Binx doesn't like that. Discontent with the world he sees, he searches for something, though he knows not for what he searches. This search is the plot of Walker Percy's Moviegoer, a 1960 novel that is not unlike the Wachowski brothers' Matrix, a 1999 action film. From a strict sci-fi perspective, The Matrix is a pretty cool movie, but underneath its action-packed exterior is a world of philosophical depth.
Like Binx Bolling, Thomas Anderson (Neo) is an upright, respectable citizen. He has a Social Security number, pays his taxes and helps the landlady take out her garbage, and like Binx, he comes to think the world is a lie. He too is searching for something, and this prompts the question: "What is the Matrix?" Neo goes to the sage Morpheus, who tells him:
The Matrix is a system, Neo. The system is our enemy... You can see it when you look out your window or turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.Morpheus holds out his hands. One contains a blue pill, and the other, a red. He makes Neo choose.
You take the blue pill- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill- you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering you is the truth.
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| "The Matrix is a system..." |
Binx believes that 98% of Americans have taken "the blue pill." Going against fashionable opinion, he questions. He searches. He takes "the red pill." He says,
What is the nature of the search...? The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life... To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.While the worlds around them sink into blandness and despair, Binx and Neo question, which, according to Heidegger, is to be willing to know, and "to know" is not the accumulation of facts but to be willing to learn what knowledge he does not possess. He who thinks he knows does not "know," and he who does not know is far closer to "knowing" than he thinks.
This perpetual uncertainty about the establishments, systems and institutions that make up society is the very essence of postmodernism.
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| What do you choose? |
What's funny is that the makers of these works would say I've taken the "blue pill" because I'm a dogmatic Christian who believes the Bible. I'm one of "the 98%" in their view, a mindless sheep who accepts what he's told. Of course, things have changed.
ReplyDeleteNow postmodernism is "the 98%." Historic Christianity is the minority view, and one only reaches it by having faith in Christ (and faith in Christ requires that you question postmodernism). Right now, Christianity is the "red pill."
Also, my Uncle Bob looks like Agent Smith, but his last name is Anderson.
Ooohhh... this is a good analogy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what I really like is your comment on how postmodernism has become the blindly accepted reality. We are all brought up on the ideals of post-modernism, so much so that they are the lens through which the majority of our population views the world around us.
However, as far as Christianity right now being the "red pill." I do agree with you, yet I would also caution that there is a 98% of "mindless sheep" in Christianity as well. Christianity is the "blue pill" to some. They accept a surface level faith according to what others around them are doing. To them Christianity is simply the acts of going on mission trips to Uganda, reading a daily devotional, and wearing shirts that raise awareness for poverty. Whenever Christianity is reduced to an outward act which does not involve The Search, it too can loose its grandeur in the malaise.
>>To them Christianity is simply the acts of going on mission trips to Uganda, reading a daily devotional, and wearing shirts that raise awareness for poverty.
DeleteYou're right. It's sad is when people think Christianity is just what we do. I agree with what you say, though strictly speaking, it not about our search. It's about a Person: who he is and what he has done.
Leonard Ravenhill said: "Christianity is Christ plus nothing." The person and finished work of Jesus Christ, the Word of God who was God and who was in the beginning with God: without this, there is no Christianity. A Christless Christianity is no Christianity at all.