The Matrix

Wachowski Brothers | 1999

The Matrix is structured around a fundamental duality; a conflict between opposing forces.

These oppositions - according to the Wachowski brothers (later to be LGBT "sisters") - like all boundaries - must be destroyed.

• *Mind versus body*
• *Artificial Intelligence versus humanity*
• *Control versus freedom*
• *Determinism versus Free Will*
• *Purity versus mixture*
• *[[Conformity]] versus difference*
• *Conservatism versus change*
• *Reason versus faith, intuition, love, and desire*
• *The system versus the individual*

This conflict is most evident in Neo's dual identity.

He is Thomas Anderson, a compliant employee contributing to the social fabric, while simultaneously he is Neo, the hacker who subverts the system and seeks to expose a conspiracy.

This internal struggle for identity mirrors the broader lack of unity between the concepts of control and freedom, and the system and the individual.

The system, which the directors make a clear Cultural Marxist interpretation of as Capitalism, the White, Western and Patriarchal society, being akin to a repressive, totalitarian state which seeks only to self-perpetuate its control, and one that reduces human beings to tools.

The System of Control

The system of control in The Matrix is largely invisible, forming the very shape of phenomenological reality, only reveals its violent nature when it is questioned.

Morpheus defines the Matrix as *control*, a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change and use human beings into a battery.

The totalitarian nature of the Matrix implies that any action against it, including terrorism, is justifiable, and anyone defending the system is to be considered an agent, even unknowingly, who can be eliminated without moral consequence.

This revolutionary 'ends justifying the means' mentality aligns with Anti-Western Programming concepts such as systemic oppression and White Privilege, White guilt, and other shibboleths, where the (always White) individuals in the Matrix are culpable simply for being part of the group.

Symbolism

The Matrix is replete with symbolism and philosophical references, often drawing from diverse and sometimes contradictory sources.

The Red Pill and Blue Pill

The choice between the red and blue pills presented to Neo is a central metaphor for deciding between two fundamental approaches to reality.

The blue pill represents a simple, straightforward perception of the world where experience matches theory, while the red pill offers a complicated, unbelievable vision where absolutely nothing is what it seems.

This decision whether to trust or distrust - to discern truth from lies - is the everyday human experience. The imagery of the pills taps into a deep intuitive structure, echoing dualities such as right and left hand path, water and fire, mercy and rigour, reason and passion, or the straight and the crooked.

It reflects the the inability to decide between coherence and completeness, simplicity and unity versus complication and flux.

Platonism and Reverse Platonism

The resemblance between The Matrix and Plato's Allegory of the Cave is an obvious comparison. However, The Matrix presents a reverse Platonism.

In traditional Platonism, true reality lies in stable, transcendent forms, but The Matrix suggests that what is most real is a struggle between a controlling mind (the system) and the flux of the body.

The rules, structures, and frames of reference are artificial and malleable, for the Wachowskis are tyrannies, granting special powers for shaping and twisting reality, much like Magic.

This inversion extends to the depiction of reality itself. The Matrix is shown as a dream world, an ordered and regular realm, while leaving it plunges Neo into the "desert of the real"—a "devastated world of death".

Neo calls for a world without rules, controls, borders, or boundaries at the end of the film, a reality equivalent of a dream where structures of order no longer function.

#### Gnosticism, Kabbalism, and Far Eastern Philosophy

The Matrix incorporates a platonic Gnostic view of the world found in Kabbalism. The Kabbalistic concept of humanity being imprisoned in a Gnostic Archon simulation is a key element.

The architect character - who is the old man representation god - is explicitly referred to as the "Great Architect," a Freemasonry term resonating with Masonic philosophy, with the checkerboard floor and the double-headed eagle, which is linked to Scottish Rite Freemasonry and the concept of order out of chaos.

Character Roles and Transformations

Neo as Christ Figure:

Neo is explicitly made an image of Christ, serving as a saviour figure who dies and resurrects before attaining his highest form.

