The Allegory of the Cave: effect of education and the lack of it in our nature
In Plato's “Allegory of the Cave”, he represents the idea of truth. Throughout the text, he explains that real truth needs to be discovered and that knowledge is possible if you go out of your comfort zone. In the story, a prisoner that has been released from being chained up in the cave since birth, goes out of the cave and discovers the real truth about the world, and how amazing it is. He then returns to the cave and explains to the other prisoners that are still living, chained up, that they needed to escape the cave and explore outside of it to discover the real truth of the world and not the truth that they have been making up in their heads. The other prisoners refused to believe him, and they then abused him and resisted the freed prisoner to help them be free as well. While reading this text, I interpreted that what Plato meant by this is that people are ignorant, and they choose to stay in places that make them comfortable instead of going out of their comfort zone and exploring their real truth. Which then ties into my beliefs of truth because I also believe people need to venture out of their comfort zone. For example, staying at home for college. I chose to leave home and go off to college because I believe It`s healthy for you to go off and explore new environments, and your inner truth instead of being by your parent's side and living in their truth, and gaining your own knowledge of the world that we live in.
I also agree with Plato when it comes to his beliefs about breaking societal norms. Social Norms are the “accepted behavior that an individual is expected to conform to a particular group, community, or culture (simply psychology),'' Which is exactly what he did in “The Allegory of the Cave”. In the story, the prisoner that was freed broke societal norms. He broke it by going out of the cave and not staying in it with fellow prisoners and living by their truth, which broke the behavior of living by what they have been teaching themselves for all those years. The fact that Plato represented this in the story, made me realize how much this lines up with my own personal beliefs of societal norms. Growing up around “cliques” in either school or maybe even my own church, I believed that you should not act a certain way just for people to accept you. In today's society “cliques” are an enormous problem, especially from a female perspective. Girls have a tendency to make themselves look or act a certain way just to be accepted into a “popular” group or “athletic” group, along with many others, just to satisfy their happiness within themself. You also see this problem within certain cultures. There are cultures that make you dress and act a certain way just to be accepted into their religion, and personally, I believe that it is not okay and that people deserve to live their lives not so heavily involved with these social norms.
Lastly, In Plato's “Allegory of the Cave”, he gave us readers his view on wisdom. What I picked up throughout the story whenever Plato stated, “the goal of education is wisdom ”, is that educators throughout our lives teach students to strive and be wise, because we are not born with wisdom. He also talks about how wisdom is meant to be action-guided, which backs up my theory of Plato meaning that educators guide us to having wisdom throughout our years of education. “In the Republic, Plato's injunction is in effect: 'Become wise yourself, or if you are incapable of it, let yourself be guided by one who is truly wise”. What this quote is saying is that if you know that you`re not wise, let someone guide you to wisdom, and it will help you throughout your life. Plato's views on wisdom support my beliefs on wisdom because I do believe that you either are or you`re not born with wisdom, and if you aren't then you need to surround yourself with people who are wise because being a wise person gets you further in life rather than not being wise.
In conclusion, Plato has many pieces of literature that are completely different, but I truly enjoyed reading, “The Allegory of the Cave”. In this literature piece, Plato explained his ideas of truth, societal norms, and wisdom in a way that was almost hidden by literary devices, especially symbolism. Which made me enjoy the reading because you had to read in between the lines of what the literature was saying to you. This story has captured many imaginations for many years because it can be read in many different ways, and the way that I interpreted it into my personal beliefs is that you have to go out and seek your own personal truth in this world, break societal norms by not living your life in a “clique”, and that wisdom is the key to all knowledge in this world.
