allegory of the cave

So often the writing i get involved with begins with a word that embeds itself upon my brain a few days before i post.  This week the word has been shadow.  

Before my dogs departed part of our routine would be to take a walk at night after dinner.  We all loved and looked forward to walking in the dark.  The air was cool, the evening's quiet, they could go off their leash and i could think.  Some nights, when the moon was up it would cast beautiful shadows upon the dirt road.  Shadow nights i don't use my light and always find myself stopping to enjoy some phenomenal patterns placed in my way.  Everything is illuminated in a special way in the dark and many times i'd find myself connecting with the images and mulling over the shadows in our lives. 

As usual, when it comes to writing, something has caused me to delve deeper into shadows.
i remembered that Dr. Carl Jung, the psychologist, believed we all had shadows.  He thought that when we saw something in another person that we didn't like it was a shadow of ourselves, that needed acknowledgment.  If we didn't confront it the denial would lay heavy upon our souls.

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual's conscious life,
the blacker and denser it is.
At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag,
thwarting our most well-meant intentions.

But this isn't really the journey i was meant to explore today so this morning while reading an e-mail newsletter concerning philosophy a link caught my eye and off i traveled to investigate Plato and the nature of justice.  My first stop had nothing to do with the word shadow but the second stop did.  For it lead me to Plato's piece on the Allegory of the Cave.

i have always meant to read the Republic but to date haven't.  So i get Plato in small doses and this morning it was very small.  The Allegory of the Cave can be read in five or ten minutes on line(scroll down to where the conversation starts).  i was going to reproduce it here in totality but i found an excellent short (3 minute) video done using clay figures that illustrate Plato's lesson  so if you don't read it on line, watch the video.
You really should do one or the other if you are not already familiar with it.

In the Allegory of the Cave,  Plato insinuates that we are prisoners, not of Form(ideas) but of shadows .  We perceive much in our every day lives and yet are blinded by our limited realities, knowledge may be nothing but a shadow. 

All of us have the ability to think outside our caves but we are blinded by the nature of our upbringing, the chains of our immediate society.

Plato's story has prisoners being held in one position, unable to turn their heads, since birth.  They are facing a wall upon which the shadows of those passing behind them are cast.  The shadows are created by a fire that is lit and placed behind the prisoners. 

In the cave there is a walkway between the prisoners and the fire that is used by people, animals and the objects they both carry as they make their way across.  Sounds that the people and animals make echo in the cave and become attached to the shadows on the wall.  The prisoners only reality is the shadows they observe and the echos they hear.

One day a prisoner is brought out into the light and is freed from his limited world view.  He is blinded by the sun but finally recovers his sight and takes in everything.  The prisoner can now see he was living in a world of trickery.  He sees the sun and understands where the light comes from.  His life time illusion has been shattered and he goes back to the cave to inform the other prisoners, only they can't hear him.  He is but another echo blending in with all the other echos.

Unfortunately the other prisoners can't escape the reality of the cave.  Their view is limited and they can't hear the returning prisoner, or his truths.  The returning prisoner has been given a gift that he wants to pass on but he can't, for the prisoners in the cave misunderstand his message.  They only know the shadows, that is their reality, they can't see that knowledge is available.

Plato throughout his life believed that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually;

Plato's idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves was one he put great store in.

 He was also convinced that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.
To date we haven't had this kind of ruler but we have had examples of the possibilities.

Plato did believe, as I do, and had faith that the universe and all of us in it are ultimately good.

In the region of the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with considerable effort, is the idea of good; but once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful – in the visible realm it gives birth to light and its sovereign; in the intelligible realm, itself sovereign, it provided truth and intelligence – and that the man who is going to act prudently in private or in public must see it" (517b-c).Plato

And so in the Allegory of a Cave Plato encourages us to throw off the chains that bind us in our caves.
Open up to that which you won't consider for it may be the shadow you are denying.

i don't know if you have ever read the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe" but Douglas Adams comes up with some whoppers and i'm going to end with this one.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened."