In his genius reformatory philosophical work "The Republic", Plato establishes the grounds for creating a republic in the most "optimum"/perfectionist way (for no other choice of word that popped in my head)... Not a kingdom or an empire, but a republic...
Now am not a person who enjoys old literature, but i really enjoyed reading The Republic and many of its critique articles... i even read much more than what was required back at uni.. It amazes you how a book written around 390 years B.C. has so much reform in it, and yet, no one listened... among other things, he talked about women's education! Actually, he had a plan drawn out for a close-to-perfect education system... one that we are currently getting closer to but yet so far..
Anyway, what am about to write now is an idea that possessed me in this book; the allegory of the cave.. An allegory is a story or a representation conveying a meaning deeper and higher than its literal meaning...
Plato's allegory goes that there is a cave with a large wall.. in this cave there is a set of prisoners tied to have their backs to the cave's entrance and are facing the huge wall... behind them, outside the entrance there is an enormous fire.. sometimes people and animals pass outside the entrance and between the fire and the cave, thus casting shadows on the wall.... the prisoners -having never seen the outside- mistake these shadows for the real thing.. the voices of the people outside reflect as echo on the wall, and appear to the prisoners to be coming out of the shadows on the wall...
So mainly the prisoners see shadows and hear echoes... now imagine a prisoner was released and goes outside... he would be blinded by the sun (or at night-time by the fire), then as he slowly adjusts to reality, he will start to see things as they are... he will "see the light"..
Having seen the light, it is the free man's duty, even his obligation, to go back to the cave and 'enlighten' his fellow men.... once he goes back to the cave, his eyes will have trouble adjusting to total darkness again, he would have to step into the darkness again to free/enlighten his fellow prisoners.... Only to be faced by resistance from those not wanting to be freed... those who are happy with the only truth they ever knew: the shadows and the echos...
Do we choose to stay in the dark? do those who think they see the light really see it, or is it a mere representation on a huge wall??
Signing off,
N.
P.S. check wikipedia's allegory of the cave article..
