In the Simile of the Cave, the Greek philosopher Plato describes prisoners shackled in a row facing a wall. Their heads and limbs are constricted such that they only see the wall. Behind them at a distance, a fire burns. As free men and cattle move in and out of the cave, the prisons see their shadow on the wall ahead. When the free men speak, the prisoners hear echoes reverberating around them. The shadows and echoes are their reality. It is all they know. Then Plato supposes, what if these prisoners were set free? What if they were free to see the men and the cattle who walked into the cave? What if they were taken out of the cave and introduced to the sun light? If after living in the light these freed men were to return to the cave, would they rejoice in their former reality?
Plato goes on, "'There was probably a certain amount of honour and glory to be won among the prisoners, and prizes for keensightedness for those best able to remember the order of sequence among the passing shadows and so be best able to divine their future appearances. Will our released prisoner hanker after these prizes or envy this power or honour? Won't he be more likely to feel, as Homer says, that he would far rather be "a serf in the house of some landless man", or indeed anything else in the world, than hold the opinions and live the life they do?"
I want to be a serf in the house of a landless man.
End notes -
Plato, The Republic.
Tait Simpson - http://blog.taitsimpson.com/2009/08/allegory-of-the-cave/
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