Plato's Allegory of the Cave in Plain Language

Retold from The Republic of Plato

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image credit: "Plato and the Pure Forms"

       Once upon a time, everyone on earth lived in total darkness. In a cave.
       The only light people had was from a huge fire. The fire never stopped burning. The fire shone light from behind the people. But people were unable to turn around and see the source of the light because they were all chained to a wall. In between the fire and the people were cut-outs, of animals, trees, dogs, cars, etc., all the objects of the sensible world.
        The light from the flame cast the outline of the paper cut-outs onto the wall of the cave. The people chained to the wall were only able to perceive shadows of objects and not real objects. People only saw images. People were content. No one attempted to escape.
        But, one day a man became unchained. He at first did not know what to do with his new found freedom. But, he decided to turn around. He was surprised to see, when he turned around, that what he thought was real, was only shadows cast onto a wall from paper cut-outs.
         "That's lame," he said.
         He walked around the fire and the paper cut-outs and found an exit out of the cave. He climbed out. He stood on solid ground. He looked up and saw the brightness of the sun and shielded his eyes. The light was intense. After living in a cave all his life he had never experience the light of the sun. The intensity of the light was way too much for his unaccustomed eyes. But after a few hours above ground he began to adjust to the light and was able to see more clearly. He could discern leaves on trees and was able to distinguish goats from dogs. Everything was way more clear than down in the darkness of the cave.
        He became so overjoyed at what he was seeing, that he decided to tell all his friends in the cave so they could know the truth. He went back underground. Into the darkness.
        "Hey, guys. It's me. Look. You're all chained to a wall and what you see on the wall is not really real. Those are just shadows. You cannot see it, but behind you is a fire that casts shadows of paper objects onto the wall. None of that is real. I have been above ground and seen the sun and have seen real trees and real dogs. Not shadows. Allow me to release you from your chains and you can see for yourself."
        The people would not have any of this. They said amongst themselves, "He is crazy. Let us kill him." So they did. All at once they pounced on him and killed him because they could not accept the truth of his words.
         After they killed him they forgot about him. To this day no one speaks of the unchained man.

The End

If you would like to teach your students the Allegory of the Cave and you need additional resources, check out this lesson plan I created on Teachers Pay Teachers. You and your students will love it - and I gave it a lot of extra time and attention (which I hope you'll use and appreciate).

PDF copy for printing

Poem: "Voting Booth"

source: new york times

their children's legs stick out of
the nylon curtains

pretending to vote

Scott says he

became political when
he was six,

Truman

was president.

Mom stays in the car,

having already cast her vote,
the voting commissioners will fuck it up, though

On the way no one knows

who to vote

dappled road

smiling

ken davis

whenever my dad
had a few Pabst Blue
Ribbons then later it was miller -
he would run down FDR

a Pinko

and Edwin Edwards -

because we knew he was
a crook

better the crook you

know -

Buddy Tauzin drove up on
the trains tracks in La Place,

ruffled

feathers draped across
the front of the caboose -

touching the crevice of a hole,
chiseled into the polished marble,
wall of the State Capitol
where Senator Long was shot
in Second Grade,
a school field trip, -
with Ms. Cerami,
we were allowed to trace our fingers into the depressed hole -

consciousness is a tumulus on
the plain of death

"cowards die many times
before their deaths, the brave
only once"

 PDF Copy for Printing © 2010 Greig Roselli

Obama and the Peace Prize, And Other Rifts on Violence

   I wonder how our President can accept the peace prize and then cite an argument for just war?! I personally feel his decision to increase troops was morally bankrupt. A more peaceful approach would have been to refuse the prize.
   Now our prez did close Guantanamo and he has laid down a progressive plan for peace, but I think the two wars he has inherited make it a prickly predicament.
   Is Obama a war mongerer? Does he feel a little aggressive push is necessary to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is violence ever necessary?
   His decision to enact violence is not necessarily unethical. Even Gandhi and King understood violence is necessary to enact change. Violence in some order can bring about peace - even the non-violent violence that encouraged civil rights and brought down the monarchy in India was in my opinion ethical violence. The violence of WWII took the lives of millions of more civilians than any other war this past century. Democracy does not deplore that war.
   If our president wants to make a change in our world through violence he needs to enact violence in other sectors to secure peace:
   Reasons for "just war" in other regions besides the Middle East:

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an iconic American holiday.

     I know the origins of the holiday are rooted in Puritan Christianity.
     I know it is based on the slow seductive manipulation of Native Americans but Thanksgiving, as we know it today, is neither Puritan nor is it Anti-native American.
     Thanksgiving is a 1941 contrivance to boost the economy under the FDR administration. Today it continues to be a worship of capitalism and a wish for plenty.
     Grateful 

     Thanks
     Gracious
     Whew. I better baste that turkey before it dries out. Don't want my guest consumers to order a refund.
I wish I could offer more profundity here, but sadly I am rather consumed by vodka and an unusually sanguine heart.

