Plato was a pretty smart guy.
Most people know that, of course, but most of us don't think often about what he had to say and what it might mean for us 2500 years later. For anybody who has any inclination to make sense of life and the world, Plato has always been one of the places to begin, after all, and his principles of life's essence, his Forms, have plenty to chew on. But Plato liked to tell stories, too, and one of his most well known is his Cave Allegory.
I've included a picture to help you visualize it, and *SPOILER ALERT* also stole the contemporary twist from my Philosophy professor, Agust Magnusson, but it was so good I had to share it. Thank you, sir.
So here's the basic tale: there are these people who have lived in a cave all of their lives and they're chained in there so all they can see is the back wall. Behind them is a big fire and also somebody standing in front of it holding up a bunch of shapes that mimic stuff in the world-birds, animals, that kind of stuff. So what do the chained people see? Shadows. Now, they're shadows of stuff that's real, but they don't know that because they've never seen anything real, only the shadows. And they like them. They're amusing, even beautiful in their way. And, as long as the shadows are around, the cave dwellers are pretty happy.
But one day, somebody escapes the cave and gets out in the real world. "Whoa," he thinks. "There's a lot of stuff out here--things not only to see, but to feel and taste and hear, too. This world is way cooler than we thought." Now the story doesn't say this, but maybe this guy brings back something to show his friends. Maybe he brings back a rose. And he tells them about the world. And he gives them the rose. But they don't much like it. The rose is too fragile and too dirty and -ouch!- it has thorns. They throw it back at him and turn back to their shadows, content and safe.
Our escapee turns to face the people holding the shadow shapes that keep his friends amused. He can't figure it out. What's wrong with these people? But the shape holders just smile. They know. Our escapee flees the cave for the last time to encounter the real world, and all the beauty and ugliness it presents and eventually, probably gets eaten or something, but at least he's exulted in the meantime. He's lived.
So the escapee dies, but the cave dwellers are still alive. Kind of. Yeah, you say, I saw the Matrix too. What's the big deal? Take a look at the picture again. Doesn't it look like a movie theater? Or your gaming setup? Or the place you binge watch 100 episodes of The Office? And who the heck is that holding the light? Are those mouse ears on his head? Is he wearing a tee-shirt with a lower case 'f'?
Come on. You know who he is. He's anybody who's invested in keeping your head from turning to look around, who creates a world where you lose yourself, one you can't figure out whether you love or hate. It's anybody who sucks you in, steals the irreplaceable moments of your life, and substitutes what's important to them to keep you from thinking about what's important to you. It's Netflix. The NFL. It's Mark (blanketyblank) Zuckerberg. (Humph) Meta. It's only another word for fake.
I deleted Facebook from my phone a month ago and everybody's been asking me whether I've had any withdrawal. Nope. Not a moment. All I feel is free. Tired of shadows, I'm out of the cave and in danger, but oh, man, it feels good.
photo credit: reddit.com
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