However, his Christ-like narrative is situated within a revolutionary framework aligned with liberation theology, focusing on resistance to the oppressive system of order rather than inner transformation.

Unlike Christ, who transformed Rome from within by accepting death, Neo explodes the system from within by declaring "no" to its control.

Trinity as Saviour:

In the fourth Matrix film, Trinity is presented as Neo's saviour, effectively dethroning god in a Aleister Crowley-esk idea. Neo is reduced to a passive role, while Trinity embodies a girl boss narrative, notably gaining the ability to fly when Neo cannot.

##### Oracle:

The Oracle character, depicted as a warm, wise Black women, demonstrates the limits of European Enlightenment, coherent, linear thinking and causality, indicating that intuition often trumps reason and that power and freedom can be found where determinism breaks down.

Revolutionary Narrative and its Implications

The revolutionary narrative in The Matrix is undeniable, centring on the breaking of systems of order that are seen as impeding true reality.

This reality is identified with the body, instinct, the individual, and the possibility of self-determination. Neo repeatedly rejects being subject to rules, asserting control over his own fate.

The Wachowski crowd insist essence must precede existence.

The film's final message, articulated by Neo, is a declaration of a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. A vision that implies that the truly real is a world without God - without order, without system and without limits, where there is no relationship between the categories of the world.

In the West this revolutionary ideology has infiltrated institutions like universities and governments through social justice initiatives. Ironically the memes from The Matrix such as red pilling or tumbling down the rabbit hole, have taken hold in the imagination more for conservative types who question established narratives.

The Hidden Inversion: They Switched Pills

The virtual reality Matrix, as a metaphor for Western Civilization, which according to Anti-Western Programming is framed as an enslaving system of lies that feeds parasitically upon human life, a literalised representation of the critique of Western culture from Marxism.

The architect and the agents are all depicted as White men who created - and perpetuate - this suppressive system of control. Neo, Morpheus, and the multiracial inhabitants of Zion, named for the promised land of Israel in Jewish scripture, are portrayed as the liberating forces of equality and diversity whom oppose it.

The One, the prophesied saviour, symbolises the transgression and destruction that will bring salvation to the human race. Treachery as heroism.

Zion, presented as mankind's only sanctuary and final hope, is continually juxtaposed against the conspicuously White false world of The Matrix, implying that Whiteness is a feature of its enslaving system of lies.

This dichotomy acts as the driving force of the story. In a pivotal scene, Morpheus guides Neo through a busy city street, symbolically moving against crowds of oblivious White faces (an obvious allusion to swimming against the tide of White Privilege), explaining that people trapped inside the Matrix are part of an enemy system and are to be treated as enemies, however unaware they may be.

Morpheus explains that every person not unplugged can become an agent, a violent partisan of the Matrix and its oppressive system. The subtext is clear: all Whites, knowingly or not, are servants of an oppressive machine and are therefore obstacles to human liberation.

The violent ramifications are seen as Neo and his crew ruthlessly exterminate people trapped inside the Matrix to achieve their revolutionary goals.

The agents, sentient programs designed to protect the system, are depicted as faceless White men with archetypal Anglo-Saxon names, led by Agent Smith, Neo's nemesis and the primary antagonist.

Smith, the personification of White patriarchal authority, embodies traits ascribed to Whiteness: strength, order, and rationality, serving as a metaphor for the forces that once underpinned Western civilisation and the men who would protect it from the anarchic egalitarianism represented by Zion.

Smith represents a machine hegemony that serves as a thinly veiled metaphor for White supremacism. Indications include Neo likening agents to the Gestapo, agents using batons to beat Morpheus evoking the Rodney King beating, and Smith's misanthropic monologue to the imprisoned Morpheus, with the imagery of a chained Black man abused by a White captor, intended to elicit thoughts of slavery and racial oppression.

