"The Matrix" limited as a model for First World revolutionary strategy
The Matrix
Directed and written by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski
Warner Bros.
136 minutes
Rated R
Reviewed 2007 August 6
Writers looking at "The Matrix" for theoretical purposes have remarked that everyone from Marxists to postmodernists to Christians seems to see the movie as a validation or illustration of their ideas. This review deals with something that the movie doesn't illustrate: division tactics, a corollary of the parasitism thesis for revolutionaries living in oppressor nations that are overwhelmingly made up of exploiters. The recognition that the majority of First World people are both oppressors of other nations and class exploiters has different strategic implications for communists. Almost a decade old, "The Matrix" needs to be revisited in light of a concept that has come to the fore in the communist movement in recent years: exploiter-division specifically as a revolutionary practice carried out in public opinion in the oppressed nations. Such division work is not done on MIWS, because MIWS isn't a suitable vehicle for it. Nonetheless, there needs to be clarity on the limitations of just struggling with individuals to make communists out of them. "The Matrix" may be great as a way of getting people excited about revolutionary theory, but for scientific purposes beyond that it actually stinks in some aspects. Except for brief comments about the two sequels, this review deals mostly with the first movie, not the sequels, the "Matrix" video games, or the "Animatrix" shorts, which would complicate things in a fantasy direction and aren't seen by everyone anyway who has seen "The Matrix."
In "The Matrix," Neo is a hacker by a night and, as Thomas Anderson, a law-abiding computer programmer by day. He knows there is something called "the Matrix" and has been trying to find out what it is. An underground organization, called terrorists by agents who look like stereotypical feds, has been watching Neo, and representatives of the organization pop up out of nowhere to recruit Neo. Previously, Neo knew them only by their on-line activity and pseudonyms. It sounds like Neo was pretty knowledgeable and capable even before he was unplugged from the Matrix, a dream world to keep people focused on "life" and distract them from their oppression as humyns farmed for their electricity-generating body heat, but the movie revolves around Neo's awakening to the full truth and developing his full potential. It is revealed that humyn actions led to machine rule and the creation of the Matrix. As things unfold, there is plenty of fighting action mixed in with some paranormal psychic-type activity. It turns out Neo is "The One," an especially capable individual the underground organization has been looking for. Neo's hacking is extended into the off-line world. His ability to do unusual things by bending, overcoming or changing the rules is represented as superhumyn-like physical ability for the enjoyment of viewers.
"The Matrix" is influential among various people calling themselves Marxists, who draw from "The Matrix" to make points about theory and conditions in capitalist society. That's partly why "The Matrix" needs to be addressed, rather than just talking about division tactics using concrete examples but not "The Matrix." The movie's continuing influence needs to be dealt with head-on. No doubt "The Matrix" is cool, but there are drawbacks to loosely promoting the movie in a context where people are more likely to want to want to watch movies and absorb things from them than patiently read articles about super-profits, class structure, and strategy. "The Matrix" is useful for explaining some aspects of Marxist theory, but how useful is it in terms of the decisive questions that separate communism from parasite oinking for a more equal share of the wealth stolen from the Third World is the question.
There wouldn't be much of a problem if everyone lived on a pinhead. Everyone's conditions would be the same, and strategy would be the same in each nation. In reality, Euro-Amerika is an oppressor nation and a majority of its population is exploiters. There has been criticism by both nationalists and Liberals of "The Matrix"'s central depiction of a white hero; "The Matrix" isn't entirely individualist, because people from "One" movement leader Morpheus' ship Nebuchadnezzar and the humyn city Zion free Neo and work with him, but Neo plays a singularly heroic role. Interestingly, some of the criticism comes from people who don't even believe Blacks and other internal semi-colony peoples within u.$. borders are their own nations. Once one has a grasp of the national question within the united $tates and the need for strategy and tactics particular to the situation in each nation, another analysis becomes possible. The movie's portrayal of Neo as white and a crucial hero actually would not pose a problem if the context were right, needing to divide the exploiters in the white nation; although, people of any nationality in the united $tates could be effective at this division. In strategic terms, what is a problem is that "The Matrix" leaves out the broad range of activities that communists do. Not only does "The Matrix" not show the Zion people or the Nebuchadnezzar crew doing work to divide the exploiters, the machines, to benefit the exploited; "The Matrix" doesn't even show them trying to influence public opinion among the minds within the Matrix. There is just an armed struggle against the machines and an effort to recruit individuals and totally separate them from the Matrix life and superstructure. Strangely, the only one who seems to cause disruption within the Matrix before the final battles is the Matrix agent program Smith. (A dissatisfied Smith is hinted at even in the first movie, during Morpheus' investigation. It could just be an interrogation trick to appeal to Morpheus on a humyn psychological level, but Smith appears to have dissident feelings even before he fails and is superseded.) What led to this other than some kind of demoralization or frustration with trying to get the Zion keys is unexplained. It looks like Morpheus' revolutionaries can take no credit for causing the exploiter-division represented by the discord between agents in the interrogation scene, or for anything else that could have been caused by influencing public opinion in a rational direction or just manipulating exploiters' ideology.
