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The influence of mass media on culture
An essay on how does mass media affect popular culture
An essay on how does mass media affect popular culture
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Stimulating deep philosophical thought, The Matrix depicts a world in which all human brains are programmed to believe a fabricated reality. Some humans, like the protagonist of the film, Neo, were recused from this mirage and shown the truth about their perceived reality. Some found great discomfort and refused to live with the truth and they returned to live in the illusion. Others however, chose truth over comfort and happiness. After watching this film I soon began to question many aspects of my own life. Is it possible that the world I deem real is a fabricated dream? What if everything around me was designed and that my actuality is simply a perception? These looped questions consume my though and lead me to realize that my reality to …show more content…
This is like the people who are living in the matrix. Nobody questions their reality as they continue on with their life, even though their perceptions of reality are false. We continue our day to day lives in our delusional reality, without ever daring to doubt our core beliefs. To both the inhabitants of the matrix and me, it is more convenient to perceive our reality as the truth, rather than seek a greater veracity. This is because shaking off the core values you were raised with is extremely hard. Even when Neo had taken the pill and was enlightened, there was still a point where he refused to believe it all. The truth was in front of his eyes and he still claimed that it couldn’t be real. This is due to human’s tendency of wanting to be right and aware. If I was put in such a position, I would not happily and easily accept that my life had been a lie. To me what I have experienced and felt is my reality. However, I can never truly begin to define what the absolute reality is. To me sensory knowledge is reality, but Morpheus refutes this thought saying “If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain”. When I look at it this way, then I may very well be living in a fabricated world such as the matrix. However, the reality may be painful and difficult, so I will …show more content…
Simply looking at the economical and status based hierarchy will awaken us to realize the more evident fabrications within our reality. The government and big corporations continue to form the reality for the vast majority to people today. Society promotes the idea that we are all “free”. The more I think about this, the more uncomfortably the thoughts settle in. I realize that if I wish to eat, to have a house, to have an education, a car, or anything else of material value, I must work. I must work and make money, as without it there is no way of obtaining even basic human necessities. Since we have to work, we should at least be able to choose our own job right? Not so fast. The job market has become a nightmare, as many American studies have shown 80% of employees to be dissatisfied with their career. This indicates that even if no one is holding you at gun point, you are still not free as you must conform if you wish to survive. Due to this, large corporations not only control, but they also shape our reality. My reality thrives to grow up and strive for an occupation to make money. I force myself to study to see my grades increase, to increase my chances of success. The truth is, I could not care less about the 95 on the paper, but the universities will, so I comply. Since I want to make money, I have to do this. Just like that, the concept that we are all “free” begins
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
The movie, "The Matrix," parallels Platos's Allegory Of The Cave in a number of ways. Similar to the prisoners of the cave, the humans trapped in the matrix (the cave) only see what the machines (the modern day puppet-handlers) want them to see. They are tricked into believing that what they hear in the cave and see before them is the true reality that exists. Furthermore, they accept what their senses are telling them and they believe that what they are experiencing is all that really exists--nothing more.
Money, money, money, money, money. People just care about the Benjamins, the moolah, the cash, the dough— but is it really essential to the human existence, or does society just accept the systematic oppression that comes with the dog-eat-dog nature of our economic system since it benefits the people on top? Monetary gains are all well and good; however, when does it commence to overtake our lives and when does it become our end goal? Instead of relying on money for food, shelter and our overall well-being, society views it as a tool that gives them power over other people, thus putting one’s economic status on a pedestal and making life a difficult competition. So yes, it is a dog-eat-dog world, but that’s not exactly a healthy perspective
This student of Philosophy now sees the movie The Matrix in a whole new way after gaining an understanding of some of the underlying philosophical concepts that the writers of the movie used to develop an intriguing and well thought out plot. Some of the philosophical concepts were clear, while others were only hinted at and most likely overlooked by those unfamiliar with those concepts, as was this student when the movie first came out in theaters all those many years ago. In this part of the essay we will take a look at the obvious and not so obvious concepts of: what exactly is the Matrix and how does it related to both Descartes and Plato, can we trust our own senses once we understand what the Matrix is, and how Neo taking the Red Pill is symbolic of the beginning of the journey out of Pl...
Imagine living through life completely bound and facing a reality that doesn’t even exist. The prisoners in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” are blind from true reality as well as the people in the movie “The Matrix” written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. They are given false images and they accept what their senses are telling them, and they believe what they are experiencing is all that really exists. Plato the ancient Greek philosopher wrote “The Allegory of the Cave”, to explain the process of enlightenment and what true reality may be. In the movie “The Matrix”, Neo (the main character) was born into a world of illusions called the matrix. His true reality is being controlled by the puppet- handlers called the machines who use the human body as a source of energy. In the movie, Neo, finds and alternate reality and he has to go on a journey to discover himself and what is around him. Much like “The Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners in a dark underground cave, who are chained to the wall, have a view of reality solely based upon this limited view of the cave which is but a poor copy of the real world. Both the prisoners of the cave, and Neo from the Matrix, have to transcend on the path of ‘enlightenment’ to know the truth of their own worlds.
