File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0306, message 74


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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