Good, or evil?

Confucius, the greatest philosopher in ancient China, once said: “Man's nature at birth is good” and “To render good for evil”. It is not to come singly but in pairs that the Bible also tells: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also”. The two greatest persons told us to be good, to forgive and not to be evil. From years of my traditional education, I believe humanity is good as well. People make mistakes sometimes, whereas, they are kind-hearted inside. However, what I see from a movie, A Clockwork Orange, humanity is totally evil.


This movie is a bittersweet ironic tale. A rascal, Alex, together with his droogs, wanders around, doing orgies of random, opportunistic violence everyday until he is arrested for the crime of murder. In the prison, he becomes the subject of a classical conditioning technique designed to make him “a clockwork orange”, someone who is incapable of doing harm unto anyone in order to reduce his prison term. After he is released, the infirm he once bullied torture him in revenge. He cannot stand the misery and come to suicide as a result….


This is a movie including countless vicious violence and rape which astonished me a lot. No one is innocent. No matter the gratuitous, psychopathic violence Alex did at the anterior of the movie, or the so-called karma effects later, these are all belong to evil. It seems that devil exists inside everyone, once the Pandora’s box is opened, nothing is limited.
I am wondering: Are we born good or evil? What is good, and what is evil? Is it true that everyone is evil? Or good and evil are integrative?


Let us look back to the movie. Alex’s self-indulgence outrage and ferocities is pure evil for he considers his behaviors as entertainments, just like many rascals today. What is more, Dr. Branom, an assistant of the Ludovico treatment, does the inhumanity therapeutic while she thinks she is “for Alex’s own good”. She is the second kind of evil who cannot identify whether her action is good or bad, worse, regards perpetrations as sacraments. Like an apothecary who gives wrong medicine to patients accidentally or like the USA, which offers its people over-the-top welfare. On surface, the government takes good care of its people, actually, the policy led to deregulation which contributed to the financial crisis.


Furthermore, the most horrifying evil is hypocrisy. The minister does extremely cruel conditioning on Alex and takes advantages of him for political motives with tricky words which make him look good. I cannot help but think of George W· Bush’s maladroit and cunning excuse to attack Iraq. “Weapon of Mass Destruction”, what is that? Is that his business? Of course not. Infinite profit of oil is more attracting and believable.


Finally, I think I was convinced of the concept that “Humanity can be evil”. Sometimes good and evil are even integrative. Despite what you have done is intentionally or not, evil thoughts hide inside everyone. Be careful, everyone can be a devil, everyone can be the next victim.