The class system has been in place within humanity since the very birth of economic trade. It is a fact of life that others will seek self-betterment and gain power to provide for those that they love and their own personal interest. Throughout the years the implementation of a social class system has helped to differentiate the types of economic situations as nation and serve as a system to work toward the betterment of the society as a whole. However, as the world became more productive and the gaps between the higher classes and lower classes increased the efficiency of the social class system and the decisions made from the individuals within it has been called into question. Kalen Ockerman opened the channel to question if the class system is the helpful institution that benefits of all its citizens or if the lower classes are not getting the support and attention they deem necessary.
Does what one sees and hear in life really mean that it is true? Just because one sees a dinosaur in the shadow, does it mean it is real? In the Allegory of the Cave and “The Matrix” one may question what is real and what is fake.
In the movie, The Matrix there are many similarities with the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One similarity is that of the matrices in both works. The movie has a matrix of dreams. According to the movie, humans are dreaming. Dreaming means that the reality humans think of, is not reality. The reality humans think of, is a dream. Confusing, isn t? An easier way of understanding this matrix is to think of human dreams. When humans experience dreams, it is not perceived as a dream until the dream ends. The movie exemplifies humans in the dream state of mind, similar to the dreaming stage. Neo is exposed to his real matrix. The matrix outside of his perceptual reality. He is able to perform with an incredible flexibility and high speed thinking. He is no longer dreaming, or as Neo called it, living. Neo has waken up. The book shares this matrix as well.
Let me briefly explain a simplified plot of The Matrix. The story centers around a computer-generated world that has been created to hide the truth from humans. In this world people are kept in slavery without their knowledge. This world is designed to simulate the peak of human civilization which had been destroyed by nuclear war. The majority of the world's population is oblivious to the fact that their world is digital rather than real, and they continue living out their daily lives without questioning their reality. The main character, Neo, is a matrix-bound human who knows that something is not right with the world he lives in, and is eager to learn the truth. He is offered the truth from a character named Morpheus, who proclaims that Neo is “the One” (chosen one) who will eventually destroy the Matrix, thereby setting the humans “free.” For this to happen, Neo must first overcome the Sentient Program agents who can jump into anyone's digital body. They are the Gate Keepers and hold the keys to The Matrix.
In The Cave prisoners are chained, from birth, to face a wall within a dark cave. These prisoners have never had any interactions with the outside world. Their only understanding of the outside world comes from a bridge and a fire at their backs. When people, animals, or objects cross the bridge, the fire projects their shadows upon the cave wall which the prisoners are facing. To these prisoners, the obscure shadows which dance along the walls of the cave are the only “real” thing they know. To their brains, which have never experienced, seen, or came into any contact with anything in the outside world, this is reality. To the prisoners, reality is a jumble of dark shadows which occasionally move from one end of a cave wall to another. This is their perception of reality because it is all they have ever known. While The Matrix does not involve prisoners being chained to a cave wall, the ideas within it are very much the same as in The Cave. Neo, the main character in The Matrix, has unknowingly been living in the matrix his whole life. The matrix world is his reality much like the shadows on the cave wall are the prisoner’s reality. As the world outside of the cave is the true world for the prisoners, the true reality for Neo is the real world which exists outside of the matrix, which is a highly advanced
It is unfair to religionize a movie which was meant to be totally secular, but the screenwriters of The Matrix openly profess the movie’s ties with religion. Purposely having imbued the screenplay with parallel upon parallel, the Wakowski Brothers have rendered the obvious and the obscure into an image of humanity’s perfection. At first glance, this idealization may seem to be a plethora of praise for a simple blockbuster science-fiction movie, but there is more in The Matrix than meets the eye. The Matrix was set forth not as an action-thriller for the simple pleasure of seeing bullet casings strike the ground after falling out of a hot sub-machine gun, but as a philosophical religious allegory.
The Matrix, once being released was a world-famous film that involved a lot of thinking and the ability to interpret complex ideas. However, these two topics of fate and freewill were creatively and smartly submerged in this film. The pill, jujitsu and Oracle scene were three main examples of the effect this all had on The Matrix, however there were a few others scattered throughout the film. It remained to be quite a mysterious concept but gradually as more in-depth thoughts came to mind, it seemed to be quite interesting. By exploring these themes it forces us to think if we are in a Matrix and what are reaction would be like if we were to find out that the world we lived in was a fake, never our true reality.
One would expect that social equality would just be the norm in society today. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Three similar stories of how inequality and the hard reality of how America’s society and workforce is ran shows a bigger picture of the problems American’s have trying to make an honest living in today’s world. When someone thinks about the American dream, is this the way they pictured it? Is this what was envisioned for American’s when thinking about what the future held? The three authors in these articles don’t believe so, and they are pretty sure American’s didn’t either. Bob Herbert in his article “Hiding from Reality” probably makes the most honest and correct statement, “We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around” (564).
In The Matrix directed by Lilly Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, existentialism and determinism are explored leading one to question what reality truly is through the use of various thematic techniques. Existentialists is the believe that an individual determines their own development through acts of free will whereas determinists believe that all events are determined by causes external to free will or fate. The main character Neo is presented with these conflicting beliefs when he becomes aware that what he believes is reality is merely an illusion, an alternate reality created by a computer program where laws of nature do not apply. As Neo becomes more aware of the glitches in The Matrix, Morpheus approaches Neo and presents him with a choice
"BR: In every sense we create our own reality, and this goes much further than most people aware of or are willing to admit. The reason most people can't see this is because everyone is creating their own reality, but 99.9% of them are creating the same one-using