Allegory Of The Cave Education

The Greek philosopher, Plato, once said: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” For centuries education has played a large role in society. One’s level of education along with many other factors has the ability to dictate one’s path in life. Those who have more education are often viewed as being more superior and powerful, while those who aren’t widely exposed to education are more likely to be faced with poverty and discrimination. In the Allegory of the Cave, by Plato, he uses freedom and imprisonment to portray an open or narrow-minded person as a bridge to understand the advantages of being educated and the disadvantages of being uneducated; I will argue that varying education levels leads to willful ignorance,

ineffective communication, and ultimately conflict when looking at slavery, immigration, and police brutality.

Willful ignorance is the decision against your better judgement to avoid information about something as a means to also avoid making decisions prompted by that information (“Willful ignorance”). In the Allegory of the Cave, the escaped prisoner has two different perspectives because he has been exposed to the inside and the outside of the cave (4). On the other hand, the prisoners inside the cave are limiting themselves to that one perspective because they haven’t been educated and freed from what is inside the cave. Referring to not only the prisoners but everyone, Plato says “But our present discussion, on the other, shows that the power to learn is present in everyone’s soul” (5). This willful ignorance is constantly seen within society pertaining to those with higher and lower education levels. Slave owners knew the institution of slavery was morally wrong which is why they withheld any means of education from their slaves, but they still acted as

though it was justified and fair. The President of the United States knows there are different types of immigrants, legal and illegal, but instead of creating clear divides between them he chooses to classify them as one large group who cause problems in our country. In the book Spare Parts by Joshua Davis, there are numerous accounts mentioned that show the injustices faced by immigrants due to their lack of knowledge about the legal system. One instance portrays a mother and son being targeted by agents in Phoenix for speaking Spanish; they were forced to show their birth certificates to prove they weren’t illegal immigrants (31). Within society people with more education tend to be the people with more rights. They often cast a blind eye to those who don’t have those same rights while those who don’t have those rights see the privileges given to those with rights and the restrictions put upon themselves.
Although education leads to a sense of freedom, it also leads to ineffective communication amongst people.