Intermission: Quo Vadis, Neo?
"It was a lie, Morpheus. The prophecy was a lie. The One was never meant to end anything. It was all another system of control."
This essay is part of an ongoing series by The Nostomodern Review on Modernism and its future in the 21st Century and beyond. Each essay forms parts of the Nostomodernist project: a quasi-scholarly attempt at reevaluating what it means to be Modern in contemporary times, to possibly reconcile the gap between Modernism and its supposed successors, and to speculate on new trajectories within the current era of history via a mythic reading of Modernity itself.
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"I have dreamed a dream, and now that dream has gone from me."
Even in the throes of hyperreality itself, an escape is still possible. For even when escape is a condition of hyperreality itself, an escape is still possible. But an escape to what?
For the Wachowskis in 2003, the exploration of this escape comes to an end with the final two Matrix films: Reloaded and Revolutions—both released in the same year. For the Machines, the digital panopticon of the Matrix is a grand system of power and its control. The regulation of humanity is akin to the regulation of a power plant; all systems must be kept in check, the flow of power must be controlled and its wielders consistent with its ownership. But to the Machines this power system is flawed: the power source itself is problematic.
As the Architect explains, “The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect. It was a work of art—flawless, sublime. A triumph equalled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being.”
For the Machines, the equation of the Matrix is perfectly utilitarian. The Matrix is symbiotic captivity: the system requires human beings to power itself and human beings in turn—by coercion of the system—require the same system to survive. Hence the system must perpetuate itself, and humanity must perpetuate itself too, by making this trade. And to the Machines, this is a perfectly worthwhile trade: subsistence for energy, energy for subsistence. If human beings value their lives, they will accept the terms of their captivity for a certain level of subsistence. If they do not, they will simply be eliminated by the system or take care of themselves.
We take into account that the Matrix is already coercive towards such a decision; the human inhabitants of the Matrix are mostly unaware of the nature of their imprisonment. As the Architect explains: “nearly 99% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level.” This is the minimum degree of subsistence which most of humanity can accept.
But underlying this relationship is an asymmetry of power, which the Machines governing the Matrix cannot understand and which the Free Humans are unwilling to accept. Within this system of control is birthed the problematic seed of rebellion—the possibility of momentous change—and yet this is a variable which the Machines believe they have conquered too. Even the arrival of the One, the messianic figure of humanity, is but another means of control—the outcome has been rigged five times before.
As Michel Foucault explains, “political power goes much deeper than one suspects; there are centres and invisible, little-known points of support; its true resistance, its true solidity is perhaps where one doesn’t expect it. Probably it’s insufficient to say that behind the governments, behind the apparatus of the State, there is the dominant class; one must locate the point of activity, the places and forms in which its domination is exercised […] if one fails to recognise these points of support of class power, one risks allowing them to continue to exist; and to see this class power reconstitute itself even after an apparent revolutionary process.”
For path of the One, the very means of rebellion have been subsumed by the system itself. The Free Humans will eventually contact the Oracle, the search for the One will occur, the One will be found and the attack on Zion will begin. The One will then be presented with a choice: to enter the Source and reset the Matrix for another cycle, thereby saving the human race and postponing the destruction of Zion; or allow the Matrix to collapse and let both Machines and Humanity perish.
This protocol has been successful at least five times before; the Machines will destroy Zion nonetheless and task the One to rebuild the last human city with 23 individuals handpicked from the Matrix. The new Zion will rise and new generations will flourish beneath the surface of the Earth; and new seeds of rebellion will form and in turn be subsumed at the end of the next cycle. Ad infinitum.
Even at the end of Revolutions, the third film in the series, it is implied that Neo’s sacrifice is also part of a system of control and coercion—his choice was not entirely of his own making. And yet something has changed by the end of the film: the war is over, the cycle is broken—things have changed. Has the system pivoted, if only slightly, towards a more symmetrical relation of power between Machines and Humanity?
