My Take | Russell Brand, Plato, The Matrix and the illusion of enlightenment
- The famous allegory of the cave is really about the impossibility of escape, and there is no red pill, only the blue one
Someone sent me a clip of comedian and pundit Russell Brand’s highly popular podcast yesterday and it made me think.
He was referencing The Matrix, the first of the film franchise, in his introduction. “Hello there, you 6 million awakening wonders for joining me … Like you, I want to be free as an individual. I don’t want to be told what to do. I want to make up my own mind, to live a moral, ethical and spiritual life, not hurting others, and of use to others wherever possible, and not having my energy and time on this earth turned into little blobs of batteries that the centralised system can suck up, monitor my reaction and transaction and guiding them when necessary.”
A worthy goal? Don’t trust the system. Think for yourself. Think critically. Well, who can argue with that? But how do you escape the system? Can you ever get out?
In the cult sci-fi film, people are stored in bioengineered cocoons their entire life as batteries to generate energy to run a centralised system called the Matrix. To stop them from going insane and self-destruct, the system generates for them an alternative reality that is like a human world so they think they are leading normal lives.
In a crucial scene, the hero is offered the choice of a red or blue pill. The red pill will wake him up and bring him to the real world, the other lets him continue to sleep in blissful ignorance. The hero, of course, takes the red pill.
Brand obviously thinks he has taken the red pill and wants everyone to take after him. With 6 million-plus fans subscribed to his channel, he has a real shot at influencing a massive audience, for better or worse. I used to think education, journalism and life’s purpose itself was to take the red pill. Now, I don’t think there is a red pill. Any pill you end up taking is blue, no matter what colour you think you see. What if Neo, the hero in the film, is just programmed by the system to think he is fighting the system to make his life bearable?