Essay About Mass Deception And Real Life

Hypocrisy Revealed In Canterbury Tales
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Theodor Adorno believes that humans are no longer
free. This is partly because media on the whole is
dictating what an individual should be instead of
individuals deciding for themselves. The entertainment
industry has humanity under its grasp, but most normal
people have yet to realize. The only roles in life are
dictated by movies. When coming to understand culture
today, it is often necessary to consider the free
lawfulness of the imagination. The idea that the
imagination “must be considered in its freedom.”
Immanuel Kants idea that imagination has its own laws
has been overlooked by what Adorno calls the “Mass
Deception” of Enlightenment.
This “Mass Deception” is embodied in the film The
Matrix. In this film, people are so intent in living
in a dream that real life has yet to be discovered.
The films theme revolves around the need for
redemption from this trap, as does Adorno. As
Morpehus declares, The world is being pulled over our
eyes. Television and the movies project an image of
the ideal hero that is “uniform as a whole and in
every part” (1223). That image takes away true
individuality.
People on the whole no longer learn the
art of free thinking. Instead, we have become a
society dedicated to what Adorno calls “resignation.”
Most peoples financial resources are spent on
mindless pleasure. This “pleasure promotes the
resignation which it ought to help to forget” (1232).
Our time, money, emotion, and other resources are
wasted as a result of this system.
What comes to mind is societyÒs dependence on
entertainment. It gives us an identity. It establishes
a personality and relationship that fills the void in
our lives. Relationships are for people in the movies,
and they are more real than the real relationships.
Even happily