Well, I am enrolled in both First Year Writing, and Philosophy of Human Nature, so my fellow Xangan's may reap the benefit of this turn of events.  *Grins*  Up until now, I haven't been able to engage in writing with any degree of frequency, however with two writing heavy classes, I will have lots to post here as I write for various assignments.  So for today, I give you The Allegory of the Cave by Plato.

Clements DQ1 - The Cave

The Allegory of the Cave, to me, appears to be a parable about the nature of Knowledge and how it interacts with humanity, and how humanity interacts with it. In the story, a tribe of people are restrained in such a way that their legs are bound, their necks chained, and their gaze forced to look upon a wall that contains moving shadows. A society of sorts develops around their forced state of conditions, and the shadows in a sense become their subjective reality. They speculate about the shadows, give names to the shadows, attribute the sounds they hear to the shadows, and play games revolving around the shadows. The person who is most often right and wins these games, is given accolades and thought of as wise by this closed condition society.

It is then, that one of the members is freed, where upon, he is a little stunned and disoriented, knowing only his life of sitting, watching the shadows. It is at this part where I reflect upon the nature of man's stagnation when it comes to the unknown. It seems that the natural tendency of a person, is to seek out the familiar and comfortable, and this typically plays itself out be an natural inclination not to push boundaries or limits. It is entirely possible, that were the freed person not then, forced to stand up and look around him, he may not even have recognized that he was thus freed. He may have been one of the ones who would have sat there living out their life watching the shadows, pretending to still be bound, for that is all they knew, or know.

But, he is forced to stand, and he is forced to look around, he is forced to observe that which made the shadows upon the wall. The large platform, with its figures he could not name, but by the shadows they cast. The roaring fire, behind them, blinding his eyes and causing him pain until they adjust to the new level of illumination. When he is forced to confront the reality, that the reality he knew was fullness of the reality around him, he is still dazed, still confused, still resistant to coming to terms with this new awareness of his surroundings, this new freedom, he has to yet still be forced further, led up and out into the world, whereupon the harshness of this new illumination accompanied by a further expansion and knowledge of his reality keeps him blind and looking at the shadows of things, and the reflections of things, not yet able to look upon them fully.

When I reflect upon the story so far, to me, the light represents illumination, knowledge. It always accompanies an expansion of his surroundings, an expansion of his awareness, and it is harsh to look upon at first. Knowledge, when looked upon with the wrong state of mind, the wrong frame of reference, is harsh oftentimes. It kind of mirrors how we as a society have grown of the ages actually, successively being dragged along by the pioneers of science, the people who are naturally predisposed towards questioning their reality, their surroundings, and seeking to understand their set of conditions the best they can with the tools available to them. First looking at shadows, and reflections because the full illumination is still too bright. We always start on the peripheral of a topic and slowly work our way inward toward a fuller more complete understanding, like the man is forced to look at the shadows, the reflections, and the moon and stars, before he is allowed to look around the world fully as it is illuminated by the sun.
He is finally able to look out upon the world though, his eyes wide open, and the sun's light no longer is blinding. He has fully acclimated to his surroundings and environment, and the world is full of wonder, richer and more detailed than his existence chained and restrained, looking upon only shadows. He remembers his time, and he examines it with the eyes of someone, who has seen and experienced more, and he reflects on the nature of his happiness now, in contrast to his past, and the disparity between the two invokes a natural pity for his fellow tribesmen. How he used light up with pride and happiness at the praise of his fellows for being good at the game of shadows. Revulsion at how ignorant he was, the pervious accolades rendered meaningless with this new awareness. So driven, he returns to the cave to "save" his tribesmen from their condition. But, when he returns to the cave, it is so dark, and his tribesmen still happy and laughing, joking and cheering the players of the game of shadows, giving their accolades, to the best player. His vision, unaccustomed to this darkness after so much light, can no longer play the game like he used too, and when he tries to tell them of the world and what he has seen, he is ridiculed and mocked, to such a point that were they able, they would kill him.

