Would Plato Be a Gamer?
Plato, as most people know, was a famous ancient Greek philosopher, living in the BC era, and not a compound for modeling (that would be playdough, boys and girls). Like that of his mentor Socrates, Plato was on a quest to find out the truth, for in truth therein was beauty. He explored what constituted a perfect society, what the meaning of justice is, questions about the afterlife, what it means to be an exceptional citizen of the community, and the idea of truth and forms, among many other questions that probed his mind.
But I can’t help but wonder, would Plato, if alive now, be a gamer?
Plato and Art
This got me to thinking because of his views on art. Art is, of course, about self-expression. Surely Plato would appreciate art, as much of it’s about beauty, minus that Andy Warhol garbage. But the dialogue The Republic, about a perfect form of government, minced no words in showing Plato’s disdain for art. To him art was a shadow of a shadow of the perfect forms, in which we and everything on earth are just shadows of what is already perfect and art is just a shadow of us.
Plato, if alive today, might see some games, depending on how advanced or old the graphics are, as a continuation of shadows of shadows, with early 70s Pong being at the very lowest.
