Blog 8: Thematic Connections

Brain Stroming
-They were all articles and movies to make you think outside the box

-They were all articles and movies to make you  realize everything you were told was a lie

-They all make you ask questions and keep your mind thinking

-You can’t out run a pre-determined destiny

-They were all stories displaying the awakening of a person


              Throughout the semester we have read novels and watched movies about realizing everything you were told was a lie. In the Matrix, Neo was taken out of an illusion world and was told the truth about reality. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus was lied to when he was looking for the ex king's killer; He was later told the truth, that he was the killer and was being lied to the whole time. In Gattaca, Anton Vincent Freeman was told he wouldn't life a long life and would never be able to full-fill his dreams of going into space. Once he realized it was a lie, he dedicated himself to his dream and made it into a reality, plus he out lived his parents. In the Allegory of the Cave, the people were mislead to believe it was better inside the cave than outside of it. Once one person questioned the lie, he or she saw the outside of the cave was much better than inside. In the Minority Report, Captain John Anderton was told the system never failed, but if he had not been informed about the future murder he would commit, it would have never happened. If you apply all these movies to reality you'll realize you have been lied to throughout your life. For example, the tradition of Thanksgiving, we're told a nice little story about the native americans eating with the pilgrims but we are not told the truth. The English and Dutch settlers actually killed 700 native americans on the day we celebrate the holiday. I've learned to question everything I am told and to search for the truth. Many people try to mislead you and your mind but you must realize, you must search for the truth yourself. These stories and movies have taught me that the truth might not always be nice and sweet, reality is almost always ugly. The truth is very important and without it society will be sitting in a cave swallowing a blue pill.

In Class Essay

     The Matrix and Plato's excerpt " The Allegory of The Cave," both try to explain the process of giving up illusions and embracing truth. I believe The Matrix was more accurate and realistic. Neo was given a choice to know the truth or to keep living the life he was used to. Also, the truth is ugly and lies are comfortable. There was even a person who wanted to go back to living an illusion, just like in real life. "The Allegory of The Cave," was good at trying to explain the process of giving up illusions but The Matrix did a better job.    
     First, Neo was given a choice to know the truth or to keep living the life he was used to. The red and blue pills symbolized the options he had on the table. In life, all we have is options but it's up to you to decide which ones you want to embrace. Some people choose to live in a bubble and remain ignorant. For example, when you start to talk to a religious person about evolution, they simply take the blue pill and go on with their life in their illusion. Neo took the red pill and wanted to know the truth. Morpheus gave him the option to know or not to know and in real life, that is how it usually happens. In "The Allegory of The Cave," the person had noone to give him a choice, but in reality you always need help. It could be help from a teacher, videos, ect. You don't just get a light bulb and realize the truth, you must have sources and choices.
     Second, in process of giving up illusions, the truth is ugly and the lies are comfortable. In "The Allegory of The Cave," the world outside of the cave is better but in reality that is rarely the case. On the other hand in The Matrix, the real world was a dystopian world. People always want to believe the illusion to remain comfortable. Noone wants to hear about people starving around the world, so they don't even think about it and ignore reality. I remember I was trying to explain to my friend that wars are fought just to make profit. He didn't want to believe the truth and wanted to believe the illusion given to him by the news. He thinks wars are to protect the people but it really just is for oil, selling weapons, power, and most important money. The truth is unpleasant and when you leave the cave it won't show you a wonderful world, it really just is a dystopia.
     Third, there is always people who want to go back to living the illusion after learning the truth. In The Matrix it was a man named Cipher. He was tired of knowing the truth and was willing to do whatever to go back to the illusion. Neo also felt he wanted to go back to his illusion after he was overwhelmed by the truth. People usually have a hard time accepting the truth. My friend went to Japan to help the people rebuild but when he saw so many dead people he ran right back to the U.S. He saw the truth with his eyes and it hurt him so much he ran back to his illusion of a perfect life in the U.S. People are sometimes weak and not strong enough to face reality. In "The Allegory of The Cave," the person only was hurt for a while and overcame it, but in real life some people run right back to the cave forever to avoid anything that hurts them. Another example, a person who doesn't believe in God starts to believe the illusion when a family member dies because they turn weak from the hurt. They rather believe they'll see the person in heaven than to accept that they'll never see eachother again, it's because lies are comfortable and the truth is very ugly.
     The process of giving up illusions and embracing the truth is a very complex one. I believe The Matrix did a better job than Plato's excerpt "The Allegory of The Cave," in trying to explain this process. Neo was given a choice to know or not to know. Neo entered an ugly reality when he found out the truth, because the truth is ugly and lies are comfortable. In The Matrix, there were people who wanted to go back to living an illusion. The Matrix was more accurate on the process humans go through to leave a lie and to embrace the truth.

