"And now," I said, "let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened: -Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they can not move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads.
"Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show puppets..." (Plato, Book VII The Republic pg 177)
Here's what that kind of looks like:
That's just my summary of it. If you really want to know what the 'Allegory of the Cave' is, then go here to see more of what it's about and what I'm going to be talking about (this is to anyone who just happens to stumble upon this blog post).
I think that there is a parallel between the Allegory of the Cave and how our education system works. The Cave is where we are when we enter school and learn the shadows of things along with everyone else. We aren't told the whole truth, but we are all given shadows of truth to watch. When we enter Quest, that all changes. Suddenly we see things that weren't there before, like the truth behind who Christopher Columbus really was (horrible guy - why does he have his own day?), and what justice truly is (I'll get to this later in this post). In Quest, we are advanced, and so the world of our knowledge and understanding that we thought was expanding is actually changing from darkness and shadows into light. We go from knowing shadows of things to seeing the light outside the Cave - sometimes so brightly that it hurts our eyes, our heads, AND challenges our hearts.
It is then that we realize that we were not told everything, and we try to go back into the Cave to bring others out. Sometimes we just scare and confuse them, but sometimes what we say catches their interest, and they want to understand what we understand. Then we can bring those people into the light and show them the truth, and they become "Quest", even if they are technically not in the Quest class.
Quest can be the guardians going into the Cave to save others, but we need to approach the others - who are left in the Cave - the right way. This is difficult, because we often feel the temptation to ridicule and insult and "win" over the other side, which just pushes them away from our point of view and pulls them closer to their shadowy point of view.
The Cave is only one subject that is hard to understand. The other that I am choosing to talk about is the idea of luxury. In The Republic, Glaucon dislikes Socrates' state (called the city of pigs), because everyone in it gets the bare essentials and only works for what they need to survive every day. Glaucon wants the people to have more than enough food and materials so that they can have luxury items like those brought from other states. Luxury can be good - it can up self esteem and the wealth of the city, but luxury also makes justice really hard because everyone has a different level of luxury.
Not everyone is on the same plain. Some people have more than the standard, and some have less. Luxury means that in order to keep fights from breaking out between those with more and those with less, there must be justice to say what is right and wrong. Luxury without justice is dangerous.
In our society, there must be justice so that we know when someone has overstepped their "place" in society. Those who are poor cannot become rich by stealing from the greater people, and those who are rich cannot steal from the poor to increase their riches and wealth, because that is unjust and against the law. Sometimes they cannot even give away their money to help certain causes because the causes are unjust, or people say "why are you giving money to that cause when you could be helping this cause?" or something like that.
Justice brings the possibility of bad justice to come about, though, which adds another layer of complexity to the already-complex idea of justice.
What more people need to understand is this: justice is impossible. No one can be truly just. It's just too hard to be "just", and when you are, you do not live a happy life. You cannot have perfect justice - ever. People will always be faced with hard decisions (people who are supposed to be 'just'), and they will never be able to make the perfect decision that is completely just and that every person will accept. Even if we did retaliate every time there was a murder of someone of another race, we have to understand that justice will never be fully served. Leaders cannot please everyone. Not everyone will always be happy with decisions, but it is (sometimes) impossible to change those decisions. We can protest, but if the government and their "justice" doesn't agree with what you are doing, then you will have to live with their decision. They may even label YOU "unjust", but there is nothing you can do.
Justice can never be perfect. That is what people need to understand so that the world can be a better place.
-bookhouse4
Sources:
- The Republic by Plato
- Class discussions
- Something that I'm currently blanking on - sorry
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