Neo does appear to read the news on the Internet, and, in the sequel following "The Matrix," Neo suggests that people free themselves from the Matrix, not him; Neo doesn't like to think of himself as a savior and is actually unhappy in that role. "The Matrix" may serve to illustrate the correct idea that vanguard people recruit themselves in the First World. There is no proletarian Christ figure gaining followers just by talking with random people and appealing to their good will. As a strategy a lesson, however, "The Matrix" is better for the Third World context than the First. Even in Third World, there are more aspects to the struggle than armed struggle and party-building. Certainly, in the First World, "The Matrix" doesn't lend itself as a model in any simple way. Armed struggle is out of the question in the First World behind enemy lines at this point in history, and party-building currently takes a backseat to building public opinion and dividing the exploiters. So, in those two aspects, "The Matrix" on its face is no model. Exploiter-division is more important at this time than even "agitation" designed to promote Maoism or a Maoist party in the First World. In the "Matrix" movies, possible instances of exploiter-division don't appear until the second movie, "Reloaded," and, even then, only in the form of a disgruntled ex-agent, Smith, and Persephone, annoyed and vindictive about her husband's sexual "games" with other people -- in other words, individuals opposing other individuals or even the system but for their own individualist reasons, rather than groups of people in opposition because of forces affecting many people. Exploiter-division isn't primarily putting kinks in the system individual-by-individual, but that is how "The Matrix" portrays it, perhaps due to the inherent limitations of the mano-e-mano action movie genre.
What led up to those states of discord is unclear in the movies. So is what led up to Morpheus' meeting with Neo, unless he found Morpheus the same way the feds did. As a consequence of this, the reason for Neo's discovery becomes, by default, his alienation at work at the software company, represented by Neo's meeting with his boss, Rhineheart. Neo may sleep less because of his computer activities, but in any case Neo's work at the software company isn't important enough for him to be on time for, apparently on more than one occasion. Some writers talking about "The Matrix"'s relevance to class have said that Neo's relationship with his boss represents an oppression of Neo. If this is the impression the movie gives, Neo's discovery by Morpheus is strongly tied to this supposed oppression, because the scene with the boss in the office is obviously supposed to be significant in some way. Rhineheart says that Neo has a "problem with authority" and doesn't follow the "rules," pointing to his role as "The One," but it is also a portrayal of the unique regimentation supposedly present in a corporate workplace, which unscientific people mistakenly equate with being oppressed because they have no perspective taking into account the Third World proletariat and ignore that even Rhineheart is alienated, but not oppressed. (Just because you can find authority at any point in a corporate hierarchy doesn't mean one of the two people involved is oppressed.) Rhineheart threatens to fire Neo. So, from the viewpoint of a half-way understanding of Marxism, Trinity's recruiting of Neo is a like a party's recruiting among oppressed people. What led Morpheus to recruit Neo specifically becomes unimportant, because the viewer feels Neo is oppressed. The company boss scene is a substitute for an explanation of why Morpheus found Neo attractive. The reason why Neo is motivated to found out what the Matrix is, other than a self-driven desire to know what the Matrix is because of his hacker's curiosity, is nowhere to be found. The attitude that the cause of Neo's interest in the Matrix is unimportant points to a party-building orientation that takes the oppressed as given. If the oppressed are everywhere, there is less reason to question a focus on party-building and other things related to an uneven distribution of the oppressed. Either that or Neo is so anomalous and rare that he requires no explanation. That would be a more accurate reflection of the vanguard situation in oppressor nations, because the vanguard there does appear in the form of scattered individuals, but this does not suggest anything strategically, like the idea that everyone is alienated, or "oppressed" or "dehumanized," to some degree if they're living in capitalist society.
