Deconstructing cinematic and philosophical allegories of The Matrix, this chapter explores the illusion of free will within a systemic prison maintained by human helplessness. Rejecting both conformist sleep and naïve reformism, the text asserts that true liberation requires extra-systemic "madness," an acceptance of catastrophe, and an unhuman commitment to unplugging only the exceptional few who are capable of enduring absolute freedom.
Many claim that man has abused his power and the knowledge he possesses. Such a stance presupposes that the human being has some sort of free will and is thus capable of making choices or decisions. Humans have abused nothing; they have simply, as a species, been trampled by the life force. The liberation and growth of consciousness are possible only as an individual process, through individual effort. The collective can hope only for the further suppression of human cognitive and active powers. Occasionally and temporarily, the collective may enter into a state of infatuation or collective hysteria—some in that frenzy may fall into a trance—and that is essentially all. General trends are always in opposition to the liberating aspirations of individuals and communities. In most cases, human beings possess not free will, but a rudimentary will. If we had free will, nothing would constrain our existence. What we do have, however, is the possibility to forge a will that can be called free. That process is long and painstaking, requiring a lifelong commitment. On the other hand, the will is either free or it does not exist. In truth, we are speaking of a dormant will and an activated will. In this light, a parallel might be drawn between free (active) and un-free (dormant) will.
The existence of free will in man is not a fact, but a highly questionable matter. In that sense, I hold that the majority of human beings possess a dormant will. We are crushed by the life force because we have no control over life; rather, life happens to us. Beings to whom life merely happens do not possess an active will. Aleister Crowley stated that the majority of humanity consists of incompetent people unable to coordinate their mental muscles to make meaningful movements. According to him, most people do not possess a true will, but merely a tangle of desires, many of which are in mutual conflict. In one of his commentaries on his prophetic Book of the Law, Crowley, evaluating the current era, wrote that a danger unprecedented in history hangs over us. He observed a trend toward the growth and all-encompassing nature of new forms of restriction placed upon individuals, resulting in nations thinking like a herd. Yes, that is the consequence of mass psychology. Gustave Le Bon was the first to treat this subject in a modern manner.
Is every human truly a radical being endowed with the capabilities of a god, as the occultist Jack Parsons claimed? Why are these divine capabilities and powers in man so rarely manifested, while most specimens of the human race live anonymously in general levelness, deriving strength only in the mass, or within an order when organized by some political or religious power? Is man not, therefore, an apostate? Is this human apostasy not visible in the heavens as well, and not just on Earth?
Let us turn our gaze, for example, toward the constellation Corona Borealis. Within it, we see a circle, a crown, and a labyrinth. We see the initiatory trial of Theseus. We see the monster Minotaur. We see the halo of saints. We see the goddess Libera, but we also see a dungeon, a quarantine, the world of the dead, an arena of banishment and apostasy. We see the shape of Amenti, the shape of purgatory. And the time that has adorned itself with this symbol points to what is to come. Counter-initiation has constructed a prison complete with all its trials; initiation will find a path for the chosen few. The rest will fall to the Minotaur.
Institutions are monsters. They are the powerful collective expression of individual human helplessness. If people were powerful as individuals, no institutions would be necessary. In their totality, institutions constitute the system. That system is the expression of the omnipotence of human incompetence. The legendary film The Matrix depicted an extreme, futuristic form of the system's development, whose premises actually apply to the world we inhabit. Namely, people are asleep, overcome by the force of the system, lulled within it; hence, they must be awakened and shown the truth, for "the truth will set them free." What truth? Whose truth? Let us proceed step by step from the premises of awakening.
"The system is our enemy!" Such is the first premise of revolutionary awakening. That assertion needs no proof whatsoever. Our angst bears witness to it. Its truth is self-evident, no matter how much they try to convince us that this is one of the best possible systems despite all its flaws. Of course, we all know this, but essentially we fall for the first objection to this thesis. Yes, the system is bad, but what would be the alternative? Upon that question, a whole barrage of arguments and associative chains of horror rises against us, depicting monstrous alternatives and their catastrophic consequences. Thus, the development of conceiving and searching for an alternative is severed, at least among most systemic sleepers, its slaves, beneficiaries, and victims. And for the majority, that is the end. The edge of resistance, if not broken at its inception, is thoroughly blunted by presenting the question of not only what the alternative is, but who is part of that alternative.
If we have overcome the first obstacle regarding the initial premise, we arrive at the second premise, which demands the effort of empathetic immersion to achieve an observational distance: "When you are inside the system and look around, what do you see? You see businessmen, teachers, lawyers, workers. You see the very minds of the people we are trying to save." Thus Morpheus addresses Neo in the movie The Matrix. The premise points out that small, ordinary people just doing their jobs are the primary maintainers of this everyday horror. Hannah Arendt would agree with this. Small working people are the worker bees of the system, cogs in the machinery, anonymous apparatchiks, each in their own domain, profession, sense, or nonsense, fulfilling their assigned purpose. However, because this example of worker bees is drawn from a developed and conformist world, its scope is not comprehensive enough to convey the true magnitude of the system.
