The Allegory of The Cave: How It Still Matters When it Comes to “Fake News”
The ancient Greeks considered philosophy to be a therapeutic approach to life. They considered the acts of discussing ideas, arguments, etc. were helpful in discovering many things about the human condition and its relationship to the world around it. For them, philosophy taught us how to think, live, and die well. Perhaps more than any other thinker, Plato understood how philosophy could potentially help guide society to a more promising and well thought out future. Plato often used his teacher, Socrates as a character in his famous dialogues where he would often discuss various topics including government, ethics, epistemology (the study of what and how we know things), and various other issues with other citizens of Ancient Greece.
In his famous book, The Republic, Plato tells the famous story of what has now become known as The Allegory of The Cave. This famous story was meant to demonstrate the power of ignorance on our nature. As Plato stated, the purpose of the allegory was to compare: “The effect of education and the lack of it on our nature.” For Plato, much of our lives are spent in a passive conscious state that lacks any sort of critical thinking, reasoning or questioning. We take for granted the things we know and ultimately have the potential to fall into blind ignorance and even resort to violence to defend said ignorance. His famous allegory serves us in demonstrating that the manner in which we view the world can always be subjected to deeper analysis. That many of the things we feel that we know are in fact a lot more complicated than they may appear.
The Allegory of The Cave begins as a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, who was the older brother of Plato. During their dialogue, Socrates asks Glaucon to imagine a cave in which its inhabitants have been imprisoned there since birth. They have never gone outside or left the cave in any way, so they know nothing of the outside world. This cave is cold, damp, and dark. There is no natural light in this cave, the only light comes from a small fire that is behind the chained inhabitants. This fire occasionally throws onto the wall the shadowy reflections of objects for the inhabitants to see. Unknown to the lifelong inhabitants of this cave, these figures are merely shadows, not the actual objects that the fire reflects. Despite this, the cave dwellers often discuss these shadows in great detail and take pride in their assumed understanding of the world around them. They believe to understand these shadowy projections would be to understand reality and life as a whole.
Plato then suggests a hypothetical situation to Glaucon. What if by chance one of the cave dwellers finds a way to come out of the cave to the outside world? Plato then goes on to describe what would happen should one of the inhabitants of the cave were to escape. The former cave dweller would see natural sunlight for the first time which at first blinds him. After adjusting to the Sun’s light, the cave dweller would then be able to see all of the things in the world properly illuminated for the first time. He is able to observe the natural colors of objects. He is able to touch the texture of nature and have sensations he otherwise would not have felt if he had never left the dark damp environment of the cave. He finally experiences the true nature of the objects he had previously only known as shadows. The cave dweller marvels at all of reality, in which he is finally able to experience for what it really is rather than the mere projection of it.
Out of concern for the others still stuck in the cave, the man attempts to return to the cave in order to help the others who still marvel at the sights of the shadows being projected on the wall by the fire. Because he has gotten accustomed to the light of the outer world when he attempts to re-enter the cave he gets lost in the darkness and is disoriented by the lack of sunlight. To the others, he looks rather foolish and unintelligent. When he, in turn, feels the same about them and proceeds to explain to the others what the sun is, what a real tree looks like, and the texture of the other things he has experienced, the other cave dwellers get sarcastic and dismissive. They feel that leaving the cave has blinded him and left him in error. They mock the man and ridicule his ideas for they feel he has gone away from the shadowy figures. When the enlightened man keeps insisting that they have been viewing merely shadows the others become increasingly frustrated and plan to kill him.
Plato’s Allegory of The Cave has been considered to be a representation of our society and the epistemological limitations man can place upon themselves, even if it is unknowingly. The Sun in the allegory symbolizes reason. The inhabitants are a representation of the masses who have not dedicated themselves to thinking clearly or accepting new perceptions of what reality is. The man who escapes the cave represents an enlightened person and the attitude they can expect when attempting to try to correct people who have been living in confusion and error. It is for us today a representation of a culture gone mad. A lot of what we place great importance in such as money, materialism, and social status may very well be one of the shadows projected onto our minds by the flames of our culture. It is a very real possibility that all these things that we obsess over maybe, just like the shadowy figures in the allegory, a mere illusion.
This sort of unconscious state was not something we willingly choose to be a part of, it is merely where, in Plato’s view, we all start out. Despite this, Plato and the ancient Greeks felt optimistic that with the proper education, we could unlearn these shadowy projections that have been reflected onto our perception by the fire of ignorance that culture and mass media can sometimes create. In today’s day and age, there are infinite amounts of ways to perceive the world. The internet has granted us the ability to broadcast anything we please in an instant. The perceptions we gain when we consume media can give us a certain projection of the world that may not be entirely true. Technology has given us the ability to report and share anything in seconds but also allows us to lie in the same amount of time. News channels often lack facts but stick a media personality giving their opinion on the facts which could give those without critical thinking skills a false perception of what is going on, similar to the cave dwellers in Plato’s allegory. The Allegory of The Cave can be used as a cautionary tale to warn us about what happens when we are close-minded and violently against new ideas of reality. It can be a guide to reminding ourselves that what we consume in media is but a shadow of the experience we could have if we got out of the cave.