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Book Review: Martin Amis on Venal Negatives and Wart Negatives

Folks Judge President Obama By Different Standards Than They Judge President Bush

     Martin Amis, in his book Visiting Mrs. Nabokov: And Other excursions, contrasts venal negatives (e.g., masturbation without your spouse) to wart negatives (e.g., sanctioning third world nations) - examples are my own. The problem with America is we don't differentiate. We are a black or white bunch. It's either bad or it's good. Nuance is a difficult concept to grasp. But, we care about human rights; right? As much as President George Bush cared about PETA? As Amis mentions, did we vote for the guy cuz he was human? Here, meaning he said "fuck" and we considered him a "heybra". Obama is not a heybra but he's an intellectual democrat but not as gadflyish as Socrates. Obama won't be put on trial and asked to drink hemlock until he is accused of corrupting the social order (just like Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth?).

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     Play this game with me: go to a used bookstore find an intriguing quote and blog about it. We place too much emphasis on plagiarism but not enough stress on the appropriate use of ideas. Who doesn't want their ideas integrated? I know it sounds idealistically Hegelian of me, but geez, it's much better than some bloggers' dull stab at originality.

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Report from Louisiana: Gay Friendly Libraries Are in Danger

A children's book that features two princes who marry
has garnered outrage in a local Louisiana library.

Gay books may be banned in local libraries in Louisiana and the State Congress agrees.

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Or why gay-themed books in libraries are in danger...
In Slidell, Louisiana, a patron complained that the Saint Tammany Parish Library should not make available gay-themed books to young people. You can read the story here.

Basically, a state representative is trying to write a bill banning public libraries in the state from having books with gay characters available to children and young people. In other words, a book cannot have two prince charmings in love with each other. Similar to this was a movement made by concerned citizens that Fontainebleau High School, also in Louisiana, should not have a gay/straight alliance (Read here What the ACLU has to say).

Talk at Tulane University: Salman Rushdie in New Orleans

   Salman Rushdie came to New Orleans last night to speak to a large assembly at Tulane’s Dixon Hall. If you don’t know already, Rushdie is a novelist known for Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses. He was placed on the Ayatollah Komeini’s “to kill list” because it was thought Satanic Verses defamed Islam. The fatwa against his life has been subsequently lifted, but it has not lifted the chatter that has circulated around the author and his controversial persona.
People Condemned Rushdie's Novel Satanic Verses Without Even Having Read It
    At the event, Rushdie spoke about how people condemned his novel without even having read it, going so far as to recount the story of a man who had publicly protested his book, but later on, read the novel, and exclaimed, “What was the big deal?”  “Asshole,” Rushdie said. “Why do people who condemn books never read them?” The people who want to get rid of books are the same people who say, “I am not a book person”!  That is the ludicrousness of the world, writ large. Rushdie also told a story about how Stephen King called up his publisher after having read Satanic Verses and realizing it was a great novel, told the publishers if they refused to put Rushdie’s book on the shelf then he was going to demand they remove all of his book from publication and call ten other best selling authors and demand that they do the same!  Rushdie laughed when he told this story saying, “And now, my book has outsold theirs!  There is no justice!”
According to Rushdie, A Novelist Writes "Fictions" But Tells More Truths than Politicians!
    He spoke frankly about politicians and how they do not tell the truth.  He said the novelist tells the truth because he is not ashamed to say in the beginning that his story is fiction! He spoke about the uselessness of fiction.  He said he was tired of the Utilitarian argument that novels have to be useful if they are to be read. Whatever happened to unadulterated pleasure? Alice in Wonderland, he said, is not a useful book. Its sole purpose is to create pleasure.  God forbid, anyone have a little pleasure!
       Perhaps, people are threatened by pleasure.  Are we really like the Puritan who thinks in his heart and is distraught that somewhere, somebody is having fun?
       Perhaps the role of literature is to open up the world just a little bit and to expand the cosmos.
Rushdie Makes Jibes About President Bush (And the Conservatives in the Crowd Squirmed A Bit)
     Rushdie was witty last night.  He made us laugh. He jabbed Bush. And he made the conservatives in the house queasy.  I saw a politician in the audience, but I cannot remember who it was (maybe it was Melinda Schwegmann): We don’t have many Salman Rushdie’s in our culture today, though.  Gone are the days of the public satirists. Perhaps, you can still find them on Youtube in the likes of Chris Crocker or on television with the Daily Show but the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain are few and far between.  It is like when they asked Dorothy Parker to speak about Horticulture.  “You can lead a horticulture but you cannot make her think!” (You have to say that joke out loud to get it!).
A Man's Daimon Is His Ethos
    I thought it was interesting that Rusdie was in New Orleans.  I think this was his first visit and I am glad I decided to attend. It invigorated me to hear a public intellectual speak who did not mouth the same tired babble over and over again.  I actually, got up and asked him a question. I had read an essay he had written on Heraclitus in Granta and he said his favorite quote from Heraclitus was "A man’s daimon (his character) is his ethos (or his fate)". So, I asked him, “What is Salman Rushdie’s daimon?”  He answered with another anecdote about him and his sister which I really do not recall the details because I was so nervous standing up there at the dais. It’s kind of nerve-wracking to ask a public intellectual a public question!

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