The Matrix is a psychological conditioning that leads man to live against his nature, that is, to act more and more against his own best interest and more and more in the interest of others, convinced of the opposite, that is, of acting primarily in his own best interest.
The victims of the Matrix are slaves who do not realize they are slaves.
A few, a very few, realize it and would like to stop being slaves, but they do not know how to do it, because they do not have the useful information to do so.