A Clockwork Orange and Les Miserables

Okay, so it's Saturday morning. I'm going to take a test in about an hour or so. But I thought I'd post first.

And, in other news, I got an A in metalogic so I'm pretty happy about that. Woohoo! Not only did I learn about the foundation of mathematics....I also learned about humility.

Anyway, today's post will be on core personality characteristics and whether we have the ability to change them. A few times in my life people have mentioned to me the topic of core personality traits and secondary traits. What they argue is that we have a few core personality traits that are sorta hard wired into who we are, and that we have secondary traits that are manifestations, and that flow from, those core traits. Most traits we see in people are secondary traits, and it's only through abstracting from all expressed traits that the core 5 are visible.

The core 5 are these:

conscientiousness: How detail oriented you are. This is self-discipline, it's the ability to make and keep goals. This sort of persons plans their behavior.

Openness: this one is sometimes called "intellect." This is the inventive mind, it's open to new information and experience. This core characteristic is interested in things like art, adventure, emotions, and new ideas.

agreeableness: measures how pliable your personality is. Do you go with the flow or take charge. This is also related to how compassionate you are, and whether you're suspicious and antagonistic toward others.

neuroticism: how extreme in emotion you are (high highs and low lows). This is the proclivity to experience negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, self-doubt, anger or dissatisfaction easily.

extroversion: whether you get fuel from other people or they take it from you. This is the category describing people who actively seek stimulation in the company of others.

Okay, so there are the core, and it is thought that we can't do all that much about our overall disposition in these areas. And, I'm not sure how I feel about that. And I'll tell you why, but now we gotta get into some literature to lay the foundation for my position.

A clockwork orange is a book about the importance of free will. In this book a man has his ability to choose taken away (because he was an evil man) and the result is that he becomes broken and unable to do anything. As his freedom is removed, so is his humanity. In the end he is given his freedom back and he turns his life around and ceases to be evil.

Now I mention this in book form because there is a film version (probably what most people are familiar with) that is completely different. In the film version they don't depict the last chapter of the book, and the main character (Alex) never changes. When he gets his freedom back, he is excited to be evil again. The movie ends with him and a malicious grin, and you know that through all his experience he learned nothing.

The main point of this story is freedom. And that's where the title comes from. Anthony Burgess (the author) used this title because he said that without freedom you're just a clockwork orange. The orange represents life, it's filled with juice and it seems vibrant and bright. The clockwork represents mechanisms, it represents wind-up toys,--things that always do the what they are made to do without variance.

Instantiating this, a clockwork orange person would be someone who appears to be alive and free, and full of life, but really has no life. This person's humanity is an illusion and they're really nothing more than a clockwork, waiting to be wound by the universe.

The core message of the book is that people must be free, and they have to be able to change. Because if we can't then we're just clockworks, seemingly alive, but in reality just living machines, unable to grow.

Les Miseables takes a different angle on this theme and shows how important for us to accept the possibility of change.

In Les Mis the main character (Jean Valjean) completely changes his life. He goes from a criminal to one of the most Christlike men ever depicted in literature. But even though he has grown so much, there is a man following him who doesn't believe his change is genuine. This man is Javert. His inability to adapt, and to recognize Valjean's growth eventually turns him into an evil and broken man that takes his own life.

Javert's stance on life is depicted in a song called "Stars" (in the broadway version). In this song he sings about how the stars are reliable and they never change. He sings about how much their immovability means to him... how he relies on it. And one can infer from his song that he values immovability in his life just as much as he values it in the heavens.

Later when he catches Valjean they have a confrontation and Javert says that "men can never change."

When Javert finally realizes that Valjean was a good man, and that he had really changed, Javert can't cope with this revelation. He believes that his view of an immovable nature is completely irreconcilable with the change he has seen in Valjean. His view of the world comes crashing down,and in the end he kills himself. This is tragic because at heart he was a good man. It was only his lack of compassion and faith in humanity that he erred.

Now, to sum up, we have Clockwork that argues that we must be free in order to live, and we have Les Mis that shows us from the other end that not appreciating human freedom can lead to death (for most people figurative, but for Javert literal). But the question is do we have any sort of evidence in our own experience to argue that these statements about human freedom are accurate?

Well, this is an age old debate in philosophy. The argument that we are bound and wound, and set to be a certain person because of the way the universe is set up is called "determinism." In this view everything is predictable and brought about by cause and effect, and because of this, human behavior (also being an action) is predictable and the result of cause and effect...even emotions, preferences and desires are the effect of a predictable cause (or causes). In this view there is no freedom, because every choice you make is merely a reaction to a cause, and not an active choice.

The main problem with this view is that without freedom their is no culpability. Think about it, if a man is wired to do evil, it's not the man's choice, and punishment won't change him because it wasn't his choice in the first place. Punishment implies that you can change future behavior...otherwise it's just meaningless pain.

Now, some might argue that the punishment is just another force in the universe. In this counter-argument they would say that "punishment does change the man, because, although he acts without freedom and according to his innate wiring, if we change his experience, his wiring will direct him down a better path. He isn't changing, but through inflicting pain we rewrite his programming. So, although he's not morally responsible, pain does serve a purpose."

To this I'd say that the question isn't whether or not punishment will change the man. The question is whether or not the man is RESPONSIBLE and whether it's ethical to hurt him if he isn't responsible. If he made no choice, I don't see how it would be. There is no guilt without choice, and since we often feel guilty, we must admit that we have the power to choose. There are counter-arguments to this, but none of them are very persuasive.

In the end, choosing makes us human, and without that we're just machines. And because we have the ability to choose, we have the ability to change.

I feel guilty all the time. I wish I was better than I am. I see parts of myself that I don't like, and I want them gone... and the beautiful thing is I can change them. The very pain that makes me want to change is proof that I can change (because I feel bad and guilt is the result of choice).

So, back to the 5 core characteristics. It may be true that these 5 characteristics are part of who we are. And I don't think that's a problem. I know that those 5 characteristics in me change very little. But you got to remember that no one ever interacts with "neuroticism" or "agreeableness." These are the abstract. What people interact with is you on a daily basis and they see the manifestations of these characteristics....the secondary characteristics....and this is what you can control.

Also, I think that through controlling secondary characteristics you at the very least modify your core characteristics.

Whatever you dislike about yourself is something you can work on, and in time change. You have to believe this. If you don't you fall into determinism--you become a clockwork. Change takes time, and it's certainly difficult, but the very guilt and sadness making you wish you could change is the evidence that you are free and that change is within your reach.

I better go take that test now.