Matt claims that the "Alice" and "Wizard of Oz" references in the Matrix make no sense -- and only have the effect of producing a feeling of disorientation -- b/c in fact Neo is going out of the fantasy world into the "real" world.

I wonder about Matt's claim that the "Alice" and "Wizard of Oz" references in the Matrix make no sense (and are there only to produce a feeling of "cool" disorientation).  It is true that both of the allusions refer to a move away from the "real" world into a "fantasy" world; but in both cases that move reveals something about the "real" world.  The point of the move into fantasy, in other words, is to effect a shift in perception regarding what was up to that point considered reality.

The Matrix does seem superficially to invert this, but as I take it the point is supposed to be the same.  The "fantasy" world (the world of paradox) that Neo enters is not the dark and dreary world of the future, but the matrix world after having seen that it is an illusion.  The move out of Kansas and the real world is a "double move": out and back in.  Kansas "goes by by," in other words, only after Neo goes back into the Matrix and realizes that what he held to be self-evident there is illusory.

Insofar as the Matrix is supposed to be commenting on reality (i.e. doing philosophy), it is commenting on "our" reality, a reality in which we think ourselves to be free but are really automatons, enslaved to "the machine." If that is true, then the key to a philosophical critique of the Matrix is to ask: what is this "double shift" (out of the Matrix and then back in) supposed to tell us about "our reality"?  I think that there are two basic messages, and the first is a fairly standard philosophical point (both metaphysical and social/political) that is worth repeating; the second (ethical) thesis, as others have pointed out on the list, is deeply problematic.


    (Good) Matrix thesis #1: what we take to be real and ultimate is a
    product of institutions and technologies, and we need to be wary and
    critical of appeals to self evidence, b/c they may lead to or be
    predicated upon unjust practices; we should strive to challenge
    unjust practices wherever we find them in the pursuit of a genuine
    and not merely spurious freedom

    (Problematic) Matrix thesis #2 (illustrated most directly by "lady
    in red" and building shoot out scene): once we know this, we need to
    be deeply suspicious of others who don't, because even though they
    may not have explicit designs against the cause of "freedom," they
    CAN unwittingly be pawns in the hands of the adversary (the
    "system"); to the extent that they are duped by the system, and are
    unable or unwilling to be converted, they are expendable in the
    pursuit of freedom.

Nate


--
Nathan Andersen
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Collegium of Letters
Eckerd College
4200 54th Ave. S.             Phone: (727) 864-7551
St. Petersburg, FL 33712      Fax:   (727) 864-8354
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