Thought of the Day: Poe and The Matrix
My editor trimmed this from my Matrix blog at B&C a couple weeks ago, and rightly so--it was too muddled. I've tried to resuscitate it here; see if it makes any sense...

What would Edgar Allan Poe make of The Matrix? For Poe, the most haunting evil lay within the mind and the reality it perceives. The Matrix, whose first sequel opened [last month], was just the latest example of a very different (if equally paranoid) philosophy of evil and reality. It holds that the greatest dread is not Poe's belief that the reality we perceive is poisoned by evil, but rather the possibility that this reality is only an illusion, and that evil itself lies in another dimension. Ostensible reality is not evil's torture chamber that serves an obviously ominous purpose, as in Poe's stories and poems; instead it is evil's inviting playground that serves an elusive purpose.

(Now I'm wondering how this all jives with my Calvinist belief in total depravity ... I need lunch.)

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