Blog 4: Ignorance, Bliss, and Knowledge in Oedipus the King and The Matrix

Knowledge, Ignorance, and Bliss play a major role in both The Matrix and in Oedipus. These concepts hold true throughout both works and are very much intertwined with each other. At the core of these stories the protagonists are at first ignorant to the truth and are living a good life but as their quest for the truth (knowledge) nears its end they come to the realization that their ignorance has made them happy and that the truth they have set forth to look even though it gives them knowledge they wanted, it destroyed their old views.

In the Matrix, Neo is living in a simulated reality that gives him all the comforts of a modern society. Neo wanting to know if it was real gets offered a choice by Morpheus of 2 pills one to gain knowledge and one to go back to what he was before and live in ignorant bliss. Just like in Oedipus, when Oedipus is on the hunt to rid his city of a plague by finding the men responsible for the murder of the king prior to him. In order to find this Oedipus calls upon an old blind prophet named Tiresias who knows the answer to Oedipus question but refuses to tell him about it as stated in line 380 “Let me go home. You must bear your burden to the very end, and I will carry mine, if you’ll agree with me”. This leads Oedipus to get mad and in doing so enrages the prophet into telling him the truth. After the prophet says “Then I would ask you to stand by the very words which you yourself proclaimed and from now on not speak to me or these men. For the accursed polluter of this land is you.”(line 418), this just like Neo shows Oedipus a truth he was not expecting but unlike Neo, Oedipus is able to just brush off as a ploy to take him off his throne and go back to his bliss or so he thinks.

As opposed to the Matrix where once Neo has seen the truth he accepts it and moves on to fulfill his destiny as the "one”, Oedipus realizes the old man was telling the truth and after realizing his truth cannot face it and decides to take a dagger to his eyes and blind himself in order to not see the truth .

Blog # 3 The Matrix: Utopia, Dystopia, and Realities

The Matrix is a very good example of the old saying that ignorance is bliss because while the real world is in diary due to a nucular war the simulated reality people are living in is a very normal happy life, as apposed to Plato’s The Cave which leads one to believe that once you find out what reality is it will open your eyes and show the truth and better your life. In today's world when most people search for answers to their question the end result of their searching leads them to a truth that they weren’t prepared for or weren’t expecting. Once you have learned the truth it cannot be unlearned so you will never be able to go back to not knowing and living as you used to.

In our worlds history there has been many instances where people’s search for the truth has ended up destroying peoples perceptions of their everyday life. For example many people believe our government is set up to help and protect us, well many were shocked to find out that 50’s and 60’s the CIA started a project called MKULTRA. This project was a series of experiments done on unwilling US citizens in the realm of altering brain functions by using drugs, chemicals, and hypnosis. When this project was discovered the people who believed it the CIA’s image of helping the people from others was tarnished. These people were now questioning everything the CIA had done and if the reasons they had been told had been true, they could no longer trust in their own government. In turn the people who were ignorant to the situation had no problem living their life because they hadn’t stepped out to find the truth.

Now some people may just call my last example too full of conspiracy filled, so another example used to demonstrate the matrix’s ignorance is bliss would be a teen finding out they are adopted. This scenario is best explained like this, a child in his mid teens has his whole life loved his parents because that’s who they are his parents. One day while looking through some old papers he finds adoption papers with his name and his information, from that day on the kids life will never be the same. The life the child has lived in his eyes had been a lie because the people who he considered his family aren’t really his family, questions start to arise like why was I put up for adoption, where are my real parents, why didn’t my adopted parents ever tell me. The child's adopted parents will explain and try to easy his conscious and while it may calm him down he will forever know that somewhere his real parents are in the same world as him and that may make it hard to view his adopted parents the same way he did before because they didn’t tell him.

Many people say they can handle the truth but once they do find it and they want to go back to their old lives of not knowing its hard to do so,and if you try to enlighten others who are not prepared to handle the truth you will be ridiculed by the masses. So if you are ever offered the choice between a red or a blue pill make sure your prepared to accept the consequences of knowing the truth.