Have another great guest post here by reader Daniel Mason. Daniel has done a lot of great guest post about different figures from movies and popular culture that I’d recommend you check out. Enjoy.
The end of the 20th Century saw that people weren’t partying “like it’s 1999” as the ‘Prince’ song so rousingly chanted. The globe was caught up in Y2K fever. From what I recall, it didn’t turn out to be much – for all the angst! 2 films that came out touched a nerve – especially in young men and are often talked about and quoted from to this day. One, was a stylistic box office smash that has influenced fashion, become a franchise and portrays a dystopian nightmare view of our increasing technological dependence. The other, a mixed reviewed, unprofitable dud that found it’s ‘cult’ following in DVD, was a sucker punch to men, in that it touched upon the increasingly dour and truthful, cultural fade of traditional use for males ( especially in the West ).
The Films
“The Matrix” and “Fight Club”. These two pictures ( to me ) represented the good and evil that man could aspire or degrade to. The virtue and vice, if you will. In the Wachowski siblings ( written and directed ) “Matrix”, starring Keanu Reeves as ‘Neo’, an underground cyber-hacker who gets tapped by ‘Morpheus’ ( Laurence Fishburne ) to be ‘The One’ and take-back the planet’s humanity from the virtual-reality slavery enforced by the technological system. Neo will represent ‘virtue’ as I’ll get into shortly. David Fincher’s ( director, Jim Uhl screenplay ) “Fight Club”, has Edward Norton ( blandly named ‘The Narrator’ ) as it’s MC, but it was really Brad Pitt’s ‘Tyler Durden’ that ‘electrified’ males ( what body conscious man hasn’t looked up ‘The Fight Club Workout’ on the internet? )! Tyler, embodied the traditional, self-entitled, masculine ideology of especially young males and wanted to bring down the ‘suits’ thru anarchy. His actions fit the bill as the ‘vice’ in my viewpoint.
Good & Evil
Man has knocked around the idea of morality being inherent at birth versus socially developed since B.C. Aristotle defines moral virtues as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices ( SparkNotes.com ). Yale University’s ‘Baby Lab’, even did an ongoing study in the 2000’s using puppets that demonstrated good and bad ( helping another puppet open/good or slamming shut/bad a lid to a box ). 80% of the time, the babies chose the ‘good’ rather than ‘bad’ puppet to interact with post experiment, 90% – until 3 months of age. That is – they can tell right from wrong ( CNN ). The hardwiring for goodness is innate in our brains.
So, the good news, man is inherently good! But you say, how can there be Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and John Lennon and on the opposite end of the spectrum Pontius Pilate, John Wilkes Booth and Mark David Chapman? The bad news, man can go rotten! So, what’s going on? Per Paul Bloom, author of “Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil” who
collaborated on the ‘baby research’ with his wife Karen Wynn ( who ran the Yale Baby Lab ) “we are naturally moral beings, but our environment can enhance – or sadly, degrade – this innate moral sense” ( CNN ).
Most people operate on a sliding scale of morality depending on their raising, life experiences and outlook of the world as well as egocentric weaknesses. Pathological evil, in the psyche of socio and psychopaths ( pure evil ) exists in probably about 1 to 2% of mankind, quite possibly to innate immorality and/or growth experiences. These people have NO empathy. They treat people like objects that are in their way. You can’t reach them through counseling. Stay away – they will gut you!
The Boys
Although both characters being spectacularly attractive and charismatic to men’s psyche, Neo and Tyler are at opposite ends of the male ‘decency’ chart. Altruism, virtue, courage are what Neo IS. Dark, self-indulgent, anarchist, displaced anger “we are very, very pissed off” states Tyler to his fight club brethren. Women are thought of misogynous – just to ‘get off’ really, IS what Tyler is about.
Neo eventually believed he was the one ( thrusted by the LOVE of Trinity/Carrie-Anne Moss ). His mind was downloaded martial arts ( “ I know Kung Fu.” ), fought with weaponry ( “Guns. Lots of guns.” ) to rescue Morpheus from ‘The Agents’ HQ, then Trinity from the shot-up helicopter, risking his own life for the ‘cause’, defeated the agents and broke through the matrix binary wall. He overcame his self-doubt and became VIRTUE.
The ‘id’ ( Sigmund Freud’s ) of Tyler sucked dry – his no-named counterpart. He picked at The Narrator’s mind, body and soul, instilling his VICE! Created: secret, illegal, underground fight clubs; broke into liposuction dumpsters to steal fat to make soap, to sell back to women – their own fat(!); enacted ‘school boy’ pranks ( peeing in soup prior to being served the wealthy ); threatened innocents to pursuit their dreams ( the terrified convenience-store employee who wanted to be a veterinarian, kneeling, with a cocked-pistol to the back of his skull ) and just intentionally-sexually used Marla ( Helen Bonham Carter). I mean, Tyler had some good points and fantastic quotes “The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.” True, but tell that one to your wife! By the time The Narrator figured out he and Tyler were the SAME, Fight Club was nationwide, Project Mayhem had completed its’ mission and corporate bank/credit towers were blown-up and fell down into rubble ( along with everybody’s account info – the days before the memory ‘cloud’) and probably killing anybody in those structures along with those on the ground! MURDER!
The Kicker
For all the heroic action or id self-serving antics of Neo and Tyler respectively, neither was real, in a nonfictional sense. As Thomas A. Anderson in the ‘blue pill’ world, Neo did not show any of his super powers. It was only in the matrix ‘red’ pill construct that he walked ‘the path’ and became The One as Morpheus had tried to convince him all along. Tyler, was the alternate ego/split personality of Norton’s yuppie character and fulfilled all the alpha-traited characteristics that the Narrator would have wished upon himself, in ‘his’ reality.
The Takeaway
Mankind has risen and fallen through the cultural eras of civilization. Western democratic ( representative ) governments may organize the structure of life in which we dwell – providing political freedom, equality, the right to elect and laws to abide. But, the old adage ‘prepare for the worst, hope for the best’, allows one to never be catastrophically blind-sided. Essentially, you’re on your own! Optimistically, per Steve Taylor, Ph D. ( Psychology Today ), “the goodness in human beings emerges when we are connected.” However, when it comes to evil, being prepared is your best chance to cope with what life throws your way! Finally gents, I know being a goody-goody can be dull, but, the best path to keep for us mere mortals – is the straight and narrow! Be Neo, live virtuously!!
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