Blue Pill or Red Pill: The Left in the Matrix?

“The Matrix is ​​everywhere. It’s all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been placed before your eyes to blind you from the truth.” – MORPHEUS, The Matrix

Matrix like an allegorical film

The film Matrix It was a box office success that marked the end of the 20th century, and is also known for being a work full of metaphors, from the protagonist's name to the duality between the real world and the virtual world. The Wachowski sisters' screenplay is laden with meaning. One allegory, however, stands out from the others for having been elevated to the status of "memecreating a relationship of identity with the duality between ideology and reality: the blue and red pills; happy lie, or painful truth. 

“If you take the blue pill, the story ends, and you wake up in your bed believing whatever you want to believe; if you take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…” – MORPHEUS, The Matrix

Using the symbolic contribution of the film, many groups create memes where thesave pill"(red pill), would reveal the inconvenient truth, while the "blue pill"(The blue pill) would be the dominant worldview, falsified by ideology. Although many of these groups identify with the right, selling the idea that "cultural Marxism" is somehow the dominant ideology, we can in fact draw clear parallels between the concept of ideology, as a falsification of reality; and the..." Matrix...the virtual world in which most humans would be confined. Marxist doctrine, which will take the concept of "ideology" from the philosopher Feuerbach, will further enrich this conception by defining ideology as the idealization of the relations of production that make the dominant class, the dominant class.  

Neo, the protagonist, is taken from his routine as a salaried employee at a multinational corporation by the group led by MorpheusFrom this point onward, two possible outcomes are presented, as one begins to perceive certain inconsistencies in the system. The first possibility, presented by the blue pill, is a return to habitual normality, a conscious refusal of the path that will lead to the truth about the world in which one finds oneself. The red pill, however, represents the exact opposite: to continue on this path which will inevitably shatter one's ideological veil. 

This choice is not accidental. Neo, after being taken from his initial rest, must consciously choose whether to continue the dangerous path of searching for the truth, which will inevitably place him in the crosshairs of the forces of the "system" (represented in the film through the impersonal "agents"); or whether to choose the path of self-deception, thus taking the blue pill and forgetting all the incongruities of the system to regain a peaceful life.

The revolutionary proposal

 Upon taking the red pill, the protagonist is suddenly attacked by an uncontrollable process – both in its speed and its violence – that will literally throw him into the film's real world. This journey is painful; the world he awakens to is destroyed, humans hide like rats, and the war against the machines for planetary domination, lost by humanity centuries ago, has become an asymmetrical war of annihilation. The painful truth, finally revealed, is disheartening and revolting. 

 Seeing the stark reality before him, Neo embraces the only possible path: human revolution against the machines. There is no room for compromise; the machines use humans as living batteries, and the only people aware of this fact are crushed and nearly defeated. This is the revolutionary's choice.

The reactionary proposal

On the other hand, the blue pill offers the comfort of ignorance. However, it's not the initial ignorance of someone who didn't see the system's flaws, but a desired ignorance because it's happier, or less painful. After all, if we have the opportunity to ignore reality and live in a world of colorful lies, the best thing to do is choose ignorance, right? That's what we observe in the middle classes, crystallized in coaches of all kinds who, promising individual solutions, deceive the unwary into believing that through personal effort it's possible to overcome any obstacle. 

The problem with this particular blue pill is that this falsification of reality doesn't work for everyone. The working class is forced to contrast the beautiful speeches of the liberals on duty with the harsh reality of everyday life. Self-deception, or ideology, can only alter the perception of reality; they cannot, by themselves, change that reality. The power of the pills lies in showing, or hiding, but not in changing existence. 

Why is it difficult to embrace reality? 

The truth is that, on a daily basis, popular forces, especially their vanguards, choose the sweet lie of the blue pill. They don't face the reality of the facts because that would require a profound change in political action. On the contrary, they prefer to carry out absurd analyses and proposals, such as the broad front, which intends to ignore the coup d'état we suffered in 2016, the imprisonment of former president Lula and the subsequent electoral fraud of 2018, in addition to the advance of reactionary forces that have not stopped since then. 