This establishes a thematic framework where machine oppressors represent White people and their human victims represent non-Whites. Smith's indictment of mankind as a virus is an attempt to comment on contemporary racial politics and immigration patterns.

This is juxtaposed against scenes of Neo and Trinity exterminating countless White security guards to free the imprisoned Black man, Morpheus, in a moment of symbolic racial unity.

The character of Cipher, a cynical crew member disgusted with the real world, regrets taking the red pill. He meets Agent Smith, muses on his degraded new reality, and concludes that ignorance is bliss.

Disillusioned with Zion, he offers to deliver Morpheus in exchange for a clean memory and a life of status and wealth in the Matrix. After fulfilling his end, he violently turns on the *multicultural crew, murdering diverse* shipmates Dozer and Apoc and grievously wounding Tank, threatening to kill Morpheus.

Cipher expresses tiredness with the hardships of the real world and being Morpheus's order. The subtext being that Cipher is the White man who refuses the multicultural programme and rejects a life of sacrifice and servitude. For this unforgivable sin, he is punished with death, presented as a traitor whose real crime was loyalty to his world over Zion.

Cipher finds his antithesis in Neo, The Chosen One, prophesied to destroy the slave system of the Matrix and lead the people of Zion to inherit the earth. In an obvious metaphor for the transgression of Western cultural and moral norms, Neo is revealed as the saviour when he manifests the ability to contravene the laws of The Matrix.

This capacity for transgression is framed as a superpower enabling him to transcend limitations and overcome Agent Smith. In a masterful archetypal inversion, the transgressor and destroyer of civilisation is presented as the liberator, while its champions and protectors are framed as oppressors.

The One symbolises Oneness, global Unity, the dissolution of all distinctions, and the synthesis of all opposites, the living embodiment of Zion itself. This is underlines in the film's closing monologue as the newly transfigured Neo promises the machines a world *"without rules and controls, Without borders or boundaries".*

In the 2002 sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, a glimpse of this liberated world gratuitously shows the peoples of Zion crowding into a vast underground chamber for a massive interracial orgy.

The Matrix is simply a straw man for the civilisation built by White ethnic Europeans, presented as a system of lies contrived to blind, limit, and control. Its wealth, technological sophistication, and material wonders are designed only to innovate as people are exploited and consumed.

Every taboo, restraint, and distinction of race, class, or sex is part of this enslaving artificial construct, and redemption can only come through its destruction.

While the film resonated strongly by presenting truths about a world of calculated lies and invisible rulers, acting through a sleight of hand, The Matrix *inverts the truth, presenting the viewer's world as the enslaving lie and "their"* world (the globalist system for which Zion serves as a metaphor) as the liberating truth.

But Zion is the true hidden hand, the actual Matrix, confining people with its constructs, myths, and systems, shaping perception to bind in invisible chains, grinding people down, and feeding upon them.

Zion is the oppressor, the subjugator, and brings doom, yet it presents itself as the victim, the liberator, and the saviour, deceiving people into fighting for its cause against the wrong enemy, - their own civilisation.

The Matrix encourages self-sacrifice for the triumph of an anti-White system, with many people unknowingly embracing a false fate. This Anti-Western Programming is a weapon, reducing people from masters of the world to slaves in their ancestors' nations, all in the name of freedom.

This so called "spiritual revolution" has led to Nihilism, making death in the enemy's name seem like deliverance.

WAKE UP NEO

"Yet there is still hope for the future.

As day by day, more of our people learn to see

beyond the world of illusions

that our enemies have constructed.

We awaken to the gravity of the deception

that has been perpetrated upon us

Zion, this false promise of freedom is itself revealed

and its bars once so well hidden are now plain to see,

this is our Revolution.

Our dangerous idea, and so persuasive it is,

is that the enemy will stop at nothing to bury it

beneath the mountain of lies, or drown it under rivers of blood

because they know there is nothing more powerful

than an idea whose time has come."

For the truth which they concealed for so long has been unveiled.