                                                          Sincerely, Kevin Cortes

Blog 5: The “Other” and Gattaca

In the essay “The Man on the Moon” George J. Annas writes that “The new ideal human, the genetically engineered ‘superior’ human, will almost certainly come to represent ‘the other.’ If history is a guide, either the normal humans will view the ‘better’ humans as the other and seek to control or destroy them, or vice versa” (236). I believe George J. Annas is right but it seems the 'superior' human always tries to control and/or destroy normal humans. Throughout history the "superior" human has oppressed the normal humans. When Hitler and his people saw themselves 'superior' to the jewish, gay, and colored people the nazis' killed most of them. When the Spanish, Dutch, and British saw themselves 'superior' to the Africans they enslaved many African people and took control of their lifes. Even today the people with large amounts of money believe they are 'superior' to the normal people that have low amounts of money. They control us with their make believe currencies and destroy the normal humans in many ways. For example the rich people can afford healthcare and the normal humans can't even see a doctor and are left to die. The 'superior' humans have complete control of the normal humans and they try to destroy us daily. I know this because as a normal human I have turned the 'superior' humans into the "other". I am being controled everyday by the 'superior' and constantly in threat of being destroyed. When I wake up and turn on the news, they try to brainwash you with their ideology and of course it's the 'superior' human's ideology being spread out because they are the ones who own the news channels. In present time the 'superior' human doesn't control you or destroy you physically it's more mentally. A German poet named Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe once said " none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free". In Gattaca the 'superior' humans were attacking the normal humans when they were looking for Vincent. The 'superior' humans controled the minds of the normal humans because all their life they were told they weren't good enough and the normal humans ended up believing it. Another historic example is when the conquistadors came in contact with the Native Americans. The conquistadors thought they were 'superior' humans and saw the Native Americans as the normal humans. To make a long story short the conquistadors killed, raped, and enslaved the Native Americans. In Gattaca Jerome was born a 'superior' human but becasue he lost the ability to walk he became a normal human, he couldn't deal with the change so he killed himself. In a way the 'superior' human ideology killed him because it controled his mind and he thought his life wasn't worth living because he wasn't a 'superior' human anymore. In the past there have been groups of people who think they are 'superior' to another group of people. For example the KKK thinks they are 'superior' to black, gay, hispanic, and jewish people so they go and kill people in those groups. My point is when a group of people consider themselves 'superior' to another group of humans they usually destroy them or/and control them.

Blog 4: Ignorance, Bliss, and Knowledge in Oedipus the King and The Matrix.

Many people think ignorance is bliss and knowing the truth is unpleasant. Somtimes finding out new knowledge effects your previous ideals. In the beginning of The Matrix Neo wasn't living the best life and was just working and working, like the rest of world, just to survive. It's not the best way to live life but as soon as he was told the reality of life, he wanted to go right back to that life style. He rather live in lies than to face the ugly reality. At first, in his mind, remaining ignorant of the truth was easier than to except the harsh truth of the world he actually lived in. People are usually afraid of new things and want to stay in the same mind stand they've always been in. People are quick to reject the new knowledge they obtain. In Oedipus The King, Oedipus is looking for the people responsible for the murder of the previous King. When Teiresias told Oedipus