Actually, contrary to the idea that Neo is more oppressed than Rhineheart because of the workplace hierarchy, everyone in the "The Matrix"'s real world is a battery for the machines. So, everyone is supposed to be oppressed, including Rhineheart. If such were the case, Morpheus while in the Matrix would be swimming in a sea of the masses. Instead, "The Matrix" suggests that Morpheus has to wade through a swamp of enemies. It is like an upside-down version of the parasitism thesis: the notion that the more oppressed people are, the more false consciousness they have, and the more potential enemy-like they become to revolutionaries. This is actually one of the beefs Maoism has with revisionism, particularly in its more postmodern forms, not just a contemplative point. There are so-called Marxists, actually revisionists, in the world who think that the First World so-called working class' lack of struggle somehow reflects a greater degree of oppression, even that First World workers are more exploited than Third World workers. The proletarian status of the First World working class is taken as given. Instead of a discussion of super-profit bribery and parasitism, there is a discussion of why the First World supposedly has more false consciousness and is more exploited or subject to a more absolute form of indoctrination and control. It the First World working class doesn't struggle, it is because it is more dominated, supposedly.
In reality, it is the Third World proletariat that is more oppressed and has a greater degree of proletarian consciousness and is rowing the boat to shore faster, not a bourgeois First World majority calling itself "working-class" to demand more super-profits and defend imperialism, and this is because one is an exploited class, and the other is an exploiter class. For "The Matrix" to suggest that the proletariat is wading behind enemy lines in a situation where everyone is exploited, their bodies harvested while their minds are stuck in the Matrix, is bad analysis in Marxist terms and especially confusing if viewers think the situation in a Third World nation is the same as a situation in the First World nation. In any case, it is simply not possible that "The Matrix"'s lessons for exploiter-majority country people are identical to those for any toiler-majority country people who watch the movie. First World people should be having a completely different strategy discussion than Third World people. In the First World, it is inappropriate to use "The Matrix" to talk about historical materialism or consciousness or ideology in general or something else universal while downplaying economic and strategic differences between nations. The idea that one can use "The Matrix" to make a comment about ideology or some other aspect of theory without mentioning class structure is wrong. The majority of "Marxist" and "critical theory" discussion of "The Matrix" is flawed on that account alone.
Some problems decrease if things in "The Matrix" are interpreted more loosely. What if the machines aren't an exploiter class, but just understood to be the material side of things along with the humyn heat farming fields. The farming represents the relations of production or the relations of gender. Though caught up in ideology themselves, a "matrix," the ideological ways in which people see themselves in relation to each other in capitalist society, humyns such as Neo's boss are exploiters, not the machines. The Matrix is just the repressive state and ideological side of things. When people understand the rules of the system -- the relations of production and the state and ideology that function to reproduce those relations -- and develop an ability to think and act scientifically, they are able to be revolutionaries, navigate the terrain, and "fly" like Neo in the sequels. This would take care of the problem of the movie's depiction of armed struggle; it just becomes part of the movie's requisite sci-fi action and a symbol of an underground struggle against the capitalist system that doesn't involve violence in the First World. Also, Morpheus' idea that people in the Matrix wrapped up in its illusions and lifestyles should be treated as the enemy becomes easier to digest if the Matrix is viewed as just representing those oppressed people who support the system, a subset of the oppressed, not necessarily the majority of oppressed people. The problem remains, however, that Morpheus' intervention in the Matrix is just to remove people from it and plunge them into the underground organization. This also produces the discontented traitor character Cypher, who could have served a progressive role or divided-exploiter role asleep and dreaming in the Matrix, outside the underground organization, but instead ends up serving as an infiltrator in a sensitive position and handing Morpheus over to the feds in exchange for a decadent lifestyle.
