This article is about the postmodern theory of IR with the ideas of Michael Foucault and the film The Matrix (1999). First postmodernism explained as a critical IR theory and its assumptions discussed. Secondly, The Matrix (1999) will be summarized. Subsequently the film will be analyzed with a postmodern perspective. And finally there will be a general conclusion on the document. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Postmodernism has been a major critical theory of international relations since the 1980s. It is fundamental because it comes after modernity and criticizes what is modern in international relations. Postmodernism brings another point of view, other considerations, other definitions to modern understanding. Modern international relations began in the 15th and 16th centuries with the formation of the nation state. The modern nation state is the main and most important actor in the Westphalian state system. Both neorealism and neoliberalism, which are dominant in international relations, agree that the modern nation state is key to international relations. Therefore modernism concerns states in international relations. Therefore postmodernism in international relations means beyond states. Postmodern theory emphasizes the role of non-state actors and corporations in international politics and how they shape international policies. Political actions carried out by language, norm, idea and abstract concepts according to postmodernism. These also influence our identities. And language helps us understand deeper ideas like why a certain state acts a certain way. According to the postmodernist argument, classical theories such as realism and liberalism underestimate the role of non-state actors. In realism, for example, the state is the main actor in international relations. Other actors, such as non-state actors or individuals, have less or no importance. But according to postmodernism, multinationals, social classes, women and poor countries also have an impact on international politics. They further argued that, unlike realism, states are not unitary actors and therefore are not rational. Realist theory argued that states are rational, unitary actors. In the international arena they act rationally and try to survive. To do this they act on the principle of self-help. Or even neoliberal institutionalism agrees that states are important actors in international relations. But similar to constructivism, postmodern IR theory argued that states are artificial human works and are socially constructed. They are abstractions. Therefore, according to the postmodern claim, there is no national interest in opposition to the realist theory of IR. National interest is the production of individuals and what individuals think this is national interest. This shows how critical he is of postmodern theory in international relations. It rejects one of the key concepts of traditional theories. Although postmodernism has been adopted into the discipline of IR, it is actually a sociological “after the modern” situation. The key concept of postmodernism is truth. Postmodernism rejects direct access to the truth. There is no absolute truth. For Foucault, the function of knowledge is not to identify correlations or causal chains between pre-existing entities, but to classify, regulate and normalize in order to make things and people manageable. In this sense, knowledge produces effects, problems andspecific identities. (Fournier, 2014). Therefore knowledge is not stable and can change. If these statements are adopted into IR, concepts such as anarchy or sovereign equality cannot be exact truths. They can be changed from person to person. Therefore, according to postmodernism, international politics is irrational and unpredictable. This is one of the main claims of postmodern IR theory. The actions and behaviors of states are irrational, therefore international relations are unpredictable. This is the fundamental difference between traditional theories and postmodernism because all traditional theories argued that international relations were predictable. Their main goal is to predict future state behaviors. But postmodern IR theory does not accept this. Postmodernism rejects the concept of absolute truth. Modernism accepted that there is no relationship between power and knowledge and there is absolute truth. But according to Foucault, power, in fact, produces knowledge. "All power requires knowledge, and all knowledge builds on and reinforces existing power relations. Therefore, no truth exists outside of power." (Robert H. Jackson, 2010). Therefore there is a deep skepticism in postmodernism. One of the most important assumptions of postmodernism is the subjectivity and relativity of truth. According to their statement, truth is subjective, so there is no general truth. Each person has their own truths. So the general truth we have accepted is someone else's truth. This someone else is the most powerful. There is a relationship between power and truth. The most powerful in terms of political and economic power accepted their truths from others. This understanding shows the skepticism of postmodernism. They argued that there is no truth and denied objective natural reality. Postmodernism also denies the importance of logic. According to the modern Enlightenment idea, if people use logic and reason they produce science and technology. And science brings changes to human beings and their society, so they will get better and better stages. But postmodernism rejects this argument. According to postmodernists, due to science and technology there are weapons of mass destruction or nuclear bombs which have caused the death of millions of people. If the technology used by bad and evil people caused deadly consequences such as world wars or terrorist organizations. Therefore the modernist argument from the Enlightenment is wrong according to the postmodernist argument. Furthermore, postmodernism also rejects the concept of universal logic as universal truth. According to modernism there is a universal logic and reason and there are rules, regulations, laws in every domain of knowledge, including international relations. These are the same for all people. But in postmodernist argument, logic and reason are also abstract concepts. They are creations of people, so they are subjective. There is nothing universal about them. Therefore they can change society to society, or culture to culture. And as time goes by these can also be changes in these societies and cultures. The Matrix is ​​a 1999 American science fiction film starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving. The film written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. It is a dystopia that in the future world machines use humans as batteries for energy. And they created a simulated reality for humans called the "Matrix". Before this stage the machines are created by humans but eventually they rebel and take control of the world. Humans try to block out the sun because machines draw their energy from the sun. But after the machines discovered they coulduse human body heat and electrical activities as a battery for their energy needs. The film begins with a female "Trinity" being captured by the police in a dirty hotel room. But he manages to beat them thanks to some superhuman abilities. Immediately afterwards, 3 agents who also have superhuman