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what's up wisecrack jared here my love
for the original matrix is no secret but
I can't deny that I found the last two
films pretty baffling you might have
seen our previous videos covering what
went wrong with my favorite franchise
but given the announcement of a fourth
Matrix film I wanted to look at the
series with fresh eyes this was driven
by one specific comment from Lana
Wachowski in a variety article
announcing the new installment she said
many of the ideas lily and I explored 20
years ago about our reality are even
more relevant now what does she mean by
that is it because robots are stealing
our jobs our dusters coming back in
style is Elon Musk talking about being
trapped in a simulation again while all
these might hold some kernel of truth
especially the part about how cool
dusters are we think we figured out what
the witch houses were trying to do and
why it may resonate today more than ever
like the title of the Rage Against the
Machine song that closes the film the
original is about waking up about seeing
past the wool that has been pulled over
our eyes of shattering the grand
illusion while it might have been a
little obscured by weird rave scenes we
can better understand the latter two
films with the question of what's next
once we've become awaken to the true
reality behind the lies of the world
what other dangers lurk behind the red
pill and how does this speak to today
let's find out in this wisecrack edition
on the matrix is real freedom possible
and as always spoilers ahead for all
three Matrix films but first a very
brief recap the original matrix follows
hacker neo as he learns that the world
is a digital illusion and that machines
have created a vast simulation in order
to use humanity as a renewable energy
source neo joins the human resistance in
the real world and after some
self-reflection realizes his destiny as
the one a prophesied super badass who
will use his powers to free humanity
from the matrix in the Matrix Reloaded
no such liberation has happened because
it turns out the one is nothing more
than an inevitable anomaly in the system
that the machines have planned for in
other words Neos exceptionalism is just
part of the greater project to keep the
human race enslaved at the end of the
film neo makes a choice to avoid
perpetuating the vicious cycle of human
oppression
and risks the lives of all humans to
save his love Trinity he also somehow
has powers in the real world now in
revolutions we see Neos choice resulting
in the matrix deteriorating at the hands
of Agent Smith so I now blinded neo who
can still see something strikes a
bargain with the machines he will
sacrifice himself to destroy Agent Smith
in exchange for liberating all the
humans from the matrix who want to be
what about the others
what others obviously they will be freed
before we get into the muddled message
of the second and third films let's
revisit one of the most obvious and well
shred interpretations of the original
film in this interpretation
Neos journey from the green tinged and
illusory world of the matrix into the
dystopian real world is a version of
Plato's allegory of the cave to
summarize a person spends their entire
life trapped inside a cave for all they
see is shadows on a wall in front of
them but because this is all they've
ever known
they take the shadows to be the one true
reality one day that person like neo is
set free to discover the reality behind
the shadows for Plato that person was a
philosopher and hence would help others
free themselves from the cave so for neo
the cave is the matrix and he's let out
by Morpheus you take the blue pill the
story ends you wake up in your bed and
believe whatever you want to believe you
take the red pill you stay in Wonderland
and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole
goes it's all more techno dystopian than
Plato could have ever imagined but for
both Plato's cave dweller and neo the
transition to the actual real world
isn't easy for a lifelong cave dweller
the sun-soaked world is blinding for neo
robots are trying to kill him and food
tastes bad Plato's allegory of the cave
has inspired countless philosophers for
thousands of years but there's something
uniquely timely about it today now more
than ever
cultural and political movements seem
obsessed with stepping out of the cave
of ones imposed ignorant whether that's
using the matrix's own red pill as a
metaphor for one's awakening or staying
woke people with radically different
politics frame their movement in terms
of pulling back the curtain of social
domination well
to the desert of the real
in the original film its hackers that
are presented as the brave souls who are
able to use their technical abilities to
identify and exploit the digital cracks
in their false reality and while in the
90s the internet was still in its early
stages the feeling that the right
subreddit or Google search can set you
free from your ideological shackles has
become commonplace so if the original
matrix film tried to wake us up from our
