The Allegory of the Cave

‘And if he were made to look directly at the light of the fire, it would hurt his eyes and he would turn back and retreat to the things which he could see properly, which he would think really clearer than the things being shown him’

-          Plato

Plato suggests the real physical world is a fantasy however; there could be a reality beyond the deceptive world. The allegory of the cave shows the stages between absolute truth and false reality, where things or people are manipulating the truth and creating this deception, which informs the ways in which we live. However if we could see the reality of things, would we decide to live in a different way or would we want to be lied to and carry on living in deception? In today’s world, we all understand to a point that we are most likely being deceived and lied to by the media but how many of us carry on accepting this and proceed to play by these ‘rules’ we have been told to follow. Most of us watch the news/films/programmes and read magazines and newspapers but how many of us automatically believe what we are reading without following it up or educating ourselves on the topic?

Allegory of the Cave 

During World War 1, there were many propaganda posters used to persuade young men of Britain to join the army and fight for ‘their country’. Posters included patriotic symbols, war heroes and text often of a bias and misleading nature to influence the country into believing war was the right thing to do. One of the more clever propaganda posters in my opinion was the, ‘Women of Britain say GO!’ by E.V. Kealy 1915 as it ‘cleverly balances a male patriotic imperative of enlistment with a sense of sacrifice by women and children, urging their menfolk to leave them for the larger cause’ Propaganda Power and Persuation, D. Welch, London, 2013. However, when you think back to such a horrific time, did women really want their men to leave them for war? Or did they feel forced into feeling this way down to posters like this? Therefore, did men feel guilty due to their women wanting (being forced to wanting) them to fight for their country?  And if they could see the truth behind these posters and the reality of the situation would they have made a change and gone against the idea of the posters or would they have carried on with the deception because this is what they were meant to do?

 

Propaganda Poster

This example links with ideas based upon a society of control and how the government want you to know and see certain things. They may not show you the whole story or the whole photograph, which leads me to believe we are being lie to; however, we choose to get on with it rather than doing anything about it and changing the way the media is being deceptive. Women proceed to be made to feel like we should look a certain way due to images in magazines within the media, similar to how women were made to feel a certain way due to the WW1 propaganda posters. However, even though we understand how deceptive these posters were, we still carry on to believe the lies are the truth. 

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Therefore, what Plato is saying in this quote sums up society in today’s world. We know we are being lied to but we do not make any changes or think in different ways. We carry on living with the deceptive media influencing the ways in which we feel or live.