Marxism and the Matrix Essay

The soundbite criticisms of capitalism are legion, yet it’s harder to offer alternatives, aside from the vague notion of 'something else'. Despite the carnage of trying to socially engineer equality in the 20th century, nevertheless the myth persists that capitalist wealth creation is superfluous and money is readily available to a small number of elitists called a government under common ownership, who distribute, or simply print more paper. Ironically, the ones shouting the loudest against capitalism are often those dependent on the profits of capitalism to provide the welfare payments needed to keep them alive.

Marxism is often a philosophy only understood by advanced scholars and criticized by those that wrongfully dub it as being solely “communist. Marxism is a lot more than communism and socialism. The film Matewan takes place in the 1920s and Matrix which takes place in 2199 are two very different films that share similar ideas. The ideas range from class alienation, commodity fetishism, class consciousness as well as tactics used by the state to support capitalist exploitation and bourgeois hegemony.

Marxism is a critical perspective based off of the ideas of Karl Marx, with Marx’s most famous work being the Communist Manifesto. This book illustrates

The Matrix is a film about the enslavement of humankind by artificial intelligence, sentient beings, with mechanical bodies, created by people to service humanity, and the discovery of a person, Neo, that possesses abilities that can defeat the Artificial Intelligence and manumit humanity. The majority of human beings have their consciousness/minds trapped within the Matrix, a computer simulated world in which their minds are born, live in, and die, while their bodies are connected to it via cerebral connection but, remain in a dormant slumber and are never used. While they are connected to the matrix, their bioelectricity is harvested, powering the artificial intelligence. Neo, with the help of Morpheus (the leader in the resistance

When Neo is revived from being detached from the pod, Morpheus tells him what state the world is in now. Neo turns into a state of disarray and denial. This new knowledge of the truth overwhelmed Neo so much that he vomited and passed out. The released prisoner in "The Allegory of the Cave" might feel that what he is seeing was the illusion and shadows on the

We are blinded, only see shadows, hear echoes, and the world around us is a mere shadow of what truly exists “Hence, the only way to believe oneself to have knowledge is to be simpleminded; those sophisticated enough to see the relativity of everything, but still not wise enough to turn their faces toward the light, can only despair, or delight, in the lack of real knowledge” (BS). In relation to his beliefs are the ideas of the famous Rene Descartes. He doubted the certainty of the external world and came to the conclusion that our senses can’t be trusted. Additionally, Descartes ' stated that you can’t trust your senses because there has been times when you are dreaming or imagining what you have experienced rather than it being real. Certainly it becomes questionable whether in fact we can believe if any of our principles are true. In The Matrix, Neo finds out the truth and answer to his question. The Matrix is just an illusion of the world around and the humans are plugged in by a computer program. Those who are plugged in have never truly saw the world for what is. Similar to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the humans are prisoners forced to see shadows which are copies of things in the real world. When Neo is finally confronted with the truth he can’t imagine the thought of ever going back. Instead he plans on exposing the truth by revealing how the world they live in truly looks.

After the early 21st century, humans built these machines, which are now held in a nuclear-winter-like setting. Being deprived of sunlight as an energy source, they have enslaved the human race and are farming people as a source of bioelectrical energy. The humans are kept in an unconscious state in podlike containers in a vast holding field, plugged in to a central computer. In the scenario of The Matrix, everything in the world; cars, buildings, cities, and countries are part of a complex computer-generated virtual reality, which within the humans interact. Everything they see, smell and hear is part of this virtual construct and does not really exist. A computer merely stimulates their brains and deceives them into believing that they are all living normal 20th-century lives, eating sleeping, working and interacting together. They are all blinded to the truth about how and why they exist. After a handful of people have escaped from the nightmarish world of the Matrix, they find out the truth and reach out to those still consumed with the falsities of this world. One of these, a man named Morpheus, hacks into the Matrix and contacts Neo, telling him,

Marxism (1895–1900) is the economic and political theory and practice originated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that holds that actions and human institutions are economically determined, that the class struggle is the basic agency of historical change, and that capitalism will ultimately be superseded by communism. They include the notion of economic determinism that political and social structures are determined by the economic conditions of people. Marxism calls for a classless society where all means of production are commonly owned, a system to be reached as an inevitable result

What is reality? What is known? These questions are constantly being reviewed keeping people anxiously waiting for the real answer. The Matrix is a popular movie dealing with many philosophical ideas from, Gods, Beauty, Reality, and existence. The Matrix deals with an intelligent “computer hacker,” Neo, who questions many things such as reality as he lives two different lives day vs. night. With that being said, Neo starts to ponder how does he know what is real, true, or all knowing. As humans we face this challenge everyday, how do we actually “know?” We know because of our senses, evidence, observations, assumption, and Epistemology.

Three different types of economic systems used by governments are Communism, Capitalism, and Socialism. Each type of system is unique in different ways. Each has distinct aspects that make it what it is. In communism, the government runs everything and there are no social classes. The government in capitalism doesn’t interfere with any businesses and lets the citizens own and operate them. Socialism is basically a mixture of the two economic systems. The government runs certain businesses, but citizens run the rest. The three economic systems are different in the way they run things and regulate things.

Marxism is a theory based on “a materialist interpretation of historical development and a dialectical view of social transformation” (Wikipedia, 2017) by philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism focuses on social contradictions and the struggle between socioeconomic classes, which are proletariat, who are the poor people and the working class; and bourgeoisie, the rich people that control the means of production. Marxist theory states that the only way to eliminate the differences between both classes is a violent revolution that will lead to a communist society.

To understand the analysis of the matrix in this essay, the major characters will be introduced. First is the character of Neo, the anagram of Neo is ‘One’. He is said to be leading double lives, one as Neo, a computer hacker and the other as Thomas Anderson a computer-programmer. Referring back to the bible, Thomas was regarded as the doubting one, while Anderson means ‘son of man’, as Jesus was referred to during his earthly ministry. He later turned out to resist the matrix and save the human race from ignorance.

The Matrix, released in 1999, is a science fiction action film that depicts a dystopian future. In this reality, what is perceived by humans is only a computer simulated reality called ‘The Matrix’ which was created in order to sustain human delusion while their bodies were used as an energy source by machines. The main character, computer hacker Neo (played by Keanu Reeves, respectively) is drawn into rebellion against the machines once he is united with those that have been freed from the false reality. The characters, suffering from the reality of a broken illusion, make specific choices and decisions which can be explained or validated by sociological perspectives discussed by Berger. First off, ‘The Matrix’ can be defined as a social institution with the ability to give those that live within the false reality a fulfilled existence and exert social control over it’s residing victims. Second, the betrayal of Cypher touches upon the concept of sociological knowledge; specifically, the reference group ideology. Lastly, Neo’s previous feelings of unease and change of character after he joins Morpheus’ rebellion shows the importance a reference group can have on the overall personality and ideology of a person. Therefore, the Sociological Perspective understands the personalities, actions, and story of the movie ‘The Matrix’ in a variety of ways.

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Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who