But what if a guy escaped the cave? Now things are starting to spice up. Let's take one guy and let him roam free into the light. And he will see the stupidity he was forced to sit through. When he gets back to the cave, not only can he not see -- the light has blinded him. But his attempts to explain their world is ignored and assumed to be ridiculed.
OK so what? Well, I'm glad you asked, person of my imagination. This has been seen everywhere in history. Maybe it's even happened in your own life. But let's start out with some big examples.
Oh look, it's this guy, Martin Luther. Wait, why is Martin Luther in a talk about caves? I'll get to that very soon.
A bit of background. The Church basically owned everything from 1300 to about 1500. Every aspect of life revolved around the Roman Catholic Church. Since state governments were not well established -- in most cases they did not exist -- the Church filled this void. As a result, countries would pay a tithe, or a tax, to the Church to show their respect. Later, the Church became corrupt. Voluntary donations, specifically indulgences, became mandatory. The Church would coerce people into paying for them. Furthermore, the Church became much more controlling of how people worship God.So we all know the story. The Church gets angry, he's excommunicated, and his life sucks for a bit.
But how does this reflect the "Allegory of the Cave?" Well, Luther went and ventured to the light. In this case, he ventured to the Bible. He saw the error of the way Catholics lived -- the cave -- and tried to explain their errors. Luther did not seek to create a new world but only to reform the one he was in. This did not happen and he, along with his subsequent followers, were persecuted. Oh...
OK so that happened years ago. What about recently? (Darn, Galileo and I guess the birth of America aren't too recent.) While Heart of Darkness is a good example, it is not quite as applicable to current events.
Relatively recent is the writing and publishing of George Orwell's 1984. Though not an actual event, Orwell published his novel to show the possible danger of society. Without spoiling much, the protagonist, Winston, finds not only his job tiring -- modifying history to adequately reflect the state -- but also of the government's ceremonies to keep everyone under control. Winston realizes the lack of freedom and real fun in his state and how the state manages to keep everyone under this control. The novel is a detailing of how he learns to hate the system he is in and how he learns the flaws of the system, trying to rally people against it.
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| The system Winston hates |
Here, Winston slowly exits this metaphorical cave. The system he lives in challenges him. Everyone follows and loves the government they live in. If not, they are expelled and reinstated as new societal members who learn to love the system again. Winston, however, visits areas that still practice older values but remain poor the proles. These proles serve as the light to Winston's cave. When he comes back and tries to fight the power by informing others. Everyone else, however, is stuck with what they know and instead persecute Winston.
To conclude, there is one last thing that epitomizes this idea. In popular culture, there is, of course, The Matrix. It explores this same idea, seen in the following, famous scene:
Here, Morpheus (the guy who is not Neo) explains to Neo how the world is not what they interpret it as. Neo has trouble grasping the idea later on but eventually goes on to accept it. There is this same idea of the "Matrix" (the world they live in) is actually a virtual reality that is not real. Morpheus, the one who exits the cave first, passes on this knowledge. But when he and his followers come back, no one will accept the truth.
Though there are many more examples these are the major ones. After reading the Allegory, we should think about how we should obtain truth and the manner in which we should pursue it. For all we know, we could still be living in the cave despite how free we may think we are.
This is such an eye opening post! I often thought of those Socrates speaks of as people living in more primitive societies. However, your evidence and solid argument caused me to change my mind, and think about our world in a whole new way. In a history class I am taking right now we are discussing, “history wars.” These are instances in the past where the government creates a dominant narrative about the event, and then later on in time, historians, or those who were involved in the particular event, come forward and challenge this narrative. Some examples of these “history wars” are the dropping of the atomic bomb, and the Nanking Massacre. Many times those who question the government’s depiction or denial of an event are discredited, and seen as “country haters.” While reading your post, it got me thinking about how people who question the dominant narrative of the time are attempting to break the chains that hold them in ignorance (in this case the government). Socrates’s point in, The Allegory of The Cave, is that those who are reflective upon their lives, and question situations around them, can be enlightened and therefore, live the good life. Those who question the dominant narrative of history are, “living the good life” according to Socrates because they are working toward uncovering the truth. But how then, would you ask, are people who are labeled as “country haters,” and have their work discredited, “living the good life?” Well in Socrates’s world, though government, or those living in ignorance, seek to squelch these citizen's uncovering of the truth, the fact is, these people are attempting to question instances in history, and their own lives, making them reflective citizens. Your post did a wonderful job of connecting instances in history where people are attempting to “break the chains” making it extremely easy for me to connect your ideas to material I have learned.
ReplyDeleteGreat job!
