What is Real?

May 30, 2004

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Welcome to the second installment of "The Matrix and Beyond." This is a column to explore various themes and concepts of the broad Matrix universe. Sometimes the column will focus on implications of the Matrix pertaining directly to the online game. But the Matrix-phenomenon is in part about overcoming and transcending limits. In like fashion, our discussion together will not be limited to the stories themselves. Many of the deeper ideas and questions of the saga point so clearly beyond themselves -- they point to universal ideas. In this way, I hope our experience together will be constantly tethered to reality. We will try to keep one foot in "the real world" at all times. This is important because so many fans were impacted by the philosophical implications of the movies upon life as we know it. It would be strangely ironic if this penetrating metaphor of the Matrix became another fantasy. Here we have a science-fiction movie with insightful commentary about the nature of being and society, and then all the sudden, the fans unplug from real life and plug into the Matrix fantasy. While we all have high hopes for the Matrix Online as a meaningful dimension of the storyline and Matrix community, this column will consistently try to hold those things in balance: all of the fun and excitement of the Matrix universe on one hand, and the depth of insight into "the real world" on the other.

Still, I don't want readers to worry about leaving the Wachowskis completely behind. Don't worry. There will be focused explorations of very specific and concrete aspects of the Matrix. There are plans to analyze some of the music soundtracks and precise themes. We have a lot of space ahead of us and there will be time to cover everything. But also think of this as an interactive column. Send me an e-mail if there's a direction of thought where you want to focus our attention. Maybe a column isn't clear. Maybe you just plain disagree. Maybe there's a question that you've always had that we can try to explore together.

In this article, I am haunted by Morpheus' rhetorical question, "What is real?" It is Memorial Day Weekend. There are dozens of memorial montages all set to music. And the fact that resounds most in my mind is that none of it is real. Life does not happen with stirring music in the background. Life does not happen with the thought of angles and camera shots in mind. Life is above and beneath reality. Life is above reality in that it happens without regard to perspective; trees fall in the forest all the time, making lots of sound for no one to hear. Life is beneath reality in that experience is constantly unfolding and forming the fabric of what we interpret, package, and sell as "reality." This article is inspired by the ideas of Baudrillard, French author of "Simulations and Simulcra."

As a digression, have you ever wondered the following: which has more power, the spoken word or the written word? Which has more reality, more substance? Which event has more primacy? Which kind of people have more power and influence -- the thinker who refuses to write anything down, or the scholar who does so and leaves a record for history? Just something to think about. As a lifelong student of writing and poetry, I believe both have tremendous power. But they are not the same thing. There is a very true sense in which the represented word -- i.e. the written word -- is undeniably less than the spoken word, less than speech. Just something to think about as I ask you to read this virtual column.

Ever since Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," it has been burned in my mind that whatever we see on television is not real. Of course all of the sit-coms and their larger-than-life characters are fake. And we are beginning to realize that Reality TV is not reality at all. But I think we are still deceived by purported "facts." Even in a "true" news story, we are not watching actual events. What we are watching, instead, are images that represent actual events. And while the disconnect is transparent (especially in live telecasts) and necessary (we could not possibly witness all these things firsthand), the disconnect is there all the same. And the disconnect is not without consequence, not without cost. We might fancy ourselves connected to the "truth" when in fact we are actually disconnected.

My underlying argument is not the sort of relativistic harangue that one now expects to hear in discussions that are "academic" or "post-modern" where it has become fashionable to say that there is no such thing as truth (and many honest academics and post-modernists agree with me). It is only to say that attempts at depicting the truth are not the actual experiences themselves. Again, experience does not have theme music, zoom shots, or cut-away shots, or any of the conventions that we are used to if we are used to living through television. There are actual events and experiences, but as soon as we begin to interpret them and name them as "fact" we are actually creating a reality. And then if we can sell this reality to others, then we can pass it off as Reality with the capital-R.

This is an election year. And this Memorial Day, both parties are interpreting facts, events, and expressions of patriotism in attempt to
generate political energy. I talk about politics elsewhere, and maybe there are readers who know what I mean when I say that our polarized political system is a dialectic of un-change. It is a system to prevent society from thinking new thoughts and new solutions, and it is balanced on a conflict as seemingly interminable as the war between the humans and the machines of the Matrix.

Both parties are interested in Reality. I believe that the winner of this presidential election will be the member of the party who has more effectively sold its version of Reality. The election is a war of Reality, and both parties will be trying to assert that their version is the correct one. I find the surrounding discourse absolutely maddening, literally, that is any dialogue sounds like two mentally ill people using the same words but each word with a different meaning. "Why do you keep pointing to a table when I clearly said 'chair'?!" And back and forth.

The irony is that both sides accuse the other of lying, passing judgements of "spin and spinners" and "lies and liars." Maybe it's just because I live in a village of liars, but I really believe that both sides are telling the truth as best they can. They are trying to describe things as they see them. Each political platform is colored by embedded perspective. Each side holds up its photographed fact and says,

"This is what really happened."

The war of Reality happens in subtle ways. In a press conference, the President is asked to apologize or concede mistakes, repeatedly, and repeatedly he declines to do so. Suddenly, the viewer has a choice to make. Is this a story about national arrogance and pride, or leadership and confidence? Which is the story? Which is Reality? The polarized political situation makes for a good case study of how malleable Reality is. Experience is unfolding all the time, and the two parties are in a race to name and label that experience first. But this happens all the time. Advertisers and commercial makers are constantly trying to insert their products into the fabric of collective Reality. It's just that our polarized two-party system is the perfect petri dish to show how these perceptions compete in a survival of the fittest.

At the end of the day, we discover that we have more power than we realize. We can decide which reality we want to live in. We can decide what worldview we want to have, even if there isn't a politician out there describing things the way we want to see them. We see them. And that's enough.

And if we can't see them? Well, then, the Matrix has you.