Innocence Rex

 “Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise”  -Thomas Gray

On July 24, 2019, an asteroid roughly the size of a football field came so close to Earth that the distance between the asteroid and Earth was roughly one-fifth the distance between our planet and the Moon. Despite its size, we were unprepared, and scientists didn’t discover this asteroid until the very day it passed by Earth. Had it been bigger and had it actually struck Earth, what could we have done? If there’s an hour until civilization is wiped out, would it be better not to know? Some Earthlings (myself included) would hopelessly continue to seek the Truth even if no further action was possible, whereas others would plug their ears in blissful ignorance (although in today’s age, "asteroid" would be trending on Twitter within minutes).

Oedipus, the overly curious king from Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, is insistent on learning the Truth, filled with such stubbornness that he eventually takes the blue pill and is freed from his innocence. This self-driven discovery leads our mother-*expletive* (literally) king to punish himself, bringing the tragedy to a satisfying end (sidenote: Aristotle might consider the ending satisfying for a tragedy since a “good” character is brought from prosperity to misfortune by some great mistake, but to me, it feels like forcing the last puzzle piece into its place — unsatisfying and satisfying at the same time?) as Oedipus helps drive the plague out of Thebes. Despite the positive effect his discovery has on the city, Oedipus would definitely have been better off physically had he not learned the Truth (in other words, he would still be able to see). 

Despite its unfortunate ties with hatred and bigotry on online communities today, the red pill is a beautiful connection between the unblissful realizations of the two characters.

Neo from the Matrix takes a similar journey to learning the Truth. Although his decision to lose his innocence is certainly filled with far more indecision compared with that of Oedipus, Neo is also quickly flooded with the Truth regarding the illusion in which he had been living. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion to Neo is way better off having been “red-pilled;” after all, he is released from the lies of the Matrix and is able to forge a better world, despite (spoiler alert!) his own death at the end of Matrix Revolutions. Similar to Oedipus, Neo is physically damaged by his new knowledge of the Truth, but the world is better because of it. But had Neo simply taken the blue pill, he would have been able to live blissfully in the Matrix, regardless of its mismanagement.

Neo and Oedipus’s close and impactful encounters with Truth are sudden and permanent; these realizations take place in less than a day, forever changing their perceptions of reality. In Flowers for Algernon, however, Charlie Gordon’s shift away and back towards from blissful ignorance is relatively slow, and we are able to see the presence of Truth in three different contexts: ignorance pre-realization, realization, and finally ignorance post-realization. While he is fully conscious of his childhood abuse and his coworkers’ insensitive attitudes towards him, he is clearly hurt emotionally, yet he still tries to prevent his return to blissful ignorance, suggesting that Charlie believes he is better off knowing the Truth despite some of its consequences.

Therefore, objectively deciding whether a character would be better off knowing the Truth requires looking at a specific character. Even given scenarios that are practically identical, this decision rests on the characters’ personalities, hopes, and behaviors, as well as many other considerations. Charlie Gordon’s hope to remain intelligent can be attributed to his relationship with Alice, his own hostility towards intellectual inferiors, and several other factors. On the other hand, despite the fact that the world is better off with Neo’s knowledge of the Truth, Neo himself is worse off as a dead anomaly of the Matrix, unable to interact with many friends and loved ones.

In Oedipus Rex, as Oedipus attempts to dodge the prophecy, pressures others into telling him the truth, and leads the search for Laius’s murderer, Oedipus is painted as a driven individual who prefers to have power over his own actions; in other words, a strongly internal locus of control defines Oedipus’s actions and being. Therefore, Oedipus is better off knowing the Truth. While the physical and emotional damage this revelation causes matches well with Aristotle’s notions of tragic misfortune, Oedipus knows more and is able to make more informed decisions and actions, a quality that Oedipus would surely prefer given the personality that has been revealed to us throughout the course of the play.

Ignorance and its effects have been explored since the dawn of our civilization and will likely continue to be explored until the end of it. But just as fictional characters have illustrated for us, the effect of this ignorance largely depends on the individual. For some of us, ignorance truly is bliss, but for others (including Oedipus), ignorance is our greatest enemy, perhaps even surpassing the asteroids.

Ouch!