(Image: imdb.com)
By Yousreng He
The Matrix is a film that illustrates the loss of freewill in an evolved world environment where people have lost control of themselves in this system. Year spend on the capitalistic treadmill has created a false reality in The Matrix that looks like a utopian world, and it is hard to wake up from this system because people have built it overtime on the rule. The future that The Matrix predicts is dystopian because the people in the film generally pretend to ignore their thoughts and desire, indeed their humanity, because they believe what they do not know cannot hurt them. The influence that makes people choose ignorance has come from the power of capitalism, which is very capable of controlling people physically and mentally. The power of capitalism is enormous in the film, kind of like a big engine that genetically engineers slave labor. It is very telling that most people go to work not because they like what they do, but because they want to put food on their tables and money in their pockets. That dependence on the capital goods that people have come to expect is how capitalism controls people in the Matrix. Because most of the people in the film are living easy lives, it is hard to make them realize that they are living in a system that is manipulated by other people (1). In this paper, I will address how capitalism and control work in the film’s real world, the world of truth, and the false reality world, the matrix system.
Figure 1: Neo, the main actor who later breaks the matrix.
1- Irwin, William. The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real. Chicago: Open Court, 2002 Includes bibliographical references and index.
Capitalism has a variety of definitions. For example, the government system, we are born into it, and we follow the rules of other humans who create the rules. We are programmed in school to get jobs and have careers and not to think for ourselves and follow what people who have the power to control you. The news and TV are set up to control us. They try to hide all the truth and let us know what we should know. That is how capitalism can captivate and enchant people. Most people are trying in the system that creates by other people because the goal is clear and seems to achieve than their own will; people have control over the outcomes. The idea of capitalism is like how people like to play the game because the conscious level is still developing. Kids are the main target user because they are easy to get control of when they were young. The kid starts to play the game by start put their mind into it. The power of escaping from the real world is to go virtual internet world of video games. At first, they don’t addict to it, but the more they practice, the more they become good at it. They will ignore the fact that they will fail as a good kid and might not focus on school (2). Nowadays, most people cannot live without their electrical devices and the internet. For example, cellphones and laptops are the necessary things that modern people must use. That is how to program developers are tracking their client behavior through the internet. Sound like most people being controlled by the machine, and they are happy with it because it is meet what they need.
Back to the film, the main protagonist, Neo, represents the one who wakes up from the matrix and joins the freedom of mind group. Neo is a day programmer and a night hacker. He is nihilism, the person who rejects moral principles and tries to reveal what is behind the system of society (3). Which can see in figure 1, He is the one that can break the matrix system. The film starts from his residential apartment. His room number is 101, which means the code that a computer programmer uses to write a program. Even though Neo in his own home, the other hacker still able to surveillance him in the way of emerging with what neo own, which is technical stuff. That computer has the power to give Neo search all the think that upon there; however, the other side also can track all the activities like where Neo goes, what Neo does, what Neo feels, what Neo says, and who Neo is with and where (4).
Figure 2: the public area where Neo gets point by gun.
2- YouTube. YouTube. Accessed November 10, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgAu1i6aChs.
3- Take, The. “The Matrix of Today: Influences and References Explained.” YouTube. YouTube, September 9, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYO413hHwgk&t=215s.
4- Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. First edition. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019 Includes bibliographical references (pages 537-663) and index.
Ultimately, our life seems normal; we get up every morning and repeat our programmed daily grind. In figure 2 shows how Lawyers, police, office workers, etc. They are all live in the capitalistic system. All that position is in the plug of the matrix system, sentient programs. They do track your working time, your behavior. That is how billion people are living their life by unawareness. Likewise, we can see the agent who points the gun to Neo is convert from the Red lady who walks in the public turn out to Agent Smith, and nobody concern about the fighting and keep walking (5). It is mean that for people who are somehow stand out in the society, the matrix system will convert them to be one part of the matrix system and will be simulated as one of the matrixes (6). It is hard to be awake from the dream and unplug yourself from the machine that sticks to us since we were young. We have our consciousness; we remain irrevocability human. We get to enjoy the universe of false reality in the matrix machine. The matrix simulates the whole physical of a world, keeping track of all last elements throughout space and time. We all are the simulation in the capitalism world, and we stay connected to that. (7)
5- Kapell, Matthew., and Doty, William G. Jacking into the Matrix Franchise: Cultural Reception and Interpretation. New York: Continuum, 2004 .Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-202) and index.
6- Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Includes bibliographical references.
7- Grau, Christopher. Philosophers Explore The Matrix. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Figure 3: The illustration diagram shows Neo was given a choice.
Some people might experience living in two worlds. For example, some people might wish or dream they can do things better in the nighttime. However, in the daytime, they go to work regularly. In figure 3 shows us that in the virtual world, we get control by others. The red pill will let you free your mind and see the truth about society that is even though it is uncomfortable to feel. Blue pill is to go back to your normal life and enjoy not knowing what hurt you. This idea of choosing between reality and a prefabricated reality set up by powerful individuals is similar to the movie called Ready Player One (8), which talks about life in the real world and life in the whole virtual world. They get an addict to the virtual world because they are mean something inside there. The mind gets control by virtual reality gaming. When they die inside the game, your physical body hurts too. However, In the matrix, the person who dies in the virtual reality world, they also die in the real world. Morpheus is a guy who lets Neo Choose which pills he wants to take. He who completely sees the different side of the matrix, said, “inside the matrix, they are everyone. And they are no one”. That means people are being watched or track by agents, and people cannot get away from the system easily. Even though you kill this agent, there are more to come. There is no way to destroy capitalism. The domination from the matrix is enormous, which is more complicated than what it looks because we cannot see than clear on how big the system is. The sense of keep trying to opt-out from the system is suicide. However, people’s thoughts are the architecture of their own lives.
