Author / Bernard Bratu

Posts by Bernard Bratu

Philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because it missed the moment of its realization. - Adorno, Negative Dialectics
by Bernard Bratu

All Power to the Soviets, 101 Years Later P1: Context

Petrograd-map

Petrograd/Leningrad/St. Petersburg. Credits: history.info

Previously, as we were moving on from the Matrix series, I said that the way to move forward would be to study Marx’s magnum opus, Capital. The reason I gave was that we had gotten to Marx through a few cherry-picked quotations, but that now we needed to have a systematic understanding of him.

(I also said that posts would be getting shorter, and this doesn’t seem to be the case for now.)

As time has passed, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is an insufficient reason. We should have a concrete reason to study Marx, we should have a problem to propel us through his very dense and complex system of concepts and theories. In my Beginnings post, I hint at why I like Marx and why I’ve decided to dedicate time to this blog, but it stays on the feelings level.

So let’s go to the reasons level.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Lay of the Land: Moving on from the Matrix

I feel compelled to add a few words, now that this series is finished, because I know I’ve left some pretty big moments of the movies out of the analysis: How does Trinity “revive” Neo at the end of the first movie? How does Neo deactivate or overload the Sentinels in the real world at the end of the second movie? How, precisely, does Smith get “self-destructed” at the end of the third movie?

And there are others. To my knowledge, Marxian theory cannot explain these scenes and happenings; and this is a good thing. It’s a good thing because Marxists have often used Marx’s theory as an explanation for everything or as a foundation upon which to build a theory that explains everything.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Matrix analysis (4): Mister Anderson

Agents-Smith

Picture credits and copyright: Warner Bros.

Welcome to the fourth and final part of our Marxian reading of the Matrix. Along the way, I hope I’ve managed to express what I perceive as strong affinities between central elements and themes of the trilogy and conceptual creations of Karl Marx. In “Battery”, we found out that the “simulation” of the movies is shown to be our exact world, and that the notions that we are simply batteries for productive purposes is not only also argued by Marx, but also supported by some statistical evidence. After that, in “Machine Praxis”, through the infrastructure-superstructure conceptual couple, we argued that the words and actions of the ‘rebel’ humans reflected the ideology of the machines, who themselves engaged in the world not as a reality they have historically inherited and are producing by their actions, but as an achieved and impenetrable universe. Finally, in “Contradictions”, we came to suspect that the main adversary of the machines were not the human ‘rebels’, but rather the ‘exiled’ programs refusing to be destroyed; we suggested this to be the result of the machines’ design of the Matrix, comparing it to Marx’s maxim where “the bourgeoisie produces, above all, its own grave-diggers”.

Before we begin, I want to ask something of you, dear Reader: I would like for you to watch the video that follows. I will explain no further but I really think you might enjoy this exercise. It might even be interesting to see it again after reading my piece.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Matrix analysis (3): Contradictions

barricade

Credits: Fine Art America.

Welcome to part 3! If you’ve made it this far, you’re set. It seems to me “Machine Praxis” was a big leap in theory compared to “Battery”, and I think this third part will be much easier, because we should be more focused on elements of the movies rather than on the theory.

So what have we seen until now? We’ve seen that 1) the material premise of the movie (a large majority of humans being grown for the reproduction of machines) is highly compatible with Marx’s account of the relation between Capital and Labour; 2) the language and actions of both machines (such as the Architect) and “rebels” (such as Morpheus) are characteristic of the properties Marx assigns to the Infrastructure-Superstructure conceptual couple (which ties into ideology), and uncharacteristic of revolutionary praxis.

At the end of “Reloaded”, Neo makes a choice which supposedly breaks the functioning of the Matrix, by refusing to return to the source of the Matrix, which would restart it and the whole process by which it maintains its existence. In part 4, we will deal with the consequences of this “choice”. In this part, I want to show clues among elements of the first two movies hinting that Neo’s choice in the Architect scene is not only possible, but probable, thus putting into question if we can really call this a “choice”.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Being friends with Christians

E10704.jpg

Credits: National Gallery of Art.

The other day, I came upon an article written by a self-appointed Christian, courtesy of the WordPress Reader, not too long and well organized, which ends on the recommendation of two films that “will equip you to do what you can where you are to combat Communism and Socialism”.

This made feel a bit queasy because I know a lot of people out there who are Christians and they’re usually not so fast to call to “combat” (not sure how violent this is). There’s lots of violent people out there with different “world views” though, communists included, so let’s leave this aside.

What bakes my noodle more is how to deal with this.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Matrix analysis (2): Machine Praxis

grafitti-790945_1920

Credits: Pixabay.

Welcome back. This is part two of four of our analysis of the Matrix trilogy through the lens of Karl Marx’s writings. In the previous entry, we tried showing how the Battery Scene is indicative of a message within the movie which is extremely similar to the one propagated through Marx’s written work. Through the notions of wages, the content of the “first historical act”, the conditions under which something transforms into capital, some supporting data by Thomas Piketty and, finally, two dimensions of alienation, we argued that the battery scene and Marx were saying the same thing: that the human being has become, for all intents and purposes, a simple repository of the resource Capital needs so that it may exist and reproduce.

What we did not yet discuss is that, within this same scene, there is a problem, an internal incoherence, a contradiction.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Festering improvements

For quite a few weeks now, I keep coming back to the same idea. It seems like every time I come back to it, it gains a bit more flesh. It started a few months ago, with an event that should’ve happened but which didn’t. Really, all possible indicators said it would happen, but it didn’t. That really set me back quite a bit, so maybe a better way to say it is not that it gains a bit more flesh every time, but rather that it’s a wound that keeps festering.

Continue reading →

by Bernard Bratu

Matrix analysis (1): Battery

Credits and copyright: Warner Bros.

Picture credits and copyright: Warner Bros.

This publication is called the Marxian Matrix and I thought it would be a great idea that we start by a precise analysis of the Wachowskis’ Matrix. After watching the movies again for the purposes of this analysis, I have come to believe that it is not only a great idea, but an indispensable stop on the path of our inquiry into the present structure of social relations. This first part and the next three that follow are, as it were, arguments for this indispensability.

Continue reading →