This blog first saw the light of day many years ago, in an enthusiastic effort to analyze the Matrix trilogy of movies by referencing Karl Marx’s writings and critique of capitalist social relations. That analysis turned out to be so germane, it allowed me to see so much more and so much more clearly into the movies and their detailed and complex narrative, that it laid the first brick of a process whereby I’ve come to see much of the world around me, and not just the movies, as a Marxian matrix.
Continue reading →Tag / ideology
Thomas Piketty, Revenant of Feuerbach?
I am in the process of going through Piketty’s newest book, Capital and Ideology. While I am very admiring of Piketty’s decision to refuse the Legion of Honour, there is a profound contradiction between the data that Piketty presents in his two books and their implicit implications, and the explicit meaning he himself has given to the data. Were we living in a kind of censorship like the one attributed to Eastern European communism, I would simply assume that it is a stratagem to outplay the censors; fortunately or not, we are not in that situation, which begs the question: why would the title and data of both books be implicitly reminiscent of Marx’s own work (Capital), yet reject so explicitly the basic tenets of Marxian theory?
The Ethics of Golden Shackles
Credits: sallyedelsteincollage.com
RECAP: As we approach the opening of the (iron?) curtain to Marx’s Capital, we will set the stage by touching upon the work of those that Marx refers to in his magnum opus. Not only should excerpts of related thinkers help show how Capital is expected to be a step up from these, but they should also give a clue as to the power of Capital in highlighting with awesome lucidity the problematic nature of today’s capitalist social relations.
Having first focussed on the importance of desire in the status of the working class, we then touched upon the notion that, because of human nature, workers would be comfortable in being dependent upon capitalists for their subsistence. Today, I want to come back to this notion of golden shackles, as it is described by Marx himself:
Matrix analysis (4): Mister Anderson
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 continuing, take a look at this, to put you in the context of the post.
Matrix analysis (3): Contradictions
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”.
Being friends with Christians
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.
The Marxian Matrix 