****************************************************** * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * ****************************************************** The Matrix, Human Batteries and the Symbolic Order By Richard A. Koenigsberg The Matrix, Slavoj Zizek concludes in his analysis of the 1999 film <http://www.lacan.com/zizekloaded.htm> , represents the "big Other;" the virtual symbolic order that structures reality for us. The central image of the movie is that of millions of human beings leading a claustrophobic life in water-filled cradles. Each human being is a fetus-like organism immersed in pre-natal fluid, kept alive in order to generate electricity for The Matrix. Beneath the delusion of vibrant existence lays the reality of utter passivity. The human being is connected to The Matrix by what amounts to an umbilical cord. The Matrix feeds human beings with illusions, but it is human energy that feeds the matrix. Zizek suggests that human beings are the "ultimate instruments of the Other's (Matrix's) jouissance." The film depicts human-beings as batteries whose purpose is to sustain the matrix. As the matrix or symbolic order provides us with the illusion of reality, so does it suck our life-substance. The Matrix requires a "constant influx of jouissance of those who constitute it." _____ JUST RELEASED (2008) FROM INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING: THE FANTASY OF ONENESS AND THE STRUGGLE TO SEPARATE: TOWARDS A PSYCHOLOGY OF CULTURE* Richard A. Koenigsberg PLEASE ASK YOUR LIBRARY TO ORDER A COPY ISBN: 978-1593118587 The Fantasy of Oneness and the Struggle to Separate <http://www.ideologiesofwar.com/gfx/oneness.jpg> * Previously published as SYMBIOSIS AND SEPARATION. INDIVIDUALS: Please email [log in to unmask] for information on how you can order your own, personal copy. _____ Based on my research on warfare <http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/online_pubs.htm> , I posit similar dynamic linking human beings to the maintenance of the symbolic order. This relationship is conveyed aphoristically in the title of my online publication, <http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/as_the_soldier.htm> "As the Soldier Dies, so Does the Nation Come Alive." I suggest that the soldiers in war--like human beings (batteries) in The Matrix provide energy that renews the symbolic order. The body and blood of the soldier--sacrificial victim in warfare--feeds into and regenerates the body politic. Roger Griffin concludes <http://www.ideologiesofwar.com/docs/griffin_sacrifice.html> that the First World War can best be understand as a collective act of redemptive self-sacrifice--"transcendent meaning produced by the relentless flow of blood." An analysis of the published letters of French soldiers by John Horne <http://www.amazon.com/Authority-Identity-Social-History-Great/dp/1571810676 /ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199894074&sr=8-1> delineates this relationship between blood sacrifice and national regeneration. One French soldier--looking at the warriors that had fallen around him--wondered whether the "gift of their blood" was not the "supernatural source of the renewal of life which must be given to our country." This metaphor conveys the idea of death in battle as a transfusion--the moment at which blood contained within the body of the soldier passes or flows into the body politic, acting to energize the latter and keep it alive. My monograph The Fantasy of Oneness and the Struggle to Separate (2008) theorizes that human beings exist in a symbiotic tie to their societies. We identify deeply with and imagine that our egos are fused with our nation. We live within the symbolic order as if fish within an ocean, scarcely distinguishing ourselves from the matrix in which we are immersed. When we turn on the television or read newspapers, it is as if we are plugging into The Matrix: connecting to images of gratification or enjoyment as if by an umbilical cord. We feel symbiotically connected to the mass-media, which offers us an omnipotent fantasy of "national life" that citizens share in common. It is the symbiotic tie between human beings and society that the film The Matrix conveys. We are bound in a condition of abject passivity to the symbolic order, yet entirely unconscious of the fact that we live in such a condition. Our relationship to the world is that of someone dreaming while imagining he or she is awake. The mass-media is The Matrix: a magical world with which human beings imagine they are united; an umbilical cord that seems to provide endless gratification. What the film suggests is that as the mass-media feeds us, so do we feed it. We are like batteries from which society draws its energy. We feed the fantasy. As Zizek puts it, The Matrix runs off jouissance that it drains from deluded subjects. ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML * * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all * * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: * * [log in to unmask] * * * * Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new * * CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com * * an international directory of anthropology researchers * ***************************************************************