Apathetic Rampage

At the Financial Times web site, Gautam Malkani points to the motiveless malignancy of the London riots: “In A Clockwork Orange . . . Burgess captures his delinquent protagonists’ complete lack of political motivation, but without dismissing their actions as simple opportunism. Numbed by the dullness of their existence, Alex and his gang of ‘droogs’ revel in demonic violence to stave off the demon of boredom. The only way for them to feel alive is to be literally ‘alive and kicking.’ For Burgess there is nothing paradoxical about an apathetic rampage.

“Likewise, many rioters in London and other cities were laughing as they looted. The speed of the destruction was partly a function, then, of their sheer exuberance – the opposite of stereotypical listlessness more commonly known as ‘chillaxing.’ Like football hooliganism, the violence was recreational – a day out in a Nietzschean theme park. This was a key difference between this week and previous flashpoints in Britain’s potted history of public disorder.”