Matrix helps demonstrate materialism  and dialectics
The Matrix
1999
reviewed by MC5

See also our review of "Matrix Re-Loaded"


Larry and Andy Wachowski have directed a Hollywood film of 
tremendous value -- a great gift to the revolutionary 
movement on par with that of  Reds  politically and 
done artistically as well as can be with special effects. 
This is not a "B" grade indoctrination and it touches on 
many important areas of revolutionary thought.

The Excite search engine review says the following before 
linking to the official Hollywood "The Matrix" web site, 
(which by the way is a waste of time because of programming 
errors nearly inevitable in trying to present as many 
graphics as a movie): "In the near future, a computer hacker 
named Neo (Keanu Reeves) discovers that all life on Earth 
may be nothing more than an elaborate facade created by a 
malevolent cyber-intelligence, for the purpose of placating 
us while our life essence is 'farmed' to fuel the Matrix's 
campaign of domination in the 'real' world. He joins like-
minded Rebel warriors Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and 
Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) in their struggle to overthrow the 
Matrix."

Dialectics

After the year 2000 breakthroughs in artificial intelligence 
resulted in the creation of mechanical beings that 
eventually took over the world in a series of wars. The war 
was so brutal that the humyns do not even know exactly how 
it started or proceeded by the time we come upon the humyn 
heroes of the movie.

The humyn resistance thus faces two dialectical truths: 1) 
It must struggle to know its own history or be kept in the 
dark by the oppressor. 2) Moments of triumph like the 
application of artificial intelligence give rise to 
unexpected destruction and change.

The process of unexpected birth of change is almost the 
definition of dialectics.

Mode of production

Humyn-beings both dead and alive are tended by machines in 
gigantic mechanical farms where they are used as batteries 
for the various kinds of heat and electricity that they 
produce. 99 percent of humyns are farmed this way, while a 
few escape and join the resistance.

The new "battery mode of production" has elements similar to 
slavery and capitalism. Because the machines keep the humyns 
physically constrained there is an element of slavery. The 
difference with both slavery and capitalism is that the 
humyns no longer labor. They are sustained and tended by the 
machines of the Matrix and just by existing feed their 
energy to their masters with artificial intelligence. The 
fact that the humyns do not even know they are slaves is 
part of the superstructure created by capitalism just before 
the Matrix took over.

In fact, the Matrix has worked on perfecting the mind 
control of humyns. Neo becomes aware of the Matrix at least 
partly through being a hacker, and someone interested in 
entertainment programs as drugs. It becomes difficult to 
separate computer game simulations from drugs because the 
programs become biologically integrated into humyns.

While they sit in these farms under the influence of drugs 
and other biological influences, the humyns are mechanically 
fed through tubes into their bodies all the sensations of 
being in Amerika of 1999. Hence, the 99 percent of humyns 
are complacent and unaware of their physical captivity in 
the 22nd century. Usually they attack the resistance trying 
to save them. The Matrix knows exactly scientifically how to 
produce the dream-state stupor of the masses through the use 
of computer programming.

Not idealism

Philosophers focussing on dream-states are often what we 
Marxists call "idealists." However, "The Matrix" is not 
saying that life is all a dream.

Rather in the future, science has advanced to the point 
where it becomes more and more possible to simulate dreams. 
First there are computer games. Then there are simulations 
and holograms. Finally, computer programs develop where they 
can deliver the electrical and chemical stimulation to the 
brain directly to create a dream state or receptivity to 
education or any other function of the brain. The heroes 
simply insert computer programs into the back of their necks 
for edification or entertainment.

The trippy "Alice in Wonderland" aspects of the movie make 
it the stuff of Hollywood, but the script-writer turned it 
into a bold stroke of materialism. Not only does the script-
writer uphold materialism as the existence of an external 
world independent of the subject (humyn mind), but also the 
script-writer shows us how science will conquer and make 
everything knowable including dreams.

Not anarchist individualism

Usually activists and cultural workers focussing on "mind 
control" are anarchist  individualists. At the beginning, Neo 
is a prime candidate for anarchist individualist. When he 
gets into trouble, the organized, hierarchical resistance 
saves him -- right down to telling him how to escape police 
step by step.

Finally he gets to meet the resistance, but when he does, 
the resistance holds a gun to his head and asks him to take 
off his shirt. The resistance is correct that it must go to 
extreme measures to protect itself. Indeed, Neo turns out to 
be bugged, so the resistance has to remove the device. All 
of this seems highly coercive to unconscious anarchist 
individualist Neo--partly from what he does not know about 
the war of liberation going on.

Hence, Neo nearly makes the anarchist individualist mistake 
of ending the meeting with the resistance. When he gets out 
of the car to leave, Trinity tells him he does not want to 
do that because he knows where that "road goes."

Neo gets back in the car and he finally meets the military 
leader of a unit of the resistance. Morpheus tells Neo he 
can learn the truth, which only gets deeper and deeper and 
is not necessarily pleasant at all or he can leave "and go 
on believing whatever you want to believe." The choice is 
simple:  truth or anarchist stupor. Neo had to give up on 
the idea that he is in control as an individual and accept 
that he might not be.

The moment of truth comes when Neo finally understands that 
he is a battery in a farm controlled by a computer program. 
When he learns this he moves to attack Morpheus, the 
messenger that told him no, Neo was never in control as an 
individual. Neo gets unplugged from the computer program 
where he learned the truth and we get the sense that he 
would have killed everyone in that unit of the resistance if 
he hadn't fallen unconscious first.

MIM recognized this moment. Unfortunately, more often than 
not MIM is unsuccessful at that moment. Most imperialist 
country people refuse to accept science, the notion of 
materialism and the idea that the individual is not free. 
They violently and irrationally attack the messenger and 
cling to pre-political lifestyle moralism.

Morpheus's resistance is better than MIM's, because once the 
recruit accepts the pursuit of truth, Morpheus can show 
people mechanically how their brains work. It becomes a 
matter more like learning to drive a car than one of years 
of study.

Not only is there military hierarchy in the resistance, but 
a traitor arises within the resistance who blames Morpheus 
for teaching him the truth and who says he's still not free 
because he only follows Morpheus's orders. The anarchist-
individualist sells out to the Matrix for steak, wine and a 
future computer program where he is famous and wealthy. Thus 
after achieving a relatively high level of scientific 
consciousness, the traitor says he is "tired" and actually 
kills his one-time compatriots before being killed before he 
could be re-absorbed by the Matrix.

Drawbacks

There are a few drawbacks to this film. It has the mandatory 
Hollywood minimum of violence. The violence is righteous, 
but of course even the perfect film will be misconstrued in 
the current capitalist context. The choreographing of 
violence to music makes it more akin to dance.

Morpheus is Black and the "Oracle" who predicts the future 
is a Black womyn, but there is a slight incongruity in 
speaking of an "Oracle" and "fate" when it is clear that 
science has advanced so far. Fate should not be used as a 
metaphor for forces beyond individual control.

Romance is kept down to a minimum, but the film ends with a 
classic (and borrowed) heterosexual charge. The last fight 
scene is as a result the most trippy of all, but we do not 
believe the romance or the superpowers involved in the last 
fight will overshadow the step-by-step progression in 
science that people went through in the movie up to that 
point. If there is a sequel, we may learn even more about 
what happened, so that the viewers are left with no mystical 
residues. 

On the whole, MIM could not have asked for more in a two and 
a half hour Hollywood movie. We can use the movie to educate 
people about dialectics, modes of production, Lenin's book 
"Materialism and Empirio-Criticism"  and the drawbacks of 
anarchism and individualism.