Part of the trouble in taking the red pill is that regardless of what it means, it puts you in the minority. You no longer have the shared mental experience of most of the population. The only people you can potentially fully connect with are those who also took the red pill...

So, speaking of the context of your red pill, I grew up in a home without television. I think I saw one Brady Bunch episode at a friend's house (where Marsha's nose is broken by a football). And the difficulty is that I frequently miss cultural references from TV and movies of the 70s and 80s. I can be sitting with a group of people who in a conversation that I'm enjoying, and suddenly, I'm on the outside while everyone laughs at something I didn't know existed.

That said, I really don't regret my TV-less childhood, while Craig deeply resents all the hours he wasted watching Three's a Company reruns. We'll probaby raise Who?Leo(tm) with little, if any TV. But as we do that, I'll know that I'm depriving him of a way (albeit a vapid way) of connecting with other people in our society.

Some Matrix critiques, in the form of comic strips can be found here, here, and here, with I assume more to come in the next few days... (Oh, and here, too, which I almost forgot.)

I too wonder what that Matrix is (the most chilling notion was the thought that we were just harvested and used like batteries). To use another franchises metaphor--I wonder if our culture is "the Borg".

I can't help thinking that Jerry Mander was right in his "In the Absence of the Sacred"; his thesis being that native/aboriginal cultures are the alternative to our money economy and our "borgness" assimilates and wipes them out leaving no alternative. But I remember J.D. was not a fan of that book when he read it and in fact made many combative notes in the margin.

To take this one step further (deep breath) I wonder too if Mander didn't go far enough and include other cultures such as Islam as being "native" cultures with an alternative to ours. Pres. #43s platitudes to the contrary, it does appear that we do have a huge conflict with the radical side of Islam that we have felt the need to take on on their turf.

I'm reading Ondaatje's "Anil's Ghost" and in it an archaeologist who's old, blind, and lives in a hut at the site of an ancient monastery (and is, therefore, incredibly wise) sez, "A monk cannot exist without society. You renounce society, but to do so you must be a part of it, learn your decision from it."
There is no escaping the bounds of our matrix, for even when you take the red pill you merely change your location within it.

I'm not sure that I agree with Joel. I think that it is possible to remove oneself from mainstream society. It's been pointed out in many places that, for example, the Amish exist "outside the matrix". They are "in the world, but not of the world". True, they do exist within a society, but it is a society that is, largely, of their own creation.

It is interesting to note that
Anil's Ghost contains other elements related to this discussion.

Anil is a Sri Lankan expatriate. What is an expatriate if not someone who has chosen to take the red pill, to live outside the matrix of the home culture? One of the central themes of the book is Anil's struggle with self-identity; is she Sri Lankan or is she Canadian? Is she part of the matrix or has she removed herself from it? She returns to Sri Lanka as an outsider, someone who has decided she's not part of the country's culture. She tries to distance herself from her Sri Lankan past, from her past activities (esp. swimming), from her family.

By the end of the novel, though, she's begun to think of herself as Sri Lankan again. This similarity is heightened by the surreal world that Ondaatje paints: Sri Lanka as a dangerous, anarchic place filled with random killings and tribal warfare.

Paul's correct that I wasn't especially fond of In the Absence of the Sacred. I remember agreeing with Mander's premise but dislking the particulars, his examples and his conclusions. I'm several years older now; perhaps I should give the book another chance.

There are other books, many with science fictional elements, that exist as interesting parallels and precursors to The Matrix: Atlas Shrugged, in which a group of people remove themselves from "the matrix", effectively destroying it; Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, the book on which our book group was founded, in which the author attempts to describe "the matrix" and explain what one can do to escape it; Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed, another book in which a group of people removes themselves from "the matrix", though in this case the question is: can they survive outside?, etc.

There's a large body of literature on this subject, including the aforementioned Walden. It is possible to live outside the matrix, or to try, but it is difficult, too difficult for me at this stage in my life.

