Sometimes existing on the internet can feel like being trapped in that dark room with Morpheus, the one where he holds out his hands to Neo and offers up either a pill of knowledge or a pill of blissful ignorance˳ Red pill or blue pill; know your enemy or live in peace; click or don’t click˳ Of all the ideas and images The Matrix sent spiraling into American culture—computer simulation paranoia, black leather trench coats, falling green code, spoons that don’t really exist—none has become so entrenched, or so contentious, as this one˳
Of the two options, the red pill is more often discussed (it is Neo’s choice, after all)˳ Yet as the world grows more polarized and less courteous, that blue pill is starting to look mighty swallowable˳ After all, life is hard, bad news is everywhere, and maybe, just maybe, ignorance is bliss˳ So we asked two of our writers, Emily Dreyfuss and Emma Grey Ellis, to debate the merits of picking the blue or the red pill˳ Follow the white rabbit˳
Emily Dreyfuss: The Matrix is like the ’90s cyberpunk version of Plato’s cave, where everyone is sitting shackled looking at projections on a screen and only Morpheus’ crew and philosophers are able to see things for what they really are˳ Presenting the choice that way makes it ABSURD to pick the blue pill—who would choose slavery and ignorance over freedom?
If, as in the movie, we take the blue pill to mean ignorance of everything, then no one would˳ And I wouldn’t either˳ In fact, I won’t even try to argue for that because I honestly worry “that guy” from my freshman Phil 101 class in undergrad will show up—still dressed in his trench coat!—and “actually…” me until I die˳
I don’t have time for that˳ And neither do you, reader˳
But here’s the thing: In reality, life is not as simple as “knowledge means power” and “ignorance means slavery˳” In the Matrix, once you’re unplugged you see every lie˳ But IRL, you just don’t know everything or nothing˳ Everyone lives somewhere in the middle˳ You know some stuff, not all of it˳ And moreover, just because you are awake to one problem doesn’t mean you aren’t causing the others˳
And even people who verge on complete ignorance can still have power, and vice versa˳ Consider the dumb, rich child kings of history, born into a position of absolute power and lacking knowledge of, really, most things! Or the deeply knowledgeable social reformers who are out there working day in and day out to right the wrongs of society˳ They know a lot! They’ll tell you they are seeing behind the screen and they are still in the cave, shackled to a system˳ A system that can’t be undone just by suddenly seeing it exists˳
In the movie, as soon as you take the red pill you’re supposedly partially freed up from the systems that enable those lies˳ The red pill lets you literally fly and hack the code that powers the world˳ Should a red pill exist IRL, that wouldn’t be the case˳ There’s no code to hack˳