“As you adequately put, the problem is choice.”
In Reloaded, the second film in the series, the Merovingian—an older programme who fulfills a role within the system of control—summarises the nature of the general asymmetry: “Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without.” For the Free Humans, the seeking of the Merovingian is to gain access to the Keymaker, the only programme able to access the Source and thus aid the One in fulfilling the prophecy as instructed by the Oracle—the controlled steps by which the One perpetuates the system of control.
The Merovingian continues, “This is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it, we fight to deny it, but it is of course pretense, it is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely out of control. Causality. There is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the `why.’ `Why’ is what separates us from them, you from me. `Why’ is the only real social power, without it you are powerless. And this is how you come to me, without `why,’ without power. Another link in the chain. But fear not, since I have seen how good you are at following orders, I will tell you what to do next.”
The Matrix is predicated on the ability of the Machines to uphold this relation: they must know the answers to every question posed by the variable of human rebellion. Against those who would reject the relationship of the Matrix, the Machines must have a contingency in turn—a means of balancing the equation. Otherwise the system risks change, be it peace or collapse. It is too dangerous to leave things to chance, and if the Machines believe in a deterministic worldview, then certain actions will give certain results. This is to say, there is a logic behind the world; to control the world is to understand the reason why it is so.
And yet the arrival of Neo is baffling to the Machines because his actions are outside their frame of reference. The One is not meant to prioritise the individual over the community, the one over the many, the lovers against the world. Once the One acts outside of this frame of logic, the system is unable to continue its logic as before. To Neo, this is the means out of hyperreality: the denial of its logic and thus its sublimation via hyperstitious faith.
The result is a question the Machines cannot answer; it is difficult to predict illogical moves. When Neo rejects the salvation of humanity for the life of Trinity, his act of rebellion is a suicidal one, and yet, one which also believes in a survival without the system itself. Should the Matrix collapse an exodus will be found. Should hyperreality collapse a new reality will be born. The condition of subsistence has been denied and thus broken; “there are levels of survival we are prepared to accept”—or perhaps none whatsoever.
The Machines have no contingency for this—they were assured the One would follow their logic—and neither does Humanity have one—they believed in the possibilities of a new tomorrow. The power relation has not been overturned—instead it has been equalled. Both side have no answers for the future—their powers left symmetrical.
“Just how long do you think this peace is going to last?”
It is permissible to imagine that previous iterations of the One were confronted by this choice, and yet were unable to take the leap forward. It is possible that Neo is an anomaly because his love gives him courage, and his courage is what allows for change to occur. His willingness to doom the current world is what anticipates the new one. Perhaps there is an analogy for us here.
It is possible that the means of breaking the simulation is to deny the logic of the simulation itself. As Foucault writes in Madness And Civilisation (1961), “Confined on the ship, from which there is no escape, the madman is delivered to the river with its thousand arms, the sea with its thousand roads, to that great uncertainty external to everything. He is a prisoner in the midst of what is the freest, the openest of routes: bound fast at the infinite crossroads. He is the Passenger par excellence: that is, the prisoner of the passage. And the land he will come to is unknown—as is, once he disembarks, the land from which he comes. He has his truth and his homeland only in that fruitless expanse between two countries that cannot belong to him.”
The stigma against the illogical and the insane is ironically one of our greatest proofs for possible liberation. By rejecting the logic of the system, the system of control by which the hyperreality of the Matrix perpetuates itself, we hence break in continuity from it. We stand outside of its laws, now unbound by the possibility of new logic and new possibilities of living.
Madness, by its own device or without one, thus liberates a truth: there are other ways to envision the world. Perhaps we should embrace its possibility too, whether it be against nihilism or pessimistic futures, and by strength of madness and in the image of Neo, believe in something illogical like love or hope—and act towards it with faith.
Copyright © Thomas J. Pellarin, 2021. All rights reserved.