Lisa points out an example in which she feels a disconnect from her peers. She was raised without television. If we define television as the matrix, she was raised outside of it. She makes a perceptive observation: those who "take the red pill" can only completely relate to others who have done the same. It is possible to remove oneself from various societal structures (or, in the case of the Amish, from most all society), but this comes at a price. Perhaps, to Joel, this is simply moving about within the matrix instead of escaping it completely.

If being “a hypocrite aware of his hypocrisy” is like most addictions, you have taken the first step towards the red pill.
If you really think ‘The Matrix’ is the culture of mass consumption that we live in, are you going to see ‘Reloaded’? If you do, is that not one step closure to the blue pill?

It is entirely possible to live "outside" The Matrix. Just don't expect The Matrix itself to facilitate you in doing this. The whole point of a Matrix is to perpetuate itself and support those who are inside it.

The Amish, by making what amounts to a seperate society, have simply built another Matrix with different basic assumptions. They've exchanged one set of assumptions and structures for another.

Dana has a point. And just as some wish to escape from the matrix of our society, there are those that wish to leave the matrix of the Amish (film trailer).

Hmm. Every metaphor has boundaries of reasonable interpretation, and this one runs into them quickly: Does choosing to not watch TV compel you to undermine the networks before they drag you back to the couch, kicking and screaming?

That said, let's look a little further: the final chapters of Matrix suggest that the Saviour does not merely "live outside" the scheme, but moves though it without the restraints of its rules. So you need not hide from the world of TV, of movies, of corporate multinationals to live a "free" life -- you need only to critically see those structures for what they are and then use them for the benefit of yourself and your fellow humans (whom you are obligated to illuminate/evangelize/save)...

*sigh* I'll stick to engineering. Nice to see you on Sunday, JD. Cheers

Every metaphor has boundaries of reasonable interpretation, and this one runs into them quickly.

Point taken. Still, the joy is in the speculation. I take Milan Kundera's view: life and metaphor are intertwined, and exploring metaphors helps us to better understand our own lives. Our lives may not, as in this case, be a perfect fit with the metaphors which we explore, we may run into "boundaries of reasonable interpretation", but it ought not stop us from exploring them! :)

Let's look a little further: the final chapters of Matrix suggest that the Saviour does not merely "live outside" the scheme, but moves though it without the restraints of its rules. So you need not hide from the world of TV, of movies, of corporate multinationals to live a "free" life -- you need only to critically see those structures for what they are and then use them for the benefit of yourself and your fellow humans (whom you are obligated to illuminate/evangelize/save)...

This, too, is a good point. I'd not taken the time to consider the ramifications of the film's finale in relation to the metaphorical matrix I've erected. There are consequences of living within the matrix without abiding by its rules, moral responsibilities (or are there?), sticky ethical dilemmas. Specifically: how does one live in the matrix, breaking its rules, without becoming tainted. "Power corrupts..." and all that.

See, I think the Simplicity discussion, both here and at MeFi, is suffering from a little bit too much of a black-white (or maybe red-blue) perspective. You can't truly take the red pill and sever yourself from mass American culture, because by being a part of mass American culture at some point in your life, it becomes a part of you. This is what we see in the Amil example: her new experiences make her a Sri Lankan, but somewhere in her are still the experiences of a Canadian.

Likewise, no matter how much TV we watch, there is still some element of personal experience in our lives. Conversely, even if we join the Amish, we will still have memories of the first part of our lives spent in American society. Neither option - living TV or going Amish - is going to be suitable to most of us; we must find a happy medium, which will depend on each individual. There is only the purple pill, though its shade is infinitely variable. I think a great deal of the Simplicity thing (and certainly Thoreau) is about cultivating the realm of personal experience and letting it flourish and take up a life of its own. Part of that is moving away from the idea that massive cultural decisions are either right or wrong for everyone, and instead looking at what those ideas mean to you, and taking what you think you can use. That is the realm of personal experience: when we head down to foldedspace to sit around the campfire and discuss our decisions, then we are cultivating the intrapersonal space. Neither is a bad thing.