various dream states by asking us to
question our realities how do the
sequels try to push this a step further
by getting us to wake up again or in
Christopher Nolan's terms how can we
wake up from a dream that's already
taking place within another dream
besides being pushed into a bathtub of
water obviously The Matrix Reloaded
explores the limits of this initial
level of woke nests by showing how
larger systems of control are often
designed to limit our freedom and in
particular how these systems can control
us via the guise of freedom we're first
introduced to the central conflict of
the film the tension between freedom and
control during Neos late-night chat with
councillor Hamann
about the relationship between seemingly
free human beings and seemingly
determined machines down here sometimes
I think about all those people still
plugged into the matrix and when I look
at these machines
I can't help thinking that in a way we
plugged into them while neo is quick to
point out that humans are ultimately in
control as they can simply hit the off
switch councillor Hamann points out the
opposite truth that if they did turn the
machines off the residents of Zion would
no longer have air or water and they
would die as we control these machines
they don't get lost of course not how
could they the idea is pure nonsense but
does make one wonder just what is
control the appearance of absolute human
freedom is a thin veil over an
underlying dependence on machines this
dichotomy goes even further when neo
meets the architect who informs him that
this is actually the sixth time he's had
a meeting with an iteration of neo how
is this possible
well because neo isn't as free as he
thought he's actually a necessary
feature of the matrix itself a systemic
anomaly
you are the eventualities of an anomaly
which despite my sincerest efforts I
have been unable to eliminate from what
is otherwise a harmony of mathematical
precision he is a necessary part of the
very system he's working to destroy this
is very heavy in its implications as the
witch housekey seem to be implying that
even after we wake up from the various
illusions and ideologies we still might
be caught up in a higher-level system of
control and unfortunately Plato's
allegory of the cave is of little use
here sometimes raging Against the
Machine is exactly what the Machine
wants and if we want to understand why
we need to look to philosopher Karl Marx
now already the ideas of Marx map pretty
easily onto the matrix Marx argued that
society had two fundamental classes the
workers of the world and the owners of
capital the people who had the actual
factories and machines to make stuff who
were in his view vampires living off the
life force of workers tweak this a
little bit and you've got literal
machines enslaving humans to live off
their bodily energy while the humans get
to dream of eating steak we should note
here that the which housed these thought
they were making a movie about the
philosophy of Jean Baudrillard a
philosopher who while heavily influenced
by marks greatly diverged from his ideas
in particular Baudrillard thought that
while production a la Marx's worker and
factory owners was a useful category in
analyzing industrial society the
consumer
of the late 20th century made it
necessary to shift to the category of
consumption to oversimplify modern
capitalism is not so much defined by
production lines as it is by Disney
lines but they got it kind of wrong Bo
Gerrard himself said that the witch
house keys use of his work stems mostly
from misunderstandings he Delta which
house keys were missing the point in
large part because they got trapped in a
Marxist line of thinking Marx like Plato
thought that most people experienced an
obscured version of reality but Marx's
word for it was ideology which gets a
lot more complicated but importantly
whereas Baudrillard thought there was no
deeper reality behind the spectacle of
modern capitalism no way to escape our
metaphorical matrix Marx thought that
there was hope for piercing the veil
Marx thought one of the symptoms of
ideology was a kind of upside-down world
where as many would argue that ideas
politics and culture are things that
drive our material reality Marx argued
that it was the reverse our material
reality was what determined our ideas
politics and culture to put it simply if
you thought your bosses respect for
timeliness and honesty shaped how work
was done you have it backwards
how work is done shapes our need for
timeliness and honesty for Marx the
foundation of a society is formed by
relations of labor and production that's
called the base so in an industrial
society the base is the production of
consumer goods which requires the
distinction between employees and
employers or owners and workers in the
matrix that base is the need to extract
energy from human batteries or whatever
it is they're trying to build or do the
place where ideology rests he calls the
superstructure it's composed of things
like culture religion politics and
rituals in industrial society the
superstructure helps reinforce base
