The film “The Matrix” from 1999 can be interpreted as a film version of the allegory of the cave. Both stories are about the fundamental questions around deception, illusion, truth and reality. The film is also important because it points out the relevance of the topic in todays world. It raises the possibility that even today the population of entire civilizations could be subject to a deception. That humans possibly don’t know their relation to reality and can only find out with difficulty.
What is an illusion? Illusions are created, by me for myself, for someone else, or by others for me. The illusion can be well justified or well intended. An illusion can be a refuge for ourselves, but also a prison. With an illusion the behavior of a person, even the worldview of a person can be impacted.
There are structures that get their stability through the involved people, who are submerged in an illusion and don’t want to give up on it. The most relevant illusion at all times of history is probably the belief that illusions are overcome, a thing of the past. Many people believed and believe that the world is put together and functioning the way they were taught. That includes both the understanding of the cosmos and the human being itself, including its civilizations. An illusion is best protected when the general belief says that there are no illusions, there can be no more illusions, illusions are a phenomena of the ignorant past. Who beliefs that there is nothing to discover, that everything is as it seems, does not have much curiosity.
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.“
Winston Churchill
Even today we are surrounded by illusions. Often we are a part of them. There are of course occasional hints that our Weltbild is not quite correct, but mostly we do not even become aware of those. We ignore them, look the other way. And even when we get properly confronted with an irregularity or conflict, only few people take this chance to fundamentally change their worldview.
There are many possibilities to encounter contradictions within the Weltbild that is communicated to us though education and media. The amount of conflicts and absurdities in the published opinion is going up continuously. But a human without capacity and courage for change will not stumble over that. He will carry on. Often it is a crisis that brings us into a situation where we again have time to think.
Every human goes a unique path through life, and we have tho find a balance between our own development and helping others. We can inspire and raise interest, but each human must be given the chance to get up by his own strength and turn away form the shadows, towards the entrance of the cave. Or, to get back to The Matrix, everybody must every day choose for himself to either take the blue or the red pill.
If we take the red pill, the work is not done. It has just started, we carefully look out the cave’s entrance for the first time, and the discovery of a whole new world begins. That comes with a lot of work, ups and downs, right and wrong conclusions, fallacies and break throughs. Especially it requires us to give up on old beliefs, and it takes time. The discovery of the world and the discovery of our own nature are life tasks.