The system does not reach only where everything is orderly like a beehive, but also where disorder and lawlessness reign. Anarchy is also part of the system. In such cases, we speak of systemic anarchy. Hence, the homeless person—at first glance an outcast from the system—is also part of the system. Likewise, the illegal immigrant, the sufferer, the refugee, the unemployed, the prisoner, the criminal, the outcast, the stateless person, etc. All of them are also part of the system, caught in a network of complex relations that make their unenviable or horrific life situation—their social, economic, psychological, physical, and medical state—necessary components for the functioning of the system. Even those who rebel against the system and offer resistance are part of it. Everything and everyone is encompassed by a network of relationships, forms of public opinion, and institutions that constitute the system.
How, then, does one step out of the system at all? How does one liberate oneself or change the system? The final sentence of the premise regarding the conditioned minds of people who serve the system implies that stepping out of the system requires a kind of stepping out of the mind—a form of madness relative to the system. To exist outside the system is to dwell in madness.
On the surface of the system lies its ideology. We could engage in a broad discussion about what the ideology of the system is, but for our purposes, let it be its doctrine: an organized set of representations and axiomatic statements backed by corresponding narratives whose purpose is to hold the vast majority of minds within the framework necessary for the operation and maintenance of the system itself. For the ideology of the system, to be mad means to think outside its boundaries. Thinking extra-systemically means dwelling in madness. To a mind shaped to serve the system, thoughts, ideas, and behaviors whose foundations lie outside the system are manifestations or symptoms of madness. Minds conditioned to serve the system follow established tracks and models of thinking, imagining, and acting. Even their ostensible exit beyond the system is bounded by specific indicators and landmarks, thereby retaining them within the system and lulling their revolutionary potential to sleep. A mind shaped to serve the system is largely incapable of independent decision-making and thought, meaning it possesses a weak capacity of will. The system makes decisions for us; or rather, its institutions do. Therefore, stepping outside the mental framework of the system is not the same as exiting the system, but it is the first step.
"And these are the minds we need to save." Thus reads the next premise, which I will immediately link to the following one: "Until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged." Here we discern three key words: save, enemies, unplugged. Behind this stands a humanistic ethic—after all, this is Hollywood—that the enemy must be saved. We do not kill the enemy; we save him for his own good! Left hanging in the air is the question: on the path to saving the enemy, is it acceptable to kill those who stand as obstacles? And how many enemies is it acceptable to kill so that the rest may be saved? In general, what is the price of saving just one enemy? And what if practice demonstrates that saving one requires the liquidation of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of enemies? Will our revolutionary messianic mission remain unwavering then, or will it pause for calculation: how many dead for one saved?
I believe the system is so deeply rooted in the minds of people that it is practically impossible to destroy the system while having the majority of humanity survive it. That is why I have named the process of revolutionary liberation the revolution of catastrophe, for the path of liberation is catastrophe.
Unplugging someone abruptly from the system represents a catastrophe for that individual. Unplugging all people from the system is a general catastrophe. In this sense, the proponents of the system (as well as systemic alternatives) appear correct at first glance in claiming that the system has no alternative—that the alternative is, in fact, catastrophe, and it is therefore better to stick to the system, gradually repairing and perfecting it, rather than working toward its collapse. This is the seemingly wise path of so-called systemic reforms—an endless reformative process and never-completed work on perfecting something that cannot be perfect.
The question of fundamental method has always been the apple of discord between radical revolutionaries and moderate reformists. The path of the revolutionary is catastrophic, but can the same not be said of the path of reformists? The difference lies in the fact that the revolutionary approach causes catastrophe immediately, whereas reformists actually accumulate, time, and postpone the manifestation of catastrophic consequences, if possible, for the era after them. Reformists naively believe it is possible to create a better system and that it is possible, step by step, to liberate man by creating a different, improved system! They are horrified by revolutionary terror and anarchy, failing to see that their path is remarkably similar. From their standpoint, terror is also necessary, but it is controlled; anarchy is limited and localized. The path of reformists is paradoxical. They actually want a new and better system, yet the cumulative consequences of their method are catastrophe. It is a catastrophe without remainder, whereas a revolutionary catastrophe knows its price in advance—and that price is freedom for a small, chosen few.
In the underground haven of free people, Zion, in the film The Matrix, there actually dwells a very small number of awakened individuals compared to the overwhelming majority who sleep. Reformists actually want to liberate humanity as a whole, of course, with acceptable losses. Revolutionaries are not interested in humanity as such, but in the survival of the strong outside the system. Being free also means stepping outside the boundaries of humanity. Thus, exceptional individuals awaken—by themselves, or based on the mystical selection of the actors of the revolution.
Why is it necessary to adopt such an unhuman requirement of the Divine Revolution of Catastrophe—to disregard those who are sleeping, who are plugged into the system? Not all people possess the capacity of personal traits necessary for the successful overthrow of the system, nor do they possess the capacity to comprehend and accept the truth that there is actually no truth. Truth exists only as a qualifier of a certain state. In that sense, we can speak of the truth about the system, but truth outside the system is not something graspable. Therefore, let us awaken only those who possess the potential for extra-systemic survival, while the rest do not concern us. The reason for this lies in the final selected premise: "Many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
Ultimately, why is it necessary to demolish the system at all? Why not simply abandon people to their fate, and why should those who have managed to exit the system bother with it at all, instead of setting sail toward the open sea of freedom without looking back?
I would say that this is the price of freedom. An individual may set sail toward the open sea of freedom, but he also has a duty toward those forces and entities that we may address as the lords of the universe. Freedom is a gift, and the gifts of the gods are not free.
