Are We Plato's "Cave People"?

When Plato wrote of democracy, Republics, and good governance, he issued many dire warnings about the quality not only of governance, but of life itself, when the people are 'in the dark'. In his cave analogy, an entire people is sequestered in a cave and all they know of life on the outside, in the light, is what puppetmasters convey to them by making shadows on the wall from a distant fire. The puppet masters live out in the big, open world and have access to light and to real life. Their power resides in the reality that those inside the cave know nothing of life on the outside. The masters can convey real events, or they can distort them to suit their purposes (perhaps to keep the people enslaved and ensconced in the cave). The ultimate tyranny is propaganda. It robs the 'people', the cave dwellers of perspective and real knowledge. Propaganda shadows, quite literally, their everyday thinking.

For centuries as students of government and philosophy have read Plato's Republic there has been a sense of examining this work for the allegory that it is - since none could imagine a world in which people were indeed cast inside the darkness of a cave with only projected images to give them a world view. The reader felt grateful to live in a wide, open world full of light. The reader felt grateful to be able to openly experience other cultures, other destinations, and other opinions or perspectives - and most of all, to be free to bear witness on his or her own and to form an educated opinion about any aspect of life. The reader understood the evil and the peril posed by propagandists who would enslave others to their way of thinking and seeing.

Do you live in such a cave? Do you turn on only certain broadcasts with certain perspectives? Do you rush to the web for your answers with a simple query into Google or some other search engine? Do you go bookmark websites and blogs and turn first to those for information? Do you read the postings on a darkened message board instead of getting out in the world and asking questions of knowledgeable sources, witnessing things for yourself?

I read voraciously. I read five or six books a week, every week. I read five or six newspapers a day, every day. I travel. I converse. I witness and notice. I have a perspective on situations often based on a number of influences and angles. I certainly have opinions, but over time some of them change - as life can change and facts can even change, and theories or people can evolve.

Yes, obviously, I do use the internet, do perform searches nad do go go numbers of sources for information. I admit though, I rarely watch any cable news network - have become strongly averse to them. I note in listening to some pundits (note, I do not say journalists - for a journalist is a reporter - one who sees ans reports facts, or is a newsreader, one who simply reports what has happened as written) that even as a conversation takes place or a report unflds - sometimes the box at the bottom of the screen will scroll with distorted or misleading snippets of the conversation or report. That's not something you should see on any news report. If oyu watch you local news, or PBS or BBC - you don't find these boxes. But you do find them on Fox, CNN, MSNBC. Not every box is a distortion - but any statement out of context is open to interpretation. And sometimes a speaker uses an ironic tone and you understand the speaker meant the opposite of the words spoken - but in the box the words just sit there. I have had the bizarre experience of watching an interview at 4 p.m., including a question about an assertion made about the subject's activities. The subject denies and clarifies what actually happened. The interviewer reluctantly moves on. At 6 p.m. I am using an elliptical machine at the gym and large TV screens run silently above. The same interview is aired, in part, and in the box is the assertion that was debunked - but it is stated as fact with a period at the end of the sentence. The person next to me on another machine sniffs and comments that the person being interviewed is a 'crook'.

The next day numerous headlines of stories on, say "Associated Content" carry a portion of the information that was in that box. The stories cite the source as the owner of the previous broadcast. The writers are merely repeating 'facts'. And, of course, this is not specific to Associated Content - you could do a web search of key words from that box notation and would find all sorts of blogs and websites similarly re-reporting the 'fact'.

Now, as luck would have it, most of us will never be that person being interviewed on the cable news. We will not be the victims of multiple instances of libel and even more instances of slander. Many of the perpetrators of the libel will not even be aware they have committed libel. They were in a cave and light from outside allowed a puppet master to reflect chosen images into the cave. The puppet master could have moved the entire set of images before the fire, but chose only to move some of them before teh fire and project only part of the picture. The puppet master held all of the images, and the cave dwellers could always come outside and see for themselves the totality of the image, but comfortable in their seclusion, they chose not to come out into the light.

