Cutting Down Crime Also Cuts Down Choices

In the 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange, Alex, an unusually violent young man, is sentenced to time in jail after murdering a woman. While in jail, Alex is given the opportunity to undergo an experimental treatment known as classical conditioning. The doctors show Alex violent film clips while inserting drops of an unknown liquid into his eyes that cause him to feel terribly sick. Therefore, the neutral stimulus, or the violence, involved with the classical conditioning invokes fear and a sick feeling otherwise known as the conditioned response. Beethoven's 9th, Alex's favorite piece of music, is included as background music in one of the film clips; however, which causes Alex to feel sick not only when he sees violence, but also when he hears this song. At the end of the film, Alex hears Beethoven's 9th and is driven to commit suicide simply because he cannot stand this forced feeling of sickness anymore. Although his attempt his unsuccessful, the doctors realize that they did wrong due to the fact that because they were only concerned with cutting down crime, they ended up cutting down a human being's choices.