Radio Free Beszel

The Matrix and the Heresy of Progress

Alphonse Season 1 Episode 15

The Matrix echoes the Gnostic heresy: the world is a prison for our souls, the creator is evil, and knowledge brings freedom.

In the film, what appears to be reality is in fact an illusion created to enslave humanity.  The red pill reveals the true world and grants the power to control the illusion to war against the creator.

For the ancient Gnostics, the material world was false. Our bodies and their pleasures, from food to sex, were oppressive deceptions. The truth, they believed, was that our souls are eternal, but this knowledge has been taken from us. Gnosis means knowledge - knowledge of our true natures, and how to transcend our earthly limits. The early Catholic Church declared the Gnostics heretics: for in the Bible, the creator is good, and so is his creation.

But did Gnosticism really fade away? Philosophers Augusto Del Noce and Eric Voegelin say no. They argue that Gnosticism has taken on a materialist, atheist form. The ancient Gnostics believed that Gnostic enlightenment would guide us to a spiritual Utopia. Revolutionary materialist ideologies - communism, socialism, fascism, progressivism - believe instead in a Utopia here on earth.

But, Del Noce and Voegelin say, these ideologies are fatally flawed.  Like the Gnostics, and like the humans in the Matrix, they reject the world that exists. Their adherents' belief that better world is possible is so strong that they are willing to cast principle aside. If unborn generations can be spared the suffering of our fallen world, are not acts of violence really acts of love? But once principle has been lost, it can never be regained. The pursuit of Utopia degenerates into nothing more than the pursuit of power.

See Augusto Del Noce, The Crisis of Modernity; Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism; and China Miéville, "Foundation," in Looking for Jake.

0:01
Good evening. This
is Radio Free

0:04
Beszel. I'm Alphonse.
Tonight: gnosis,

0:08
or knowledge and changing
the world. Following an

0:11
election that went the way
I really didn't want

0:15
it to, I remember standing
on a platform for a

0:18
train in the city. And all
around me was concrete

0:22
and steel and glass, but
I felt suddenly as if

0:26
that's not what I was seeing:
as if behind that

0:30
there were these invisible
forces flows of money,

0:33
flows of political power.
That the city was not

0:36
made of things, but the city
was made of the power

0:40
that had caused the election
to go the way it had.

0:44
The real movie that describes
the present

0:46
moment is The Matrix. It's
referred to all the

0:49
time when people talk about
red pills and when

0:51
people talk about waking
up. For in the movie,

0:54
the main character, Neo,
believes that he lives

0:57
as a normal person in the
real world. But then

1:00
he's offered choice. The
choice is to take

1:02
a blue pill and continue
with the illusion,

1:06
or a red pill and wake
up and discover true

1:10
reality. And he takes the
red pill, and he wakes

1:14
up and he discovers that he's
in a nightmare world

1:18
ruled by machines. But he
also discovers that he

1:21
has the power deep within
himself to change

1:24
that illusory world, and
even the real world.

1:29
This idea that the
world is bad, that

1:32
the world is a prison
and an illusion,

1:34
and behind it is a truth that
is higher and better

1:38
where we are almost gods
who have control over

1:41
ourselves and control over
our lives and control

1:44
over our bodies and who we
are is not a new one.

1:47
It goes back almost to the
birth of Christianity.

1:50
There were a number of sects
back in the early

1:53
centuries A.D. that believed
in something

1:56
called Gnosticism and in
the idea of gnosis.

2:03
Gnosis is knowledge - but
it's a special kind

2:05
of knowledge. It's a knowledge
that comes from

2:08
looking deep within to learn
who we really are,

2:11
and from that to learn what
the world really is.

2:15
And the particular knowledge
that it reveals

2:18
is that we are gods, or
we have parts of god,

2:21
shards of gods in our hearts.
And that the world

2:24
that we see around us is
an illusion - but beyond

2:28
that is a world where we
are eternal. That's what

2:32
the Gnostics believed. That's
what Christianity

2:36
declared a heresy and wiped
out and destroyed

2:40
most of their books. The
contrast is evident.

2:45
Here's Genesis: "And God
said, Let the waters

2:48
under the heaven be gathered
together unto one

2:52
place, and let the dry
land appear: and it

2:55
was so. And God called
the dry land Earth;

2:59
and the gathering together
of the waters

3:02
called he Seas: and God
saw that it was good."

3:07
In the Bible, God is good.
God creates the world,

3:11
and the world is good. According
to the Gnostics,

3:16
God is good for God is the
entire universe and

3:20
we are part of God - but
the Creator is bad.

