| The Upper East Cider™ | ||
| Happy Easter! | ||
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| Ezine | April 20, 2003 | Manhattan |
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| Free Your Mind |  |
| This Edition: Lesson Plan Two Regular Features:
We are the beasts and these are truly God's children.
Fine art gallery showing samples of the painter's work. Click Me If you are using Netscape, it may be necessary to widen this window to prevent words from flowing behind pictures. | A science fiction film sparked recognition in professors of an ancient but very important lesson. The movie offered professors in communications, education, history, literature, philosophy and other curricula an opportunity to attract students to class with the promise of a movie blockbuster on the syllabus. Following is a brief summary of that spark. The Matrix (1999 A.D.) is a remake of a screenplay two millennia old--Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (c. 400 B.C.). Plato compared the human condition in those ancient times to being prisoners chained at an early age in a dimly lit cave. The prisoners are forced to stare at a wall upon which the prisoners’ own shadows and shadows cast by puppeteers substitute for reality.
CAVES AND PUPPETEERS: People confined in the dark viewing images in which they lose themselves describes a spectrum of paradigms from the ancient cave to the futuristic Matrix, and the contemporary models between them. For example, the moviegoing audience watching The Matrix sits in the dark absorbed by the film projected onto the silver screen. From the home, couch potatoes sit without external references captivated by images from the news on their TVs. Is a newscast any less artificial in light of CNN’s admission that while preferring to maintain a presence in Iraq CNN overshadowed with other news Saddam Hussein’s atrocities? The duped and pacified cave dwellers, virtual denizens, and those in between, cannot appreciate their dilemma until they endeavor to reason out of their captivity--the constraints of their misled senses. This was Plato’s lesson: that education is not akin to giving sight to the blind, but rather it is to open their eyes. The student must apprehend for themselves the truth through reason--the mind’s eye.
THE SPOON AND ENLIGHTENMENT: Being mere reflections of reality, the strangeness of the images on the cave wall or the imagistic data in the Matrix sparks some to see the light.
THE STEAK AND PRAGMATISM: The rest are content with fooling themselves.
Plato’s allegory foreshadowed the trials and tribulations of a man freed from the cave. The freed man would descend back into the cave to show the other prisoners the way to the light, but the prisoners would rage instead against the truth preferring their shadows.
At the end of The Matrix, Neo--the freed man--vows to expose the truth to the human race, who are unaware that they are dreaming in a sort of multiplayer video game. Will Neo be welcomed by the enslaved masses waving palm branches for his seeming miraculous feats or be crucified for challenging their dim grasp of reality? Professors want to know: will a sequel spark more pedagogical stuff? ["We are such stuff / As dreams are made on and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep" (Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)).] Students want to know: will there be two movie days next semester? The sequel to Plato’s allegory flickers on a cave wall near you 05.15.03--The Matrix Reloaded. A sequel to this article will follow.
| Past Editions: January 21, 2003: Book Review June 16, 2002: Commentary September 11, 2001: Memorial August 11, 2001: Travel Diary December 5, 2000: Art Exhibit November 12, 2000: Abortion Debate October 31, 2000: Political Cartoon September 2, 2000: Movie Review August 8, 2000: Cruelty Expose` July 4, 2000: Animals Are Just Another Bag, Again Legislation Alert June 24, 2000: |
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| © 2003 Judge Michael J. Gregorek | ||