TEIRESIAS

Blog 3: The Matrix: Utopia, Dystopia, and Realities

In class we have been comparing The Matrix and a writing by Plato called "The Allegory of The Cave". Both of them were a  metaphor for leaving an illusion and entering reality. In my opinion I think The Matrix was more accurate to the feelings humans go through when they leave an illusion. When people are told the truth you don't know how they are going to take it, so you give them a choice. You give them the choice to hear it or not and in The Matrix it was the blue pill and the red pill. Once they accept to hear it, they usually try to ignore the reality of the truth and want to go back to their illusion. In The Matrix, Neo didn't want to believe the truth and wanted to go back to the Life he was used to. Morpheus told him, he was going to show him the truth but he didn't say the truth was going to be any better. In The Allegory of The Cave, the person's eyes hurt because of the truth but in reality it hurts your brain. Your mind has a way of tricking you like if you're hungry then you eat somthing, you think your full but in reality you haven't even digested the food. Your brain is the one that is effected by the truth not your eyes. People don't want to know the truth because the truth is ugly and the illusion is comfortable. Thats why Neo was so eager to go back to the lie, his mind was so overwhelmed by the truth, so much that he passed out. Through out history the same thing has happened over and over. There was once a time when the illusion of religion ruled the world and if you didn't believe, they would simply kill you. That's a great example because people were so afraid of the truth, that they ended up doing anything to keep their illusion alive. Some people think ignorance is bliss, so they do everything possible to stay ignorant. In The Matrix a man named Cipher was tired of living in reality, so he wanted to go back to the illusion he once lived in. He made a deal with Agent Smith to betray the people living in reality, just so he could go back to living a lie. People somtimes can't except the truth, so when they know the truth, they want to try to forget about it like in Cipher's case. I remember when a friend of mine found out Santa wasn't real, she didn't want to believe the reality that he didn't exist, but until this day she leaves cookies and milk for Santa.She decided to ignore the reality and keep living in her illusion. The Matrix was more accurate because instead of  sending a threat to the ones who teach the truth like in The Allegory of The Cave, there was actually someone who acted on the treat. In life people usually don't send a threat to the ones who teach the truth, usually they just act on it. I remember in Colombia's past there lived a man named Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala and he wanted to become president to help people in need. Once he started to speak the truth about the unbalance between poor and rich, he was murdered. Once the rich started to feel uncomfortable about the reality of rich and poor, they just killed the person spreading the truth. The Matrix was more accurate because humans were used as batteries and in The Allegory of The Cave they were just slaves in a cave. In reality slaves aren't placed in a cave, they are put to work. It's more accurate because in this Capitalistic System we live in, were just like batteries. We're made to work and we're not left with time to think. The process of giving up the illusion and embracing the truth is slowed down and takes longer to realize like it took Neo time to get used to the truth. In conclusion The Matrix was more accurate to the process of giving up an illusion and excepting the truth because it is a choice if you want to know or not, people tend to want to go back to the illusion, it's your brain that has to go through the change, and the process of embracing the truth takes a long amount of time.

Blog 2: The Allegory Of The Cave Through History

  Throughout history people have lived in illusions. One illusion I am interested in, is the illusion of ancient cultures that the world is flat. Ancient cultures including Greece, India, China, and Egypt; thought the land was like a flat disk floating in the ocean. They thought if you went too far you would fall off the Earth. Even some of the brightest philosophers of those times thought the world was flat.  Philosophers like Democritus, Anaximander, and Anaximenes of Miletus just to name a few. Everyone just excepted it as a fact and didnt question it. Years later a man named Pythagoras was recognized in the 6th cenury BC for discovering that the earth was actually a sphere. That is half-way true because nowadays we know the Earth is a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole with a bulge around the equator. He was on the right path though, that basically opened up people's minds. In later years Christopher Columbus wanted to go to India for precious spices. He wanted to sail from Spain and land on India but people thought he was going to fall off the Earth if he tried that, but it is said that ancient sailors already knew the world was round. He ended up sailing from spain and he thought he landed on India but he really landed on Caribbean Islands. A couple of years after that a man named Ferdinand Magellan would try to be the first person to sail around the world. He almost circled around the world but he died close to the end of his voyage, but the survivors finished the voyage. After a voyage circled around the world the theory of a flat world was a thing of the past. If the people of the past wouldn't have ask questions, we would still think the world was flat. The only sad part is the amount of deaths it took to prove the world isn't flat, also the deaths of the people who were killed when their lands were "found".

Blog 2: The Allegory Of The Cave

  The Allegory Of The Cave is an excerpt from The Republic. It starts by Socrates telling Glaucon about enslaved human beings living in a underground den. These slaves are chained and can't move, they only see a fire in the distance. Between the slaves and the fire is a wall and over there is where they show the puppets. The slaves can only see their shadows and the shadows of other slaves. In this prison they can hear eachother with echos. A slave is released and he goes toward the light and it hurts his eyes. He is told that everything he saw before was an illusion. Now he is closer to having a clearer vision. If he looks into the light his eyes will be dazzled and he won't be able to see what he calls realities. He will have to get used to the sight of the upper world. He will start to see the sky and see the stars. He'll see the sun in his own proper place. He'll start to argue that the sun gives the seasons and years. Then he remembered his old habitation and remember the wisdom of his fellow prisoners and pity their wisdom. He would rather suffer than to live in false notions. After he has been in the sun, would he have darkness in his eyes when he goes back into the cave? Many of the slaves would think he left the cave and lost his eyes due to the sun. So if anyone in the cave tries to help another escape they will be put to death. In conclusion Socrates explains to Glaucon that the cave is the world of sight, the light is the fire, and the journey to leave the cave is to go into the intellectual world. Seeing takes an effort.