What I find most compelling in the Matrix films is the deep connection between the fiction and the world we inhabit. Filmmaker Lana Wachowski has indicated the red pill represented the medication used in the process of gender transition, which is one possible interpretation. Great art often contains several layers of meaning, but alternative perspectives are not all created equal. Trying to hijack these films to use as right-wing propaganda is abhorrent, but let’s not feed oxygen to that dumpster fire. The Matrix could also be identified with the forces of capitalism but people are oppressed in other economic systems too.

When I began, many years ago, to try to dig to the foundations of what is wrong with the world, I learned about things like corruption, regulatory capture and Manufacturing Consent. Then I read a mind-blowing 2014 study by Gilens & Page which demonstrated that the only demographic group in the U.S. who get the policies they vote for are the wealthy. The U.S. is not a republic – not a “representative democracy” – in anything but name. The U.S. is an oligarchy. The few who rule are very rich, but if a majority of rich people tried to steer the country to the left to avoid impending pitchforks, they would likely fail.

The Matrix is real and it is constructed of lies. 

The lies begin in early childhood. The tooth fairy myth conditions children to go along with a false narrative, if they know what’s good for them, or the money won’t appear under the pillow. Many adult Christians still pray to God like he’s Santa Claus on steroids.   

The really Big Lie foundational to so many others is that average people have the collective power to change the world by voting. There was a brief shining moment between the Summer of Love and the infamous Powell Memo when it seemed possible, and millions clung to that shimmering narrative because it felt good, but it was just a mirage in the desert, an illusion forever beyond our reach. Those who are well off find it easy to believe that “representative democracy” is real because they generally get what they vote for, but they are blind to the hard fact that 90% of us do not.

There are many binary categories used to divide and rule us. Increasing polarization only serves the machines and should be guarded against. There are many Big Lies that need to be recognized as such and transformed into new truths:

“Freedom”

“Democracy”

“The American Dream”

“Work hard and you’ll get ahead”

“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”

In our world, every vote you cast supports the illusion. Every vote supports The Matrix of Lies. Every vote represents more power and wealth extracted by a handful of greedy multi-billionaires to be used against everyone outside their circle. If you find this statement very uncomfortable, you know what cognitive dissonance feels like. We desperately want this to not be true. I now recognize this discomfort as a weapon wielded against us. Our cognitive dissonance keeps us stuck in The Matrix. Fear of pain keeps us stuck; and fear of the chaos we’ve been told will certainly emerge if we fail to comply.

Many of us would like to nuke the entire political & socioeconomic system and some even think it necessary, but we could rise above The Matrix instead. If you wait until the corporate media gives you permission to do so, you will be forever at the mercy of sentient beings who really don’t care if their insatiable greed and lust for power hurts or kills you and the people you love. Many of us, faced with the dawning of this painful truth, just take the blue pill and I cannot fault them for it. None of us want to acknowledge that we are all unwitting agents of The Matrix or that our compliance supports it and empowers it.

I don’t know how all this will end. I’m not going to fly off and save the world, but I can take one step at a time and try to move in the direction of truth. I like to think this is what happens after the movie ends.

Edit: I wrote this before I learned about #MassFormation, which is perhaps a more accurate description for what is happening than #CognitiveDissonance.