Reailties and Race

One theme which has caught my interest in the recent readings and movies is that of reality. Or more specifically the existence of many overlying or alternative realities. “Neuromancer,” “The Lathe of Heaven,” and “The Matrix” all address reality in complex but essentially different ways. In “Neuromancer,” Cyberspace, a world as real as our own, is superimposed on top of the natural world, and the interplay of these two realities is central to the plot of that novel. “The Lathe of Heaven” describes a tool (the ‘Lathe’ or Orr) through which new realities are created to replace the last. “The Matrix” much like “The Lathe of Heaven,” questions the degree to which one can really understand one’s own reality, but rather than showing the fragility of reality, rejects it as nothing more than ‘the Matrix’ – the creation of the machines to subdue us in the ‘true’ reality.

I am chiefly interested in the interpretation put forth in “The Lathe of Heaven” and “The Matrix,” that the world as we know it is nothing more than our memories and the evidence of our senses. This is perhaps not directly related to race, but the fragility of reality helps to show what the writer perceives as merely a byproduct of our current reality, and what is a fundamental truth. In “The Lathe of Heaven,” it is the idea of Us and Them. The world without race or war that Orr and Haber create cannot exist without a new enemy or outsider. Thus the aliens are created. “The Matrix” is more complex, our perhaps just more confused. We know from the words of agent Smith, and again from the Architect, that the ‘perfect matrix’ was a failure. Humans rejected the idea of a perfect world, and only settled into docility when the machines provided a flawed world, one with war and violence and racism. This is not to suggest that a ‘perfect world’ as created by Haber, is desirable. What then is the most desirable state visa vi race? Are the options only inequality or uniformity, as put forth in “The Lathe of Heaven?” What other options exist?