Monday, December 15, 2014

Blog Binge #4: How does Plato View the Human Condition?

In Plato's eyes, if you are not a philosopher (aka a Guardian), you suck. You are not able to see truth and are heavily corrupted if you are not part of the prestigious group. ERGO, Plato sees the human race as ignorant. 

The allegory of the cave is a perfect example of why I'm saying this Plato believes we're all ignorant. Think about it. You have all of these people chained and facing a wall. This wall is the only thing they can look at and on that wall they are able to see shadows. These shadows are projections, which means they are not the real thing, which they can never go see. At the end of the allegory, the one guy who escapes and sees the outside and experiences the real world, chooses to return to the cave!

Whoa! Clearly Plato thinks the human race is easily influenced, for the worse. What he's saying is we are prisoners of the media, the government, and whatever else alters our minds. We see and believe what these things want us to see and believe and we play into it because we are oblivious to what they are doing or because we don't have in it in us to do something about it. Then to top it off, he believes we're dumb enough to return to the power of these influences even after we've unveiled the truth and seen the light.

This is a really depressing depiction of the human race, but I think it holds a lot of truth.

Here's a visual of the allegory:

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