relations like the virtue of hard work
getting you through the day as you
monotonous lis tighten your thousands
nut for the day or in the Canon of this
bizarre powerade commercial your craving
of electrolytes to fuel your robot
overlords the point is to keep
generating all that energy your body
needs to be replenished so drink your
Powerade we have quotas to meet this
superstructure reproduces itself to
perpetuate the base conditions however
it's not until the Matrix Revolutions
the
neo is able to fully grasp that the
superstructure is not just the matrix if
human ideology is dictated by the means
of machine production so is machine
ideology he meets three programs in the
train station named Rama Kandra Kamala
and their daughter sati
and learns that the war oppresses
machines too as they're trying to help
their daughter if a deletion I love my
daughter very much I find it to be the
most beautiful thing I've ever seen but
where we are from that is not enough
every program that is created must have
a purpose if it does not it is deleted
therefore the matrix isn't just a system
in a sense that it's a computer program
the superstructure births the idea that
humans and machines must be perpetually
at war to ensure that the material base
of energy production goes untouched so
in an ideological sense that is the
matrix this brings us back to the
tension between freedom and control as
in Marx's analysis certain types of
freedom are just super structural
illusions that enable a deeper level of
control in terms of an economic base
remember that Neos entire existence
including his role as the one who will
lead a rebellion to free humans from
machine control is a necessary part of
the system itself but the matrix argues
it is when one thinks they are free from
ideology that they are most immersed in
it I'm going to hang up this phone and
then I'm going to show these people what
you don't want them to see I'm going to
show you
a world without rules and controls
Without Borders or boundaries if we
thought neo threatening his machine
overlords and flying off into the sky as
Rage Against the Machine plays was peak
rebellion we were sorely mistaken in the
architects control room he learns he was
actually doing precisely what previous
versions of his code had already done
five times previously what was already
pre-planned
the function of the one is now to return
to the source allowing a temporary
dissemination of the code you carry
reinserting the prime program and isn't
this precisely what's happening to us
when we both consume and produce ideas
and content on digital platforms as each
time we tweet or repost an article that
exposes some societal injustice or
buried knowledge we are providing more
data for algorithms that are figuring
out how to better serve us ads and sell
us goods and services and unlike neo
these illusions are taking place right
within our own world we're even creating
our own myths to avoid acknowledging how
wrapped up we are in these systems for
example the stories about people's
devices listening to them and serving
them ads on Facebook and Instagram this
is of course false but the truth is more
horrifying which is that algorithms have
done such a good job of constructing
datasets about each of us that they can
accurately predict our desires which
brings us back to the tension between
control and freedom are we really free
when we exist in digital spaces or are
we just the unknowing cogs in a digital
marketing machine system with control
and while Neos matrix power while seeing
gold in the third film still doesn't
make sense maybe the witch house keys
were trying to go for something like
this
his powers derived from his ability to
see behind the final curtain the
ideology that dictates the human machine
war the ability to break through an
all-encompassing ideological system ends
up being more valuable than the ability
to dodge bullets and maybe this is why
lana wachowski has said that the themes
of the Matrix films are more relevant
now than ever as we live in a digital
culture that is obsessed with becoming
woke to cultural and justice and red
pilling their way to higher forms of
knowledge but all too often this attempt
to wake up from the dream is just a
higher function of the very ideological
structure we think we're escaping if
there's
a consistent theme from these films that
applies to this contemporary problem it
seems to be the imperative to constantly
interrogate ideological systems with the
understanding that the moment we think
ourselves free from ideology is likely
when we are the most fully immersed in
it so well the next matrix introduced us
to some new illusion we've been
indoctrinated into will it explain some
of the shortcomings of the trilogy
honestly I'm just really really hoping
it's good in the meantime we'll be
trying our best to remember that even if
we don't have sockets in our spines that
we might be plugged into ideological
power structures without even knowing it
so good luck and staying awake and as
always thanks for watching guys peace
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