Agent of the Matrix

From the Indexed Glossary of RTE Terms, Models, and Ideas

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Original Source: The 1999 film The Matrix, which describes a struggle between humanity and a technological Empire it created. The Empire's Matrix is software integrated into human minds as an elaborate shared illusion that baits humans into a passive life of servitude to the Empire.

Here we present a definition analogous to the artificial intelligence programs of the film, but practical in real world terms.

Agent of the Matrix: An Agent of the Matrix is software of trained violence programmed into anyone within the realm of the Matrix tasked with attacking anyone or anything that interferes with the integrated functioning of the Matrix. This tasking overrides all other interests in zealous and single-minded service to the Empire of Illusions. In spiritual terms, an Agent of the Matrix might be considered akin to demonic possession.

Note that varying philosophies termed "integralism" involve the creation of a [governance] State that follows the software of some particular religion or ideology. Inevitably, such a nation would fall into some sort of shared Matrix, and likely a form of totalitarianism held together by Agents of the Matrix, and in service to some Military Occult Banking Syndicate (MOBS) that engineers Agents in places such as the Tavistock Institute or the Rand Corporation (with help from priests of the universities).

Methods of an Agent of the Matrix: While [the film] The Matrix portrays Agents of the Matrix as experts in crude [if expert] violence, this may simply be a cinematic simplification of the process. In the real [sic] world, most violence in service to the Matrix is social or economic in nature. Physical violence is generally the result of limited time and resources in situational problem solving. Most of the time, the Kung Fu of an Agent comes in the form of mental, emotional, and economic combat. The Agent may engage in gossip and whisper campaigns to subvert the relationships and influence of anyone engaging in independent thought. Such character assassination disrupts the continuity of naturally evolving relationships. It is enough to dampen resolve and enforce compliance.

Technically, an Agent of the Matrix is a sort of walk-in to the shell of any person subverted to the Matrix, either willingly as a Mandarin, possibly knowingly as a eunuch, but most often as a true believer. True believers train, give in to, or even call in an Agent of the Matrix in order to avoid cognitive dissonance that would dispel their comfortable illusion. The process of accepting responsibility for their choice to support tyranny with plausible deniability involves feeling the summary intensity of pain inflicted in small, measured drips over time over everyone in the Matrix. The intensity of pain forces mental dissociation, which allows the Agent of the Matrix to take over the body.

There is a degree of conflict allowable in the Matrix. The film points out that humans fade with conflict and struggle, but managing the conflict is important to the social engineers. These priests of the Matrix engage in Hegelian engineering in order to channel nearly all human discussion and debate into pre-approved and categorical [but false] dichotomies. Entire ideologies and occasionally religions are built around these false dichotomies in order to limit the healthy growth of any [societal protocol] rival to the Empire.

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Not Just Putting Out Fires

Ray Bradbury's "firemen" act as a literary analogy to Agents of the Matrix. In Fahrenheit 451, the firemen are a professional military-grade caste who work in service of the Empire to root out critical thinking and independent intellectual pursuits. These firemen may be described as low level Satanists doing the grunt work of the Religion of Empire. Portraying Agents of the Matrix as a subset of citizens may have been intentional misdirection, suggesting to the reader that avoiding such an overt path of working for the Empire allowed them to resist, or at least be separate from, the process of building the Matrix.

In reality, anyone with cognitive dissonance programmed into their thinking by the Matrix might at any moment choose with intensity to become an Agent of the Matrix. We might infer Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as an admission that this is what technocratic social engineers were already aiming at.

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Every Child as Narcissus

The Tale of Echo and Narcissus varies according to cultural mythology, but invariably begins with the conceit of parents wanting to see into the future of their children, perhaps hoping to choose between investment in the lives of their children and their own. The parents, consulting a seer or oracle, are told that their child will live a long life only if they never come to know their own self.

Knowing one's self cannot be a static process. It's an ongoing relationship that might be termed "self love" in the truest sense. That relationship involves exactly that which the Matrix needs to suppress—intellectual journey and growth. So, the Matrix requires that parents submit their children to the Prussian panopticon prisons often referred to as "schools". This is where the software of the Matrix is installed in each child. The brainwashing process involves a flood of true facts mixed into a salad with a base of false history, fake science, perverted philosophy, and a great deal of emotional or even physical trauma. But don't worry, kid, you're special. Just look in the mirror and you'll see it. Everyone is beautiful. [Take some drugs until you see it.]

Ultimately, this is just one version of the cult that worships the golden calf, and sacrifices their children to it. The Matrix is just the technological exponent—the Technodeathcult, protected by every denizen of the Matrix.