The fictionalized reality of Georgie v. "The Matrix" in "The Brave New World"

re.: Bravo!!! Dr. J~ notes that Georgie is a "scapular hero" - and the "tangential" is not “free speech” in "The Matrix" of ANT###

As per our conversation on “tired” Friday …I hope that this finds you refreshed and open to the difficult task of “being present” that we all face in a progressively overcrowded and information overloaded environment. As you have witnessed the reaction is to shut down and close out, to lean in the direction of “contempt prior to investigation”. We start to alienate anything that comes our way that “does not fit into the course outline” and dismiss all that we have not become familiar with. This is not an indictment, but a fact for all of us. Yet it is precisely this point that must be urgently understood.

I have argued for forty years, in terms of an anthropological awareness and since then in my writing on MFT peacemaker , parallel to Dr. J~’s ANT###, that the “bombardment” of information is a form of mind control that causes us to put blinders on and to become insular within a very narrow agenda. I was lecturing on the subject and advocating the abolition of advertising, copyright and patent law and public access to public media at the Univ. of California San Jose in “1972”. Yet despite the “rhetorical flourishes” encouraging the students to “think out of the box” (Yes) we are penalized for quoting outside of the “course material” (No) that famous YESNO again. …eminent writers like Jacques Ellul ("Popaganda" & "The Technological Society"), Simon Weil ("Oppression and Liberty"), Aldeous Huxley, George Orwell, Chomsky ("Manufacturing Consent") are considered “not course related”.

This “concision” due probably to insecurity, reverses any genuine attempt to be “liberal” and turns instead into a “controlaholic agenda” fueled by a codependent “people pleasing” in the attempt to conform to some perceived or imaginary bureaucratic policy and the threat of the uncontrolled “anarchy” of “70 people in my class”. … Naturally “georgie” has more to say than the average student, whose major priority is to matriculate. Yet the input is, while at first welcome, soon perceived as causing insecurity and then to be overwhelming. The first reaction is an attempt to tolerate the new. This progresses shortly to disregard and then moves finally to total dismissal. One can witness that this can happen in a matter of few moments when one is under pressure, “hungry, angry, lonely or tired” and serenity can be lost in an instant.

The critical philosophical point here, in terms of an Anthropological or any other analysis, is that this very same “info overload” is perpetuated via academia in general. Students cannot cope, so they numb out. I witnessed this working with my ANT### campaign group. New ideas become intolerable and they are perceived as the enemy …I have repeatedly attempted to bring this to the attention of Dr. J~ by suggesting that she read Jacques Ellul’s work on the subject, but I have been told it is “not my job” to “lecture”.

When communication breaks down due to the lack of reciprocal exchange, due to factors such as “compassion fatigue” or “information overload”, that are directly related to population pressures, there is a tendency to want to control and so inadvertently we embrace an enforced simplicity. We move from “anarchism” to “fascism” and in this case by avoiding the central issue of “human rights” and overpopulation we tend to “greenwash” the subject by marketing “animal rights”, “vegetarianism” and “organic cotton” and “hemp” products and we confuse “echo fascism” with “biocentrism” .

The danger of not letting the “non course related” material in, is that this itself becomes a form of censorship and this is actually a symptom of the technique of “brainwashing”. So here is the dilemma. The result is that the person is filled to the brim with what Ellul calls “facts” in “Propaganda” and shuts out anything that is not “party line”. The person genuinely believes they are free to follow the party line and that this is freedom. Eric Fromm discusses this sadomasochistic pathology in his “Escape from Freedom” and if these issues are not related to the subject of “globalization and ecology” or “system v. agency”, I do not know what is. Finally the result of these blinders, in reaction to “info overload”, is that we perceive our cosmology to be the only “truth” (“”discourse”) and that our very “rational intellect”, is actually capable of “humility”; at the very height of our “hubris”. Yet even that this “idea” of “humility” (“spirituality”), that Dr. J~ suggests is “out on a limb” and terribly original, in fact has been with us for a long longtime. i.e.: see attachment from the work of Gregory Bateson on the effects of “Hubris” on the environment, if that is permitted at all within the parameters of “the course outline”.

The solution is in the slogan H.A.L.T. as suggested in 12 Step recovery programs “…never get hungry, angry, lonely or TIRED” and in spite of the fact that there is an overwhelming “data pile” of information out there …it can be dealt, if we have an “open mind”. I think that learning how to deal with “info overload” as suggested in the work “Information Anxiety” by Saul Wurman, should be a primary subject taught in ANT### contrary to the belief that “The Matrix” is a metaphor and not a reality.

I could suggest that “georgie” who authored an original embroyonic treatment that is essentialy the thesis for the feature film "The Matrix" before it was “homogenized” by the Media Monoply, that is itself in reality not a metaphore, but current state of "The Matrix"; is a fine example of “agency” versus “system” and not outside the “course material” but rather at the root of it, but then one might be penalized for being “tangential”. I hope that you will give this brief note some thought and forward a cc. to Dr. J~ for her consideration … I do not feel that after 40 years of life experience in this field, that I should be told to “shut up”, no matter how politely this is accomplished.

Thank you for you consideration and my apologies for going over the mandatory 500 word count.

Art Static