Another Simplistic idea (and one not, as far as I know, advocated by Thoreau, since it wasn't a problem at the time) is the shifting of this intrapersonal space. Radio, TV, newspapers, and movies are all (essentially) one-way media, as McCluhan was so fond of noting. Our mainstream is a thing which we have little opportunity to affect with our idiosyncratic personal experience, on a day-to-day basis anyway. I think that the personal realm is cultivated, it is very likely that you'll experience an urge towards more discursive media. If Simplicity fights against big media, this is undoubtably the greatest reason. Maybe this suggests a new line of attack: instead of TV Turn Off Week, perhaps we should focus on things like Buy-Nothing Christmas, and hope that a change in media sources results.

Thoreau's big point was that he was trying to find his own way through life, relying on his own experience to help him in the task instead of the flawed advice of everyone around him. That is the path of the purple pill...

It's probably worth noting that many of these ideas are close to things found in Buddhism. Thoreau's emphasis on experience might have been directly cribbed from the Buddha, who told us to accept none of his teachings which we hadn't realized on our own. Buddhism is also concerned with the reduction of Attachments, which we see in desire to reduce debt (attachment to a financial institution) and reliance on media and technology. It is worth emphasizing, though, that there is nothing to be learned from simplicity unless you actively try it out, even in a small capacity. This, too, is like Buddhism.

Well, that was really long and hopefully semi-coherent. An excellent post, J.D.... Reminds me that I need to add you to my list of links. Later!

You can't truly take the red pill and sever yourself from mass American culture, because by being a part of mass American culture at some point in your life, it becomes a part of you.

Good point. Excellent point.

And I think this something that the other commenters have tried to bring up, but not explicitly.

Another Simplistic idea...is the shifting of this intrapersonal space. Radio, TV, newspapers, and movies are all (essentially) one-way media, as McCluhan was so fond of noting.

And this is, I think, why weblogs are a valuable source of communication. They are narcissistic, yes, but so what? They foster discussion and interaction and, in a way, they're like *traveling*, meeting other people, without leaving your living room. You're able to have conversations with strangers, as you and I are doing now, because the medium is two way, is actually communication. Television isn't communication because it's one-way.

I enjoy these thought-provoking discussions, and appreciate all of you who have commented. These 'deeper' entries are difficult to write, which is why they're so infrequent, but I do like to engage in discussion when possible, and I'm thankful that my readership seems to enjoy this, too.

I've been thinking it would be fun to have a 'weblog group', kind of like a book group, but one in which the participants read, say, a weblog entry per day and then discuss the points raised in the entry. Very meta-, eh? I'm not up to creating such a beast myself right now, but I sure think it would be fun to have: read an ftrain entry or an oblivio entry or an entry from an 'unknown' blogger and then discuss it.

Hm. Now my mind is a-workin'...

I just stumbled on this article about the Amish at How Stuff Works, and thought it might provide some interesting information.

i don`t know if i shall talk really, i`m working on an explanation about the coincidences of the matrix and the "knowledge", forget about publicity manipulation, monopoly control (forgive my english) or subliminal messages, you are asleep, they are talking about the truth, it´s about god and satan, i know it sounds unbelieveble, but i did confirmed it in the matrix reloaded, smith,represents the sin, wich is part of the human EGO, it´s called the "me" several "mees" compose the EGO, smith himself says me, me ,me, it is hard to understand but believe me, i will explain it to you some day, the code?, do you want the code? look for jacob in the matrix, if you find it, you have a good clue, as a plus, the american doesn´t see the value of the VIRGEN DE GUADALUPE from Mexico, however, it apears in the movie, as the same as buddah, and the sacred heart of jesus do, don´t you feel that there is something you don´t know? the bible can be explained too, with logic, but....but...