 However, there are also other factors that lead popular forces to distance themselves from a concrete analysis of reality, such as the mistaken thesis that it is impossible to defeat the coup d'état by dethroning Bolsonaro and all the coup plotters. Therefore, if the enemy is unbeatable, "we have to adapt to the situation." But this adaptation is not a concrete strategic change that takes stock of the limitations implicit in contesting elective offices amidst a coup d'état and opts to follow a strategy of rupture, distinct from the one that was defeated. In other words, the red pill that would lead to the recognition of reality as it is, independent of "what ought to be," in order to enable the effective action of popular forces, continues to be ignored. The organizations of the popular classes continue to take the blue pill.

For many leaders, the defeat of the reformist strategy has little to do with the situation. They believe that the republic is still democratic – which it never truly was, even more so after the coup d'état – and that mobilizing the masses to overthrow the government is nothing more than an "unconstitutional act," what irony! Should we, the Brazilian working people, respect a political order that arose from a coup d'état that imprisoned Brazil's most popular leader for almost two years in a fraudulent process orchestrated by the Northern Empire, in addition to rigging the presidential election by preventing this same leader from participating in the electoral process, crowning the coup d'état with a proto-fascist bootlicker of the Empire!? It would be funny if it weren't tragic! The falsification and inversion of reality occurs with the encouragement of the major left-wing parties, which do not combat the lies, but try to circumvent them. They flirt with imperialism and its proto-fascist and reactionary offspring, driven by a "nonsensical" justification, believing that in 2022 the organized left will actually be able to contest the Palácio da Alvorada (the presidential palace). However, if we were ousted from there in 2016, what makes the great intellectuals of the left believe that the political balance has shifted?

The workers, the republic, and the left. 

Still in the movie Matrix, Morpheus He is betrayed by an intriguing character named Cypher, who goes on to form an unlikely alliance with the agents of the Matrix, delivering Morpheus In exchange for his permanent return to the virtual world, with his memory duly erased, and living as a rich and influential man. The leaders of the Brazilian left are rehearsing a similar move, seeking an alliance with bourgeois and imperialist forces, betraying the Brazilian people to maintain their "peaceful" lives, which do not allow conflict with reactionary forces. 

The Fourth Brazilian Republic died with the 2016 coup d'état; what we have before us is nothing more than a body animated by institutions devoid of their democratic content, animated by the forces of the Brazilian bourgeoisie and international imperialism. Within this putrefied body, there are contradictions between the wings of the traditional right and the wings of the "new Brazilian right," which ranges from conservatives to fascists (third position). However, to point to these contradictions as the motivation behind maintaining reformist policies, abandoning the interests of the people to "isolate" fascism, is nothing more than handing victory to our enemies before the battle, to prevent them from mobilizing for combat. In other words, to "fight fascism" we will let the bourgeoisie have a field day, but not only that, we will backtrack on our program (which is already very backward) so that the bourgeoisie is not forced to align itself with openly fascist forces, as if the bourgeoisie itself were not the class that hatched the serpent's egg. In this quarrel, we attack individuals and not their projects; we embrace the illusion that the masses will automatically support this farce, not worrying about a clear and popular political program; finally, due to the paralyzing fear of reality that our political leaders have developed, we prefer to abstain from any real political mobilization and struggle, we continue to affirm that the dead body called the Brazilian Republic is still alive and that some of its murderers can be "valuable allies" in the fight against the other "evil" and "fascist" murderers.

Leaving the matrix 

The film's final act, its conclusion, begins with the death of the traitor. Cypher and the protagonist's battle to save Morpheus of the agents of the Matrix. Unfortunately, the protagonist of the popular struggle, the Brazilian people and, more specifically, the working class, still sleeps the sleep induced by the ideology of the ruling class and the leniency of the traitors of the people. We have not yet killed our “CypherWe have not risen up against our historical enemies. However, signs of awakening are already visible; it remains to be seen whether the people, eager for the overthrow of the false Brazilian republic and the Bolsonaro government, will count on the historical organizations of the working class that emerged from the struggle against the military dictatorship and that marked the previous political cycle (more strictly the triad CUT, PT and MST), or whether the class will undergo yet another reorganization, sweeping from history the organizations that declare political bankruptcy.