I thought this was a fantastic post, and it truly presented modern issues that paralleled Plato's Allegory of the Cave. However, I am hesitant to agree with always questioning what is the complete truth. This sounds ignorant and makes me seem like a weak-minded person. I am not trying to say that I am better off not knowing somethings or that I do not care about what is "real". I am only saying this because I find this so prevalent in the world today that it is almost useless. For example, how many times have you heard of the 9/11 conspiracy and that it was actually the US government trying to win the support of the nation in order to go to war, get oil, et cetera. Furthermore, I am sick of hearing the rumblings of Area 51 and the secrets locked away in that mysterious place. No, I am not arguing that we should not ask questions. I think the ideas of Martin Luther, Gandhi, and many other civil rights leaders were completely right in what they did. They saw a problem and tried to fix it. That is entirely justified to do in challenging society. However, these conspiracy theorists have gone too far in their seemingly endless rants about the evils done by the government.
ReplyDeleteAlthough these are examples that could connect to Plato's "allegory of the cave," I would be even more interested to see you explain them more in dept. For instance, in many of your examples, the "enlightened one" dies. What does this have to say about achieving enlightenment? If we seek the truth, will we only be punished? Like Samantha's earlier comment, the point of the allegory of the cave is to seek truth for PERSONAL enlightenment. What about Martin Luther? He decided to share his "discovered truth" to benefit other people, not just himself. Does this still connect to the allegory? I think you could easily argue either way. But, it would have been neat to see YOUR perspective on it, rather just examples (or maybe go in dept on one example). However, these are nice, general connections to the concept of the cave. It is very interesting when we begin to look into how this could be present in our lives today. For instance, what if the whole system of "education" (idea that we need to be educated to be successful), is just a way to control everyone under one system of "general education"? Now I don't quite think that is true, but it's interesting to start to think about institutions in society.
ReplyDeleteYou provide good examples for why we should question authority and norms. But I think it's more interesting to try and solve the problems that these people faced when they became challengers of the status quo. While Socrates concludes that the people in the cave would kill the person who comes back, Socrates himself doesn't provide a solution to the problem.
ReplyDeleteIn order to challenge assumptions about the world you need to live in a structure that lets you do that. For example, Winston in 1984 was inevitably going to be caught by the secret police because he lived in a completely totalitarian world.
While Martin Luther lived in a time of church dominance over daily life he was still able to survive as a challenger to that power.
How can we resist authority in completely totalitarian situations? Are we also bound to Winston faith? Or is there something we can do it change that outcome?
Allen,
ReplyDeleteI thought your post was pretty interesting. I think you did a good job of explaining Plato's allegory in its entirety. I also liked how you identified historical examples of the allegory of the cave and incorporated them into your post.
I think you are correct in saying that many of us may have already experienced the phenomenon Plato describes. One common example which comes to my mind is when high school students go away to college. For many of us, college has presented an alternate lifestyle, a different way of seeing the world. Whether you've been here for a few months or a few years, college has likely impacted the way you see and feel about the world around you. I think that this similar to Plato's prisoner leaving the cave, only many of us don't immediately realize it.
In this case, I think think the moment we realize how much our views have changed is when we return home. We had lived our whole lives in the same home environment and hadn't thought anything of it. However, returning home from college, we realize just how much we have changed. Some of us develop different religious views, some political; some us us develop a fundamentally different outlook on life. To whichever degree your views have changed, you may have returned home feeling like everything is different.
When you return home you return to the cave. In comparing home to the cave I don't mean that it is necessarily the hostile environment that the prisoner returned to. Rather, we simply realize the impact that journeying away from home has had on us. Your friends and family may notice these changes in you. They may even disagree with your newly found beliefs.
In summary, your post was great, and I think it opened the door for a lot of thought and conversation.
Allen,
ReplyDeleteThis was a very well-written post with some great comparisons. I especially enjoyed your comparison of the "Allegory of the Cave" to "The Matrix" because I too thought of that movie while considering Plato's Cave. I would definitely agree that escaping the cave is superbly analogous to Neo taking the red pill in The Matrix. In the cave, the dweller escapes in order to find that the shadows on the wall are actually only the tip of the iceberg of reality, and in "The Matrix" Neo takes the red pill in order to escape the simulation to see the massive electrical super-structure containing all of humanity within pods to harness their energy - the truth.
I also think that this movie is comparable to what happens in "The Allegory of the Cave" when one of the dwellers escapes, sees the reality outside the cave, and returns - trying to convey the truth to the other cave dwellers by yelling to them what he has just seen. When this happens the cave dwellers can't grasp what is being explained to them - to them the enlightened escapee only appears to be a shadow just like anything else they see. Thus they remain submerged in their false reality. In order for them to see the truth, they would need to escape the caves themselves. This is comparable to when Morpheus says "Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is - You have to see it for yourself." Therefore, in a similar way Morpheus wouldn't be able to enlighten Neo simply through explanation - he needed to allow Neo to escape The Matrix, as one escapes the cave, in order to grasp the truth. Therefore, in both situations, one cannot convey the reality outside of the cave, or The Matrix, through simple words. This does not allow one to transcend the false reality. In order to do so, Neo and the cave dwellers need to escape their false domains - the cave and The Matrix - in order to be truly enlightened. Also, I think it's interesting how that scene in that movie led to the "red pill" being a pop culture symbol for a shocking realization of reality while the blue pill symbolizes staying in the state of ignorance.