John Berger in his nonfictional work, “Ways of Seeing” (1972), argues that the perception of historically significant art, moreover perception generally, is fundamentally altered by and bounded within the subject of perception’s accoutrements and that perception can be and moreover is controlled, modified and gerrymandered by the powers that be, to alter or suppress perception in their interests. The Matrix (1999) tells the story of Thomas Anderson, a miscreant cyber-criminal under alias ‘Neo’ revealed by other-worldly intervention from the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar to be the ham-fisted Jesus Christ allegory destined to save mankind from simulation-based machine bondage. Berger develops his thesis by providing examples to the malleability
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It is an implication of Berger’s work that in order for an orthodoxy which is a system of class domination to be maintained, perception of the historical tension between classes must be quelled by a suppressive intermediary group, a role played by Agent Smith as he prevents the liberation of the humans from the orthodoxy of domination by machines via the controlled reproduction of reality that is the …show more content…
The significance of perception warping is obvious, as it is well known by all that one must have their perception misaligned with reality in order to believe in absurd things (astrological horoscopes, the earth being flat, the tenants of critical pedagogy, et cetera). Berger demonstrates how perception might be altered by accompaniment, displaying the work of Surrealist painter Magritte saying he “commented on the always-present gap between words and seeing.” When seeing a clock normally one might be left with the useful information of the current time, whereas when seeing a clock with ‘the wind’ written under it one might instead wonder why their time is being wasted. A clock and a clock with a pretentious non-sequitur written beneath it, being empirically different things, we are left with the mind-blowing insight that things that are different are perceived differently. Berger moreover asserts that perception can be controlled in his overarching end to argue that perception of history is being controlled en masse, and that society is as a result altogether in a sorry state. The Matrix too, being a movie aimed at a popular audience, has a narrative involving a good and evil
It is an implication of Berger’s work that in order for an orthodoxy which is a system of class domination to be maintained, perception of the historical tension between classes must be quelled by a suppressive intermediary group, a role played by Agent Smith as he prevents the liberation of the humans from the orthodoxy of domination by machines via the controlled reproduction of reality that is the …show more content…
The significance of perception warping is obvious, as it is well known by all that one must have their perception misaligned with reality in order to believe in absurd things (astrological horoscopes, the earth being flat, the tenants of critical pedagogy, et cetera). Berger demonstrates how perception might be altered by accompaniment, displaying the work of Surrealist painter Magritte saying he “commented on the always-present gap between words and seeing.” When seeing a clock normally one might be left with the useful information of the current time, whereas when seeing a clock with ‘the wind’ written under it one might instead wonder why their time is being wasted. A clock and a clock with a pretentious non-sequitur written beneath it, being empirically different things, we are left with the mind-blowing insight that things that are different are perceived differently. Berger moreover asserts that perception can be controlled in his overarching end to argue that perception of history is being controlled en masse, and that society is as a result altogether in a sorry state. The Matrix too, being a movie aimed at a popular audience, has a narrative involving a good and evil