parable Cave
by Rycke Foreman
“On Plato’s account, society will resent the person who attains true knowledge when he/she tries to share that knowledge with them.”
I believe that Plato’s ideas on this matter were largely shaped by the life and death of his friend and teacher, Socrates. I also believe that his theory is, for the most part, an extremely accurate description of the human condition, especially on a social level.
His idea is most clearly expressed in The Parable of the Cave. In it, mankind’s mental state is likened to that of men watching manipulated shadows dance across the walls of a cave. Yet, not only are these men’s eyes fixed permanently on the shadows, but these cave-dwellers are fooled--by an elite class of “puppetmasters” -- into believing that these phantasms are actually the definition of what is “true reality.” However, if one were to somehow escape or be “forcibly dragged” up and out of the cave and into the sunlight that illuminates the “real world,” after a brief but “blinding” confusion, one might come to reason that the shadows one perceived as being the “real McCoy” were merely partial--rather poor, actually--representations of a greater reality. In other words, “whatcha’ see ain’t always whatcha’ get.” Now, after arriving at this conclusion, one might be compelled to reenter the cave and attempt to alert others to this enlightenment--but the other cave-dwellers, ignorant of this new knowledge (and typically quite resistant to change), consider the now-outsider to be a threat, and thus spring into action, eliminating the new threat and preserving their static way of life. So the enlightened must be sagacious in their approach to the “vulgar” class, because all men are capable of seeing the greater reality; unfortunately, most will resist.
Plato’s Parable of the Cave seems very much to be a reflection of Socrates’ ascent into reason (or finding his way into “the light”), his attempt to “go down again” and share it with nearly everyone he ran into, and his subsequent execution for trying to “drag” people back up into “the light” with him. Or, as Plato puts it in his dialog, “’...Would they not kill anyone who tried to release them and take them up, if they could somehow lay hands on him and kill him?’”
The Parable of the Cave also proved eerily prophetic in regards to the life and death of Jesus Christ. But Christ was more of a religious leader, as opposed to Socrates’ lifestyle as a sophist, so are the two even comparable in the realms of “true knowledge”? And what of science, which does not completely agree with either man’s philosophies? (Ironically enough, neither man completely agreed with "known" science, either...) Even the law can be included, to some extent, because the abstract of justice is based on the assumption of “truth” behind a society’s knowledge of “right and wrong.” So which of these can be said to have the “true knowledge” one would be resented for if shared? Men have been resented straight into the grave for all four of these causes--philosophy, religion, science and law--so persecution in the face of belief is either an invalid indicator of truth, or evidence that perchance there is truth within all of these principles. Should this be the case, maybe philosophy is the discipline that provides insights into mental “truths,” religion, insight into the spiritual, science the physical and law the societal. And, upon examination of each, there certainly seems to be nuggets of wisdom embedded near their respective hearts. So perhaps it would be prudent to consider each of these to (at least possibly) be “true knowledge,” just separated into the different levels of human being.
And if this eclecticism is, indeed, accurate, Plato’s assertion, once again, appears to be upheld in the story of Christ--a view of the world, by the way, that Jesus himself did agree with. John 15:19 records Jesus teaching the same idea: “The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t--for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you.” He reiterates this point in John 17:14, and again in Matthew 10:22.
While such drastic examples of persecution against science are harder to find in modern times, keep in mind that Galileo was forced to renounce his scientific findings and beliefs less than four hundred years ago, lest he be put to death. The “Scopes monkey trial” occurred less than a century ago (though Scopes was only fined monetarily--on the other hand, he did take a lot of heat from the public...). A similar case, Epperson vs. Arkansas, was put before the courts in 1968; as recently as 1999, the Kansas School Board rocked the boat by “removing references to evolution from the standard state science curriculum.”
In the arena of human rights, falling somewhere between philosophy and the law, the past half-century alone offers some highly visible candidates: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela come immediately to mind. Religious missionaries that go door to door or gather in airports with flowers and pamphlets are persecuted physically in some countries, only mentally in others. And these are only some of the most visible samplings to be taken from history’s pages. Plato’s intended message behind The Parable of the Cave is evident throughout mankind’s bloody past, from times long before Plato up through the modern day.
