"Never to write a line I have not heard in my own heart." Cyrano de Bergerac. Is schwer.

What was particularly savvy about the Wachowskis' comic-book movie was that its mirror-shade cool reflected any number of readings -- Marxist, Lacanian, utterly stoned. Perhaps most surprising, and influential, was its use of religious symbols and viewpoints. Most viewers picked up on the Christian elements of the first film, which center on Neo's role as a savior figure, but the deep frame of both movies is a more esoteric pop stew of Gnostic and Buddhist ideas. The Gnostics of antiquity transformed the analogy of Plato's cave into a full-blown and harrowing cosmology: We are strangers trapped in a strange land, they argued, immortal sparks slumbering in a material cosmos fashioned by an evil or ignorant demiurge and his nefarious archons. The Buddhist analysis is less personalistic: We are stuck on the delusive merry-go-round of samsara, an almost mechanical system of causes and conditions that fools us into believing the self and the world are substantially real. In both cases, we step toward the light not through grace or the remission of sins, but through the direct awakening of insight into our condition. Neo must swallow his pill and take the ride himself.

Salon-Artikel über Matrix von Erik Davis, der vor einigen Jahren "Techgnosis" geschrieben hat, in dem es - offensichtlich, siehe Titel - um die Gemeinsamkeiten von Technik, Ideologie, Spiritualität und Esoterik geht.

Würde zwar nicht sagen, dass das über Kinder stimmt, dass sie unemphatisch sind, aber das Konzept der Vergebung durch Verlangen, ein besserer Mensch werden ohne Selbstverleugnung, die Welt verändern durch den Akt der großzügigen Interpretation, ist interessant und wiederspricht der gesamten abendländischen Ethik.

user hatgnat 2003-05-20 22:02 (link) >But it's not as if we write off all children as monsters.

Actually, I do. Children are perfectly unempathetic, completely amoral, and utterly without ethics. This is the root of their charm; when they do a good thing, you know they're not doing it to "do the right thing," but because they want to. This is why I find unsouled Spike is so compelling. He hints at a route to redemption through desire; self-improvement without self-abnegation. He's the transcension of the Ubermensch and Christ, of John Galt and the Buddha. He's Alice, transforming the world through the act of generous interpretation.