Society's Cave

A detailed Summary of Society's Cave

No matter who you ask, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau or any other great philosopher they will always tell you that Plato was and always will be the greatest philosopher. Plato is known for great thoughts and feeling about the government and the way their social and political issues are handled. He used a very effective and intelligent way of writing his thoughts. He used a technique of exoteric and esoteric writing. The exoteric level being a level that everyone could understand and the esoteric level was only comprehended by the intelligent. By doing this he protected himself from the government. He learned from Socrates whose life was ended when the government had enough of his ridicule and rebellions. Plato was much smarter and got his point across without the government ever knowing. For example, Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic, which was a children's story about a cave, but it also had a esoteric meaning that was letting the intelligent know what the government was doing. Plato's technique has been effectively repeat many times and his messages apply to many of the current issues in today's society.

The exoteric level of the story, which comprehended by most, is about an underground cave which is pitch black exc

The second level of the story is not so easy to comprehend and many of the people did not and still don't even know it exists. First of all the cave is symbol for the government and every country has a "cave" for a government. The government is keeping the society bound in their deep dark cave. They have their prisoners bound physically and mentally, by neck and ankles. Society is forced to look into the wall and are not permitted to look back at what the government is doing. The government is really doing things without society knowing, but all society sees are the shadows of the governments actions. Today's society is very similar to the Greek society that Plato was referring to. All the things we see are false, but we believe them to be true. We think we see the light, but in reality all that the government lets us see is the flicker of the fire. The fire is a false source of light and the prisoners think that what they are seeing is the sun. The point that Plato gets across is that the government wants to keep everyone in the dark. The darkness of the cave is a very important symbol, it symbolizes ignorance as opposed to the light which is the symbol for intelligence. Plato is trying to educate people and show them the light because just like the one man who escaped the cave and saw the light was killed by the ignorance of all the others in the cave, or society.

It is obvious that Kahn and Simon were right, as a matter of fact life on Earth has improved drastically since the 1970's. Plato's philosophy was right seventeen centuries ago and still holds its value today. The moral of Allegory of the Cave is one can never gain knowledge unless one can introspect. This has always been a problem in society because it is the main reason for ignorance. All through history there has always been ignorance and the government realizes that and keeps society in the dark. It may be a good thing to keep society in the dark because there are some people who could do some serious da

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Approximate Word count = 1337
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics