Blog 3: The Matrix. Analysis

Brandon Miller
10/03/10
Blog 3:The Matrix. Analysis

“Why do my eyes hurt?” Neo asked “Because you never used them.” Was Morpheus reply. I love this quote because it is so relateable to modern society. So many time are we completely blind to what is going on around the world or even around the corner. The media keeps things from us, the government and even our family. And most of the time we have no clue that what they are telling us is a fabrication of the truth. In a way we are all living in a matrix of some kind.


I will give you an example, nine times out of ten, when you crack open a history text book, it is mainly going to be about U.S history. Even when they do mention another country, it is very brief and it still is related to the U.S in some way. We never really get the full story of what really happened in other parts of the world. It is almost as if the government wants to always show that America is the superior country. They try to always show the U.S. in a good light and make the other country's look wrong. They keep away the truth from us like the machines did in the movie, trying to keep us under control.


It is like the book Science Fiction and Philosophy said, our brain is a vat being told things about their surroundings that is completely different then the truth. The news is a great example, the major news network almost always talk only what is going on in America, unless something monumental happens. They lie to us and try to scare us in order to keep us buying things and prevent us from asking the bigger questions. For example, the swine flu or H1N1 was completely hipped. The news kept trying to scare us into buying things for our protection. Meanwhile, the swine flu only killed about 25174 (http://www.flucount.org/) while the regular flu as killed millions of people within the same year. It is all in order to control us and point us in the same direction. It is like the book Science Fiction and Philosophy said, our brain is a vat being told things about their surroundings that is completely different then the truth.


The allegory of the cave says that when one person learns the truth and tries to preach it to others, they will refuse to believe them. Or worse, they will turn their backs on them. I feel that is true in The Matrix and real life. Whenever some one writs a book on a particular political subject you have the people who instantly go with and the people who challenge it. It is human nature to agree with the first thing they hear, get used to it, but when being told they are wrong, they cant handle it. Like Neo did when he learned his whole life he was a battery.


I think the The Matrix did a very good job of challenging the question of what is reality and how we are forced to believe things that are not. America while a good country, consistently covers our faces with the veil of lies. We try to learn new things about the world and are shunned for it. But we can inprove if we all learn the truth, together.