Cave Of Ignorance In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

Allegory of the cave: Cave of ignorance

“ How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” (Plato,657). We are born ignorant. Ever since we were kids, we were told by adults about the facts of life, about what is wrong and what is right and what the reality is based on what was passed down to them. Little by little, we are being molded based on someone’s idea, someone’s perception and someone’s definition about reality. As kids, we ask a lot of questions. We try to question things because we are curious, because want to understand how things work. Asking questions lead our world to where it is now. More things are discovered with questions and efforts to find the answers. We ask questions in search for the truth, but the moment we stop asking it and just take in whatever we have in front of us is the moment we allow ignorance to take over our lives. In Plato’s essay “Allegory of the cave, he represented human beings as prisoners on the cave, he explains how humans see reality based on figures projected from the fire behind them. Plato’s idea about ignorance portrays how human beings are trapped in smaller worlds defined by society government and religion.

Our society often defines how our life should be and tell as what is acceptable and what is not.

“To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.”(Plato,657) We are “educated” by school about the facts that they want to tell us. In history books, we are told who the heroes and the villains are based on the authors of the book. But do we really know if the author’s perspective is the truth? Many people will settle with the facts they are getting without any efforts to question. Even exam questions are more on the author’s point of view than the student’s perspective. Intelligent people will read another author’s perspective and compare it with each other to get a new

answer.
Government pretty much controls our minds and our lives. High authorities are respected and honoured by their services to their people. But beyond this, our governments have the power to control the flow of information and even sugar-coat facts. We obey them because they seem to be nice, professional and they show what the government is up to. Some people would actually just sit there and believe what they are seeing, while some people would keep asking questions. “Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching toward the light and reaching all along.” (Plato,657) This sentence from Plato’s essay portrays how humans crave for the truth. As prisoners who cannot move their heads to look at the source of the light, they only see the reflection of the light against the wall. This represents how the government can sometimes prevent its citizen from seeing what’s really happening. Shadows and figures are cast so people could see it as the reality of life. According to Albert J. Meigher’s journal, politicians around the world participate in government transparency to gain people’s trust by making their government more open to the public. This way, it would make it look like they want people to know but its not really clear how it works. According to Albert, we need more researchers and detailed questions to understands government transparency. Albert’s journal explains how further research are important. It gives us more knowledge to the things that we are uncertain about.

Religion gives us hope, a hope that makes us feel safer and someone is watching over us. Often times, we are limited to live under the rules of a specific religion that we belong to. We believe in something that is passed down through generations and live with it without questions. It sometimes causes inner conflicts where we are questioning ourselves of what the truth is but we couldn’t voice it out because it would mean that we are disobeying our religion’s morals and beliefs. “In Mormon culture, authority is respected, obedience is revered, and independent thinking is not. I was thought as a young girl not to “make waves” or “rock the boat.” (William,315). This quotes from “The clan of one breasted women “is one of the proofs why culture can sometimes limit our knowledge. For some culture, it is unacceptable to question the authority. As a result, those questions that could lead us to the real world turns into mere thoughts and eventually gone in our mind and we continue living with the reality presented to us. We tend to believe that we all have the answers provided by our churches, bibles, prophets and our gods.
Questions are essential of life. This past few years, we are making progress in searching for the truth with the help of immerging technologies. Social media, radios, media in general play big roles in our lives. Through this, more facts are passed around, different sides of the stories are heard and government hidden agendas are being exposed compared to the times when this type of communications are limited or doesn’t exist at all. This makes people keep asking questions to unravel the truth.
“ I must question everything, even if it means losing my faith, even if it means becoming a member of a border tribe among my own people. Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives “ (Williams,316).
Some tries to remain silent because they don’t want to be the “disobedient” member of their religion and culture. Some people ask questions after questions after discovering new and extraordinary things while some chooses to remain silent and just believe whatever stories, ideas and informations are spoon-fed to them. This kinds of people remain silent either because they are afraid of the unknown or they feel contented living in a cave of ignorance. There’s nothing wrong with obeying governments, cultures and religions as long as we keep our minds open for other possibilities and not just trap ourselves in smaller worlds defined by other individuals. We only got one life, and we need to be able to explore the world and not just to depend on other people’s ideas and beliefs.
Williams, Terry Tempest. “The Clan of One-Breasted Women” The Norton Reader: An anthology of Nonfiction. Shorter 13th edition. Linda Peterson, John Brereton, Joseph Bizup, Anne Fernald, Melissa A Goldthwaite. W.W Norton and Company, Inc. 2012. 312-318. Print

Meiger, Albert J .”Intro to the special issue on government transparency” International Review of Administrative Sciences, Journalt.November26,2015