Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 23:56:50 +1000 (EST) From: "Glen Fuller" <g.fuller-AT-uws.edu.au> Subject: Ethics of Matrix 2 Eric, > Doesn't every ethical system begin where a lonely individual somewhere > says no in the face of an overwhelming power? I am not sure... That sounds more like a romantic notion of the nomadic vagabond. I was thinking that the conditions of an ethical system begin with the possibility of a there being an ethical system (or the end product of which is a 'truth'). How much of the system is ethical and how much of the ethical is systematic. I just saw the Matrix 2 again. A few other things jumped out of the screen. When the pseudo-french (fallen pseudo-Marxist!) Mr 'No Choices! It's all causality! Choice is an illusion! Choice is there to keep the powerful in power...' talks about how he wrote the cake, so everything is code, ie a text. Besides that, such a position could never be ethical, as the possibility of ethics is not allowed, however, perhaps the most ethical 'system' is, paradoxically, one in which choice is an illusion... or the choice was already made by an individual to be part of the system (a system in which there are no choices), the exact 'situation' of the Matrix and its inhabitants ("90% accept to choose the programming..."). I am not sure if my reduction of ethics to a choice (to choose the 'right' possibility) is entirely ethical... Actually the most ethical decisions are those in which choice is refused ("but, as we know, you have already made your choice" or "I have no choice"), maybe it is the possibility of the refusal of a choice (the conditions of the choice, that which makes it a 'choice' a choice, the 'either/or' ('/') part of abstract thought) that determines whether or not a system is ethical. Bah... the cgi needs some tweaking too. Some of it looked sooo fake. Car chase seen was cool (especially the Camaro!). Ciao, Glen. PS Eric, have you read the essays at the Matrix website? -- PhD Candidate, Centre for Cultural Research University of Western Sydney
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