3:24
The Creator took our fragments
of divinity and

3:27
imprisoned them in our
fleshy bodies and in

3:30
the material world, and
then he hid from us the

3:33
knowledge that we are part
of something greater.

3:37
And so it's gnosis that allows
us to escape from that prison.

3:42
The Catholic philosopher Augusto
Del Noce, drawing

3:46
on another Christian
philosopher, Eric Voegelin,

3:50
suggests that this idea
of gnosis has persisted

3:54
into the modern era -
in fact that atheist

3:57
and secular philosophy
inevitably tends

4:00
towards a kind of gnosis.
Whether we're

4:03
talking about Marxists,
socialists, progressives

4:06
or even Nazis, they share
something with these

4:09
ancient Gnostics. Now of
course secular people

4:13
don't believe in a metaphysical
spiritual world,

4:18
so this idea of gnosis
and this idea of

4:20
transcending the flawed
reality that we live in

4:24
has to be transferred from
the spiritual realm to

4:28
the material realm. Instead
of living in an evil

4:31
material world, they believe
we live in an evil

4:35
period in history. And to
transcend that we have

4:40
to transition into a future
period when there's

4:43
a Utopian society, a better
world - as the left

4:46
often says, A better world
is possible. And to do

4:50
that means we essentially
become self-creating.

4:54
Another expression I've
heard among the left

4:57
is the idea that the purpose
of socialism is

5:00
to take human control of
history. And you can

5:03
see this in Marx. What
Del Noce says is the

5:07
reason that Marx rejects
god is not because of

5:09
evidence or lack of evidence
of God's existence,

5:13
but because Marx believes
that god must

5:15
not exist in order for
humanity to be free.

5:19
Here's Marx: "A being
regards itself as

5:22
independent only when it
stands on its own feet;

5:26
and it stands on its
feet only when

5:28
it owes its existence
to itself alone.

5:31
A man who lives by the
grace of another

5:33
considers himself a
dependent being.

5:36
But I live by the grace
of another completely

5:39
if I owe him not only the
maintenance of my life

5:42
but also its creation: if
he is the source of my life;

5:46
and my life necessarily
has such a cause

5:49
outside itself if it is
not my own creation."

5:54
Marx wants us to be free; to be
free we must be self-creating.

5:59
If we are self-creating,
there cannot be a God

6:02
who has created us. And
so there can't be God.

6:06
So just as with the ancient
Gnostics, Marx

6:09
has rejected the creator
and he has rejected

6:12
the current reality in
favor of a superior

6:15
reality that humanity can
create for ourselves.

6:20
For Del Noce, a Christian,
the biggest problem

6:22
with this is that it rejects
the "order of being."

6:26
This is a term he
uses to refer to

6:29
an eternal hierarchy
of existence

6:32
with God at the top,
nature at the

6:34
bottom, and humanity
in the middle.

6:38
In other words, there is
a structure to reality

6:41
that is unchanging. In
fact Del Noce says

6:44
it is so stable that God
himself cannot change

6:48
the order of being. Del Noce
has a second concern,

6:53
which is in order to
achieve that future

6:55
Utopia we have to destroy
the world as it is.

6:59
Because that Utopia is
so different from what

7:02
exists today, and if that
Utopia is so good,

7:06
if countless future generations
will benefit from

7:09
it, from transitioning from
here to there through

7:13
some kind of revolution,
then anything that helps

7:17
that revolution happen must
be good. Which means

7:21
there can be no universal
values. We

7:24
might think that lying,
murder, cruelty,

7:28
prejudice are wrong - but
if those things can be

7:32
used to achieve the revolution,
they become good.

7:36
And Del Noce quotes Lenin
and others to that

7:39
effect. But then if we
achieve the revolution

7:43
and we come out the other
side, and we have

7:45
destroyed all the universal
values as part of the

7:48
the flawed society that
used to exist, how can

7:52
we then have universal values
again? We've denied

7:56
them. The only thing that
is left, Del Noce says,

8:00
at that point is power and
inevitably oppression.

8:06
There's another conflict
between this and the Bible.

8:09
When Adam and Eve eat
the fruit of the tree

8:12
of knowledge they are expelled
from the garden

8:14
of Eden. In other words,
the Bible suggests that

8:18
knowledge, particularly
knowledge of evil, is bad.

8:23
And it says it again in
Ecclesiastes. Here we are:

8:27
"The thing that hath been,
it is that which shall

8:31
be; and that which is done
is that which shall

8:34
be done: and there's no new
thing under the sun.

