“The Matrix” Alternatives

All great movies draw parallels to our lives and the human experience as a whole. The Matrix is one of the most intriguing films of our time. The way it integrates powerful metaphors of our culture and society with technology successfully creating a modern myth is as impressive now as it was when I first saw it. I am pleased that with this assignment the very political message hidden in the plot was revealed to me. To be honest I'm ashamed I didn't see it before.


The first time I saw this movie I immediately saw a modern myth. I had viewed lectures from a man named Joseph Campbell about “The Heroe's Journey” and was amazed at yet another updated example of this common theme throughout mankind's history. I was also impressed by the integration of the concept widely thought to be “new age” of our thoughts being able to affect the physical world. The idea that “thoughts are things” was not new to me though I don't know who thought of it first or even where I first heard it.


I was delighted by the parallel the movie draws with “Alice in Wonderland” in the decision Neo has to make about whether to continue the search for knowledge or end it. What I didn't see before was the parallel it draws to our current political state and society. Here you have a government like system that exists solely to make sure the population does not learn enough to interfere with its agenda. In the movie the agenda is to keep people in a dream state so they don't notice they are actually being used for their biology. In our current political climate one could say the same is being done by corrupt politicians with the agendas of those who give them their money and power. On the surface we appear to be free. We are educated and even the impoverished parts of this country are far more wealthy than those of many other countries. However recently it has become evident that we are continually deprived of our civil rights. Those who run for office are able to run smear campaigns and ask for votes to office without delivering any facts or true intentions of what they intend to do once in power. More and more our rights to privacy are disappearing as technology surpasses our abilities to make laws that govern the ethical use of them. Also some laws are simply broken without prejudice in the name of national security.


So then in answer to the question posed to us about which “pill” or path I would or do choose to take I have to say the red pill and the harsh truth. I'm all too aware of the consequences this introduces. With ignorance there appears to be less consequence because it is almost a child like state. If you choose ignorance you have only to accept what you are told is true and do not have an obligation to study or search any further. Also there is no added responsibility that comes from having this limited knowledge. But however worry free you may feel you will have cheated yourself because those who know the truth have a scary amount of power over what you are allowed to know and what happens to you. Choosing knowledge is the harder path but as they say it is usually the harder path that is right. With knowledge comes responsibility to use its power ethically. When you become aware that people are being used and stripped of their rights it is your ethical responsibility to make it known in order to effect a change for the better. It is my contention that anyone who has a decent sense of ethical behavior would have to choose knowledge and all the duties and responsibilities that come with it. As stated in the Declaration of Independence and a quote I heard in another movie “National Treasure” "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."