Fahrenheit 451 And Allegory Of The Cave Essay

What defines a good education and what can classics like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave teach us about it? Without a proper education, a society becomes ignorant and regresses.

The key to an enlightened and successful society lies not simply in education, but an education based on experiences. Rather than merely accepting the information given in a book or by a teacher, an individual should learn through experiences that will affect their daily life. “A class that teaches how to deal with real world scenarios, such as how to conduct oneself in interviews and how to write resumes, will prepare someone for the world more than memorization will,” says Bela Ucio.

An individual gains wisdom through experience;

the more experiences gained, the wiser an individual is. Individuals should gain experience rather than memorize facts, as the wisdom one obtains through experience will always be worth more than book knowledge and useless facts.

Moreover, truth is a process.

Many successful people spend their life searching for wisdom because they are aware that knowledge cannot be rushed. For instance, in the allegory, a man seeking knowledge will first “see the shadows... next the reflections of men and other objects in the water.” In other words, wisdom is not obtained immediately. Plato states that for every piece of wisdom gained, there is another to learn. An individual must recognize that it is important to continue learning throughout their life to gain a proper education and help their society. In addition, lack of education produces an

ignorant society. In the allegory, prisoners refused to gain knowledge and chose instead to live in their superficial world. Because they were never given a proper education, they feared the truth and thought “it was better not even to think of ascending.” Stephania Valle adds, “The prisoners were not willing to learn because they were never given the opportunity to.” A well-educated society will prevent this from happening.

Furthermore, limiting the truth a society has access to is detrimental to that society. For instance, in Fahrenheit 451, the more those in Montag’s society became preoccupied with leisure instead of education, the more the government limited the education they received in the first place. “An unwilling society will not gain knowledge,” claims Tara

Dunne.

Without education, those in Montag’s world lost the wisdom the generations before them had gained, demoting them from “college and {sending them} back to the nursery” (25). Those in Montag’s society have nothing to learn from, leaving them more susceptible to make the same mistakes and regress. A well educated society is a successful society. Anikin Domingo adds, “Restricting education is the main contributing factor for regression in society.”

Ultimately, a proper education is one built on experiences gathered over time and is not something instantly acquired. In conclusion, Bradbury and Plato support the idea that education is absolutely necessary by exploring the consequences of uneducated societies in their works.