8- YouTube. YouTube. Accessed November 14, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48.
Figure 4: Neo awakes from the matrix machine and gets kick out to buy the system.
Technology is the power engine that humans need to bring us closer together through the system of communication and transportation. However, it also is our air, soil, and water. Ultimately, technology can rob us of our identity and privacy (9). We all carry the machine in the pocket now. Therefore, we are staying inside the program system that controls us. The society that we are living is controlling us. In figure 4 show that we have been connecting to the matrix machine since we were born. The guy who awakes from the matrix machine is Neo. The electronic cable that connects all over his body means he is powering the system of the matrix. He is awake because he does not want to stay inside the matrix, and the machine must destroy him if they cannot change his mind. The machine represents higher capitalism. They are not people; they are the tools that control people. People are being used to charge the system of the matrix machine. For instance, we are living in an era of Artificial Intelligences. Currently, Artificial Intelligent is already capable of driving a car without a pilot from the human. AI capabilities today are to replicate human interaction, think logically, solve the problem, and more ability in the future. According to the movie, most people ignore the fact that the human world will get destroyed by the machine. People tend to rely on the machine more than a human because a human can cheat, and in the long run, human cost more for production and service.
9- Stewart, Edward O. “The Matrix: A Secondary Postmodern Primer.” Art Education 56, no. 3 (2003): 36–43. https://ift.tt/34GsJ38.
Figure 5: While running away from the agent. The team crawling the wall to hide from the agent
The concept of person crawl inside the wall means when we push people against the wall, they will fight back even though you are a large force that controls the society. In the real-world example, we ignore the fact of forced labor of the Nike factory and still buy it even though we know it is not right. The public face of Nike is completely different than the hidden story (10). The consensus told us that we need that because everyone wears that. Moreover, the young kid wants to go to Disneyland, utopia land. They will ignore the facts that are not real, and their parents must pay an amount of money to enter that delusion world.
10- “Nike: Modern Day Slavery.” Global Peace and Conflict, February 23, 2012. https://ift.tt/2lGByDW.
Figure 6: Illustration is shown how capitalism control people to work on time.
Control is the strategy that agents in the movie use. How capitalism can control people is by machine. What could control people the most are the society that they are living in and how their brain responds to it. Whatever people choose, they are staying in the matrix program. In a modern capitalist society like Cambodia, we are free from choosing on what position we want to be. However, there are still in the system that higher people control what position will you be in, if you are lucky, you might know somebody that could take you up to that position even though you do not qualify yet. The similarity to the Brazil film, the movie is talking about higher jobs requires people to fight for their office desk because that position is everyone's wish for even though you know your ability is not qualified for that position. But you still want that position because society will blame you if you reveal your shortage ability. The objective of Brazil means society controls your mind (11). Back to the Matrix. The machine gives power to the people who create it so they can use that power to control other people.
11- Movies, YouTube. “Brazil.” YouTube. YouTube, May 9, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5eyehDr9cs.
Figure 7: The office building where Morpheus get trap by agent
What can trap or control people to work for their company? A big working space with the full height window? Buildings are outstanding both in design and comfort. However, if we look through the mirror and the reflection, all people are being controlled in their working desk. All companies goal is the same. The simulacra of high-rise buildings make from steel, concrete, and glass represent the working space that could trap the people to work for them. Hyperreality is the reality that combines technologically advanced in post-modern societies. Currently, we are living in the era of artificial intelligence still developing. As I mentioned before, regarding children and virtual reality, Virtual gaming is started to control people. Some people get addicted to video games because they start to simulate themselves in the gaming world (12). The world might be like Ready Player One in the future. The world might go to an area where technology will control everything. It is more valuable than the building because people priority gaming gear more than the space that they are currently living. The computer will program the reality instead of the human program their real world.
12- Tsukayama, Hayley. 2019. “Video Game Addiction Is a Real Condition, WHO Says. Here's What That Means.” The Washington Post. WP Company. April 8, 2019. https://ift.tt/2lkvh1M.
Figure 8: The controlling room inside the Morpheus's spaceship
The vision of the technology design of the future is showing. We can see Figure 8; It is the ship’s computer screen. With matrix machine controlling room, people will have the ability to follow all the thing that happens in the world. For example, all the crews can go to the matrix world by plugging cables into their heads to go in the matrix world. It is a similarity to the Inception to understand someone else’s dream (13) We need to go inside their dream, and the owner of the dream can manipulate the architecture environment inside that dream. The color code of the screen is blue tint represents the real world, and the green tint is within the computer world of the matrix.
All in all, The Matrix told us that there are many systems of control in the world. As a result, the majority of people are dissatisfied with their jobs, but they still keep in the loop. According to the survey shows that 51% of Americans are unhappy with their job (14). There is one main thing that keeps people stick to their current jobs that they don’t satisfy or happy to work for, which is Money. Are you the one who happy to live in the society provide? It is the greatest deception of all time. It is a real-life matrix.
13- Movies, YouTube. “Inception.” YouTube, YouTube, 23 June 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1iqGiX0lSg.
14- Adams, Susan. “Most Americans Are Unhappy At Work.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, June 20, 2014. https://ift.tt/2rHgrZM.
Table of Figures:
Figure 1: Neo, the main actor who later breaks the matrix.
Figure 2: the public area where Neo gets point by gun.
Figure 3: The illustration diagram shows Neo was given a choice.
Figure 4: Neo awakes from the matrix machine and gets kick out to buy the system.
Figure 5: While running away from the agent. The team crawling the wall to hide from the agent
Figure 6: Illustration is shown how capitalism control people to work on time
Figure 7: The office building where Morpheus get trap by agent
Figure 8: The controlling room inside the Morpheus's spaceship
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