8:38
For in much wisdom is
much grief: and he

8:41
that increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow."

8:47
In other words, knowledge
can actually make

8:49
us miserable. And the fact
is we can't change

8:52
anything because there is
no new thing under the

8:55
sun. Human existence is
cyclical, not progressive.

9:00
Things happen again and
again in the future as

9:02
they have happened in the
past, and attempting to

9:05
change that is futile. This
isn't just a Christian

9:09
idea. Here's the Chinese Tao,
the Le Guin version:

9:16
"The more experts a country
has, the more of a

9:18
mess it's in. The more ingenious
the skillful are,

9:21
the more monstrous their
inventions. People get

9:24
hard to manage when they
know too much. Whoever

9:27
rules by intellect is a
curse upon the land.

9:30
Whoever rules by ignorance
is a blessing on it."

9:35
The Tao - "the way" - is like
a flow in the world,

9:38
something that we can't
change - or if we can

9:41
change it's only by struggling
really really hard.

9:44
But if we actually want
to be effective, we're

9:46
better off flowing with
it instead of fighting

9:49
existence, instead of fighting
reality, we need

9:52
to find a way to accept and
go along. And this is

9:55
the wisdom message in both
the Bible and the Tao.

10:01
So we're left with a dilemma.
On the one hand,

10:04
we can see the injustice
in the world. We can

10:07
see that many of the things
on the surface are but

10:10
myths or narratives that
conceal those injustices

10:12
from us. But this knowledge
does not make us

10:15
happy, and it may not give
us the power to change

10:18
things. And if we do change
things we may find

10:22
that oppression reappears
just as it was before.

10:27
I will end with an excerpt
from a short

10:30
story titled "Foundation"
by China Miéville.

10:34
It's about a man called
a house whisperer

10:36
who's able to go to any
house, any building,

10:40
and discover whether
it's safe or whether

10:42
it might fall down and
needs to be fixed.

10:45
But the way he can
do this is because

10:47
he hears the voices
from the bodies

10:50
and the skeletons underneath
the floor. Here's a

10:54
passage from the story: "He
sees the foundation.

10:58
He sees through the concrete
floor and the earth

11:01
to where girders are embedded
and past them to the

11:04
foundation. A stock of dead
men. An underpinning,

11:08
a structure of entangled
bodies and their parts,

11:12
pushed tight, packed
together and become

11:15
architecture, their bones
broken to make them fit,

11:18
wedged in contorted repose,
burnt skins and the

11:20
tatters of their clothes
pressed as if against

11:23
glass at the limits of their
cut, running below

11:26
the building's walls, six
feet deep below the

11:28
ground, a perfect runnel
full of humans poured

11:32
like concrete and bracing
the stays and the walls.

11:36
The foundation looks at him
with all its eyes and

11:40
the men speak in time."
So the house whisperer

11:44
can see the crime, he can
see that the world

11:48
that he lives in - the
entire city - is built

11:51
on the bodies of other people.
I think this is

11:54
clearly a metaphor for the
world that we live in.

11:59
Every regime, every wealth,
every law has

12:03
behind it a history of
injustice, a pain

12:07
of suffering, of violence.
It's a universal

12:12
truth, and so whatever
privileges,

12:15
whatever happiness we
have today in some

12:18
part at least is dependent
on that past

12:21
injustice. But the house
whisperer in the story is

12:25
unable to change this. It
all happened long ago,

12:29
and what he suffers from
is the voices of the

12:31
dead man which he cannot
keep out of his head.

12:34
And when he tries, by
making a sacrifice,

12:37
it does nothing, only
add to the dead.

12:41
Is that a gift that
anybody would

12:43
want? To hear the voices
of the dead?

12:46
I think not. And yet, if
we were to improve the

12:49
world and solve the problems
and the injustices,

12:53
don't we have to know about
them? I don't know

12:55
the solution to this dilemma.
I don't know the

12:58
extent to which gnosis
is worth it. So our

13:01
world of the Matrix is
a world where we can,

13:06
as in that story, learn
the truth and we can

13:09
to an extent as in that
story be self-creating.

13:13
And it's actually intriguing
that the the

13:15
creators of those movies,
the Wachowskis,

13:18
are both trans, which in a sense
is a kind of self-creation.

13:23
The knowledge, the gnosis,
may reveal the crimes,

13:26
but does it give us the
power to overcome them?

13:30
The third matrix movie
does not overcome the

13:33
injustice. What it does
do is achieve peace.

13:39
This is Alphonse for Radio
Free Beszel. www.beszel.ca.

13:47
Good night.