The Cypher character points to the ever-present possibility of infiltration that is not possible to eliminate completely except by structural means -- keeping bourgeois ideas and pig-like behaviors out of the underground organization and making sure no one individual who sells out is able to wreck the entire organization by giving some information. Making security dependent on one individual is something pigs could exploit if they knew about it, unlike a security practice in which there is still science and democratic centralism but organizational knowledge is decentralized. The fact that the agents even knew about Morpheus, even just as a pseudonym, and could have a way of locating him is a serious problem that should have been rectified. Cypher and Morpheus' focus on finding "The One" also illustrates one thing that can happen when there is too much focus on party-building to the exclusion of other needed tasks: treating exploiters as revolutionary material when they are not, and giving up the public opinion and exploiter-division struggles. Even supposing Neo is no more or less than an average scientific revolutionary leader, not everyone needs to fly like Neo or be put in some non-scientific position in the organization if they don't pass the "One" tests (the jujitsu and the building jump). People in the First World need to demonstrate scientific ability before they can be unplugged -- in a gradual way, or, in Matrix terms, Morpheus should have talked with Neo more and worked with him in the Matrix before offering him the pill. Even if Morpheus had been watching Neo and Cypher before unplugging them, there may be some truth in Cypher's statement that he wasn't ready to be unplugged. Leaders must be scientists. At the same time, scientific ability usually crops up on its own without one-on-one intervention. The combination of these two necessities leaves room for work in the areas of public opinion-building and exploiter-division. Not all revolutionary work has to do with recruiting people for a party.
Though how sentient each one is, is unclear, programs, non-humyns, appear to conflict with each other in "The Matrix." Programs seem to be in an in-between position between humyns and the physical machines and are unlike real world agents in this way, who are often exploiters themselves. Programs -- agents, and, in the sequels, Persephone, the Merovingian, the Oracle, and the Architect, etc. -- appear to be divided, but this is approached as a technical difficulty by the machines to be fixed. Never really uniting with anyone, either Smith or the Deus Ex Machina machine swarm at the end of "The Matrix Revolutions," Neo at the ends of the trilogy only makes a deal with the machines to return to a status quo, basically a ceasefire because one of the machines' weapons, Smith, didn't work. No machine itself does anything on behalf of the humyns, though Zion may interface with the machines by hacking in the Matrix to disrupt them. Smith is a program of the machines, but does he himself represent a machine? If the intention was to suggest that there is no difference between the exploiters and those who carry out the exploiters' dictatorship, then "The Matrix" has a point, because they are the same thing in practice, especially since there are few people of proletarian background in the imperialist military, police, and spying agencies.
Problems aside, some of the best things about "The Matrix" have to do with anonymity. The inspiration for things in the movie may come from hackers' practices, but anonymity is an important part of communist security, particularly in the First World. People use pseudonyms or no names at all. Liberal democracy is a myth. What there is, is people effective at revolutionary politics, and others trying to mess things up for them by illegal means even though the revolutionaries aren't doing anything illegal. Currently, things need to go in an even more anonymous direction. The best way to go from "The Matrix" is to imagine Neo reading something, observing, getting some experience, and learning how to fly on his own, without meeting anyone in the real world. Trinity and Morpheus -- these people exist only as distant leaders who never really have contact with Neo individually. There is no need to communicate with them privately and trust them. Anonymous people publish writing about hacking and never meet their readers. So it is with revolutionary politics in exploiter-majority nations. As the Oracle says in "Reloaded," she may secretly be working for the system, but people can take what she is saying or leave it. They just have to decide for themselves.
Compellingly, some people in the "Matrix" movies who look like humyns turn out to be programs. Trinity could have turned out to be a program, an artificial intelligence program working in a computer somewhere. Neo seems quick to trust Trinity, but at least Neo didn't trust her because of things outside her identity as a hacker, just her words and what he knew about her practice as a hacker (political activist). It is not Trinity showing Neo documentation to somehow prove she's not a spy. "The Matrix" also does the proletariat a service by showing that Neo needs to be rationally paranoid about everyone, not just people who wear suits and sunglasses who look like agents. Random people are shown by sci-fi fantasy means morphing into agents. Exploiters are potential spies and informants. "The Matrix" would have just been better if it had shown a more realistic range of revolutionary activity. That may be expecting too much for this kind of movie, and it has to be said "The Matrix" is closer to the truth than the majority of movies. But "The Matrix" by itself could just be an expression of white petty-bourgeois angst, like others movies with similar themes and even movies about men finding out they are Santa Claus' or God's assistant. For communist purposes, "The Matrix" needs to be accompanied by other ideas. "The Matrix" raises the revolution idea, and anxious Euro-Amerikans may become interested in revolution and dabble in it as a result, mostly to become agents of imperialism in the revolutionary movement. A scientific materialist analysis is required to assess the impact of a movie, not wishful thinking or a philosophical or theoretical reading that has nothing to do with the movie's objective impact or its real strategic or illustrative use.