In our modern version of the cave, we don't limit our short-sightedness to issues of public policy or governance as the cave analogy in The Repbulic was meant to encapsulate. We go to the doctor and are told we need to lower our cholesterol. The physician writes a prescription for a drug. The physician has been visited frequently by a represetnative from a pharmaceutical company. The physician has been treated to dinner, perhaps even an award by the company. The drug has been tested as effective in helping lower cholesterol. It is not the only drug on the market and drug therapy is not the only proven treatment to lower cholesterol. Changes in diet and exercise can also signfiicantly lower cholesterol. As we leave the cave of the doctor's office, prescription in hand, we decide what to do next.

Here we diverge into two caves, often. The first cave is where we check the message boards and ask anonymous strangers about their experiences with this drug and with elevated cholesterol. These strangers, none of whom hold medical degrees, known of whom has our medical records in hand - explain their experiences and offer advice. Some of these folks might even be pharmaceutical salespeople. Maybe they recommend a different drug, something they said was much more effective for them. Some say you don't need drugs at all, doctors are all quacks. Some agree with your doctor. Some are busy trying to access your IP address and steal your identity or emtpy your bank account (but that's another matter altogether).

The other cave we might check is a website on cholesterol medications. We second guess our doctor. We either validate or don't validate the choice.

Do we still get second opinions? Do we think to sit and ask the doctor questions? It's possible the next doctor we see will have a similar relationship witht hat manufactuer, or with another. It's possible either or both doctors still make the best possible recommendation regardless their relationship with drug companies. But, instead of asking questions in the light of day, or seeking parallel professional exam and advice - we go into yet another cave of limited perspective.

Choices we make about schools for our children? Choices we make about who to vote for or how to feel about an issue? Cave. Cave. Choices we make about health insurance or which physician to choose. Cave. Cave.

We are choosing to live in caves at a time of great potential enlightenment. We are content much of the time to be told how to think based on things we are told are 'our beliefs' and 'our values' dictated by someone else. We are losing our capacities to read 'read' people and situations, to trust instinct. We are relying more and more on pre-programmed information - carefully packaged images and words. We all have the ability to get up out of the cave, to turn off the TV, the pc, the wireless device. We have the ability to read and learn and observe. More than that, the longer we remain in the cave alongside other people seeingonly the same images, the less likely we will be to trust our own eyes, hearts and minds when we perceive something differently from what has been fed to us over and over again in the darkness. Worse, we may totally discount facts simply because of the source. If they are not fed the way we are used to being fed, by the familiar masters casting the images, we may be at a loss to interpret them, and so we fear them.

We all need to collectively get out of our caves. We need to share sunlight with unfamiliar faces, reflect upon unfamiliar scenes. We need new and fresh perspectives and we need real, actual knowledge - not false knowledge. We need to test our brains and our eyes. We need to expand our limits. We do indeedhave a world of information at our fingertips, but when we search we censor. Even when we have the capacity to be outside the cave, on the far side of hte fire in the real light of the sun, we want to pick up the puppets and project things back into the cave for those still residing there.

We are also losing the art of conversation, intelligent discourse. We have adopted certain ways of speaking and thinking and we have difficulty adapting to different types of dialogue or debate. We know themes and phrases, but are sometimes lost to substance. We also face a great challenge in pursuit of civility when we get to this place. We are fine communicating with and learning things alongside those who have been similarly sequestered, but when mixed with others from different sequestration, we are fearful, anxious, distrusting. We each want to revert to our cave thoughts, instead of looking together at the actual images and facts in front of us. We have comfort in the cave thoughts - too much challenge in the world before us that conains only some things that are fully familiar and comfortable. But, out in the world is where we all need to be. Out in the world witnessing, acting, doing and being.

If ever we were at risk of being sucked into caves of fear and isolation, it is now. Just when the world is its most open - we have all retreated into comfort zones. We need to get out of them, for our own good and for the good of mankind and government and medicine and education and safety and fellowship and knowledge.