Looking at the story so far, to me, it speaks toward humanities natural tendency toward desiring to better the lives of their kin. So filled with knowledge, and new awareness, the man is genuinely revolted by his past, and how content he was in his own ignorance. He tries hard to convince his tribesmen to return to the surface with him, but their lack of awareness, lack of firsthand knowledge, propel them to judge him on their own merits, and all they know is the shadows. He is no longer able to relate to them on their level, nor they able to relate to him on his, and the more he tries to compel them, the angrier they get. To them, he is now an outsider, corrupted by his experiences and journeys. Look at him, he is no longer able to play the game, he is no longer one of us. Human's natural state is to judge the world based off their own personal experiences, and when they don't have someone there to drag them along, to force them to see differently, their natural inclination, is to stagnate and gravitate towards what is comfortable, familiar. It kind of says Knowledge is has its own inertia, it stagnates or moves forward until some outside force acts on it, altering its course. Once forced to stand up, and look around, once forced forward and thrust into the world, the man continued the journey on his own, became a philosopher, became a person who questions, until he knew that the sun itself was responsible in a way for all that was. But it took someone to alter his course. We find this pattern repeated throughout history, as our own society progressed. And this story was written around 380 BC, over 2000 years ago. Much like his mentor Socrates was forced to commit suicide by a trial of his peers for transgressions of "refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state"(EyeWitness to History, 2003) and "corrupting the youth" (EyeWitness to History,2003) so too have we been presented many times throughout history, where men of science and philosophy have been forced into silence, or silenced, because the views they were espousing contradicted those in power. In a way, the Allegory of the Cave is also a political piece about how those in power keep the ignorant masses ignorant, because there were people who kept the tribesmen chained, and entertained with their shadow play.

Returning to the primary question asked "Is it better to know the truth and be unhappy or to be happy but ignorant?" The nature of this question is very subjective, and probably dependent upon the individual who answers it. I personally, feel that there is a certain sense of peace attained from knowledge and understanding, the nature of happiness itself is rather subjective. Oftentimes, it is a matter of personal choice and recognition that happiness is something generated from within primarily, and if that recognition is never made, it matters not circumstances, environment, or any conditional factors, empowering your surroundings to externalize your contentment with life will ultimately lead to a life slavishly devoted toward fulfilling those fleeting conditions. There have been situations where I have purposely chosen ignorance of the full details of a situation, because I knew in advance that the details would not alter nor impact the ultimate decision that had to be made, but would add additional stress to the situation. The one that comes most readily to mind, is the time when my wife came to me informing me that she had broken our agreement, and that as a result she was with child from another man. In that instance, I knew I was not going to leave my wife, nor would intimate knowledge of the details overly affect the courses of action that were going to be taken, so I did not request the additional information. There have been situations where I just needed to know, regardless. I don't particularly have an instance where I can point to, as this is my modus operandi and has set the tone of my existence. But dealing with the same instance, a year later, some altercations necessitated me requesting the information I desired to be ignorant of to prove a point, and as I predicted, it stung and hurt, but was necessary at the time to yield the desired results. We are dynamic, and complex, and crazy. *Grins* In general, society as we know it however, would not exist if the pillars of the past did not bear the burden of being that teacher that unchained us and drug us into the light kicking and screaming, even as we raised pitchforks and threatened to stab them. Is it better off? Are we better off? *Shrugs* I know I love my technology too much to actually desire belonging to ages past, stuck in a cyclic self-fulfilling illusion of truth. I have often said that truth, is merely knowledge in the absence of a better understanding.

Bibliography:

"The Suicide of Socrates, 399 BC," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2003).

The Cave [videorecording] : a parable / told by Orson Welles ; produced by Nick Bosustow, C.B. Wismar ; directed by Sam Weiss.
Chicago, Ill. : SVE & Churchill Media, c1974.
Subjects Plato. Republic.
Description: 1 videocassette (9 min., 20 sec.) : sd., col. ; 1/2 in. + teacher's guide.
General note: Distributed by Churchill Films.
"80805-HAVT" (program number).
VHS format.

Edited on Monday, August 26, 2013 - 11:16 PM