitious drug-assisted aversion therapy from the novel and film A Clockwork Orange. It involves the patient being forced to watch violent images for long periods of time, while under the effect of drugs that cause a near death experience. The idea is that if the patient is forced to watch the horribly graphic rapes, assaults and other acts of violence while suffering from the drug effects, the patient will assimilate the sensations and then become incapacitated or very ill either attempting to perform or even just witnessing said acts of violence.
The Ludovico technique is an artistic semblance of the psychological phenomenon known as classical conditioning, a process pioneered by Russian psychologist, philosopher, and physiologist Ivan Pavlov. In the story of A Clockwork Orange, when the protagonist Alex DeLarge is made the subject of the Ludovico technique, he, like Pavlov's Dog, is acclimatized to harbor physical and psychological aversion to the controlled stimulus being impressed upon him.
In the process of creating both the novel and film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, original author Anthony Burgess and film director Stanley Kubrick both went to painstaking effort to incorporate a plethora of symbols for the context of the story. This wealth in simulacra of contemporary culture and modern science within the work's expanse is a large part of why the story of A Clockwork Orange has remained so timeless.
Much of the film reflects the fears, and logical extrapolations, of the time in which it was made: Massive unemployment, moral decay, and the various liberal and conservative approaches to the resultant crime. The main character Alex DeLarge, a hedonist, sadist, and sociopath reflects the end result of such a future dystopia. The fictional Ludovico technique plays a crucial role as both a plot device and social commentary.
After his capture and life sentence for murder (the conservative approach to crime) he volunteers for the Ludovico Technique (a liberal/technocratic approach to crime) in hopes of early release, not having any idea what the treatment entails. One crucial plot device is that while being forced to watch scenes of violence and cruelty, he is also forced to watch old newsreels and propaganda of violent regimes in an attempt to cure him of every conceivable social aberration. One such film repeatedly shown was Triumph of the Will. Unfortunately the original scores were also played with these newsreels, many of which were his one socially acceptable vice; his love for the music of Ludwig Van Beethoven. Thus while being 'cured' of violence and social aberration, he is also forever denied the music of Beethoven. It is this 'flaw' in the treatment that allows Alex to eventually undo his treatment, and after surviving an attempt on his life by one of his former victims, the film ends with him being made a political pawn in the crime debate, as he begins to once again imagine doing all the sociopathic things he did before.
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