"Recognizing reality can be painful, but it is the only right path to goodness!" Plato summed up in the Parable of the Cave. In the age of the internet, anyone can be a "slave in the cave".
Cognition that leads to good
In his work written around 370 BC,Plato presents his ideas about the knowledge of the world and its meaning in the form of a dialogue between his teacher Socrates and his brother Glaucon. Socrates urges his pupil to imagine the knowledge of reality through the prisoners in the cave. In doing so, he wants to introduce him not only to the process of knowledge itself, but more importantly to the effect of education, or lack thereof, on human nature. He likens cognition itself to a painful process, but one that leads to good and therefore needs to be spread.
Prisoners in the cave
Imagine a group of prisoners living from birth in a cave deep underground. They are chained so that they can only look at the wall in front of them. Behind them is a wall with a fire blazing behind it. Between the wall and the fire walk people carrying various objects and puppets so that the prisoners can only see the shadows of these objects on the wall. They also make sounds that bounce off the wall, giving the prisoners the impression that the shadows are being made by them. For the prisoners this is reality because they have never known any other world.
Unchaining a prisoner
Next, Plato works with the idea that one of the prisoners is unchained and forced to turn around. The light of the fire blinds him so much that his eyes hurt, making it difficult for him to see the actual objects casting the shadows. When someone tells him that what he saw on the wall earlier is not real, he will not believe it. In his agony of pain, he will want to return to the shadows, which are clearer to him. So the pain of recognition would trap him in his reality, which he finds more real and less painful.
The way out of the cave
But if someone were to lead a prisoner out of the cave by force up the steep stairs towards the sun, the prisoner would suffer greatly at first. The harsh sunlight would first blind him completely and he would resist. Only when his eyes gradually became accustomed to the light would he begin to perceive first the shadows, then the reflections of people and objects on the water's surface, and then people and objects. Eventually he sees the sun itself, and only then is he able to recognize its meaning.
Liberated
The moment the prisoner knows the real world, he will consider himself happy because he has been allowed to know. Conversely, he will pity the prisoners in the cave because they do not know the real and valuable world. Therefore, he will go back to the cave to bring his comrades into the sunlight as well. Socrates considers it the duty of everyone who has known the real world to lead others to knowledge.
Return to the cave
Upon returning to the cave, the freed prisoner sees nothing. His eyes, accustomed to the light, now suffer in the cave. Because of this, the other prisoners judge that the way out is dangerous and will not want to take it. Plato, through Socrates, suggests that the prisoners would rather kill anyone who wants to lead them out so that they do not have to suffer. Still, one must try!
At the time Plato inscribed the famous Parable of the Cave in his writing of the Constitution, the idea of the world, its laws, natural cycles, human habits and political systems was diametrically opposed to the reality of today. Despite technological advancement, the approaches of modern medicine, and the daily availability of information, however, knowing the real is not much easier than in Plato's time. We can very easily imagine the reflections on the cave wall as the screens of our phones and computers, the puppets and objects in the hands of the people behind the wall as the information disseminated by political leaders, industrial magnates and religious leaders through the media and social networks. This is why The Parable is a timeless work that can lead us to reflect on reality even today.