abilities arrive at the hotel and try to capture the women. But he manages to escape by answering a ringing public telephone. In the next scene, Trinity comes into contact with a computer programmer Thomas Anderson or his nickname "Neo". He lives two lives. He's a computer programmer by day and a hacker by night. Trinity tells Neo, "The Matrix got you." Neo can't understand him and Trinity tells him that if you agree I can bring you a man who can explain to you. This man named Morpheus wanted by the agents and in his work the agents arrest Mr. Anderson and question him about the terrorist Morpheus. Neo does not speak and later meets Morpheus. He offers Neo the choice between the truth about the Matrix in the red pill and supporting his normal life with the blue pill. Neo always feels in life that something is wrong in this world and chooses the red pill and swallows it. He later awoke from his tube and was rescued by Morpheus' ship, Nebuchadnezzar. When Neo wakes up, he remembers that he is weak, hairless, and living in a tube filled with liquid with millions of other people. Over time Neo gets better and better. When he recovers enough, Morpheus will explain the Matrix. The truth is that the 21st century machines and their creators have declared war on each other and humanity has lost the war. Since man blocks the energy source of machines, which is solar energy, and that means the sun, machines have realized that the human body can be used as a source of energy. So Neo is no longer a car battery, noted that there is no absolute truth. Morpheus continues to narrate: The Matrix is ​​a simulation of the 20th century world, in which humans live like a crop and their minds are controlled by machines. All the knowledge they know is not the truth. And the truth comes from the most powerful, the machines. If a person understands the truth about the Matrix, they can handle the broken physical laws of the program and this gives superhuman abilities. But the problem is that if a person dies in the Matrix, they also die in the real world. The humans who realize the truth and manage to escape from the Matrix lived in an underground city. Zion is the last human city in the real world. Morpheus' purpose is with his ship and crew as a group of rebels enter the Matrix and disconnect the human body of the slaves and free them. But in freeing Neo, Morpheus's purpose is different. According to a prophecy there is a man called "the One" who comes and frees humanity from the Matrix program and ends the war between humanity and the machines. This prophecy comes from the Oracle, so Morpheus and his crew enter the Matrix to visit her. When Neo talks to the Oracle he understands that he was not the One and in the future he would have to choose between his own life and the life of Morpheus. When they try to return to the real world, the agents recognize them. A member of the Cyper crew betrays Morpheus for a good life in the Matrix. And thanks to his help the agents manage to capture Morpheus. Their purpose in capturing Morpheus is to discover the location of Zion and kill all remaining humanity who realizes the truth about the Matrix. Neo decided to save Morpheus because of the oracle's words, so he and Trinity enter the Matrix to save him. When they tried to do this, Neo realized that he could compete with the agents, something that was not possible for humans, not even Morpheus. Neo, Trinity and Morpheus get rid of the agents and try to return to the real world. But Agent Smith kidnaps them and kills Neo before he leaves. So inNebuchadnezzar the Trinity talks to Neo's corpse and says that 'you cannot be dead because I love you, and the Oracle told me that I would fall in love with the One'. And kisses Neo. And then Neo wakes up and realizes that he is the One. Neo as the One now understands the Matrix and can control it. Therefore in the Matrix he manages to kill Agent Smith with ease. And in the last scene Neo makes a phone call into the Matrix and says I will show the unrealized humans "a world where anything is possible." Hang up the phone and fly to the sky. There are many clues in The Matrix about postmodernism. Actually, looking from a postmodern point of view, the Matrix fits their conception of the world. The Matrix is ​​the postmodern world and the real world is modern. When we look at the first scene of the movie, Trinity may have some superhuman abilities that the police chasing her think this is impossible. So we understand that there is something different in this world. Next scene Neo wakes up and sees that his computer has been hacked. On the computer screen we see the phrase "The Matrix owns you." Following Neo takes a book from his bookshelf. The book is Simulacra and Simulation written by Jean Baudrillard. This is a book of postmodern philosophy and analyzes the relationship between reality, symbols and society. So this scene shows that there is a relationship between the Matrix and postmodernism. Neo opens the book and there is a chapter on nihilism which is a denial of law, institution and even existence. This scene shows us the skepticism of postmodernism. Neo has postmodern thinking and questions the world and is inclined to deny the universal truths of his world. This can also be seen in his two different lives. In the morning he is an ordinary computer programmer and works in a company, Thomas Anderson. But at night he changes his truths and takes on a second life as a hacker nicknamed Neo. His ideas, perceptions hidden in Thomas Anderson manifest themselves in the nights in Neo. Neo knows something is wrong in this world. There is something that is not normal. In the next scene Neo is late for work and his boss is angry with him. Neo says, "you think you're special, somehow the rules don't apply to you but you're wrong." But Neo doesn't even listen to him. Reject this reality. This scene also has postmodern influences. According to postmodernism, there is no such thing as absolute freedom as liberalism claims. Neo feels this in the film, feels trapped and tries to find a way to free himself. As the film progresses, Neo realizes that a man named Morpheus is looking for him to show the truth. He states that I will explain to you what the Matrix is. Morpheus chose Neo to show him the truth because the Oracle told him that Neo is "the One". But later the Oracle also tells Neo that you are not the one. Therefore the assumption that there is no truth seen in the film because of Morpheus' truth is also wrong and dictated by him most powerful, the Oracle. And Neo is also wrong because he later realized he was the One. The Oracle installs a program called "The One" on Neo by giving him a cookie. After Morpheus and Neo leave the Oracle and try to return, agents from the real world find them. In a flashback, Cypher, one of Morpheus' crew members, is seen betraying him and telling the agents about Morpheus' whereabouts. When he realizes this betrayal he justifies himself by saying that 'ignorance is bliss'. He doesn't want to live in the real world and wants a good life in the Matrix. This scene shows a parallel to the postmodern assumption that there is no universal logic and reason. The entire crew of the Morpheus wants to save humans from being batteries, but Cypher rejects this belief. He wants to live like a battery swap for a good life in the Matrix. So we see that his reason and logic are different from that.