I think any
person who celebrates Christmas can remember that devastating moment in
childhood when they realized that Santa wasn’t real. Whether you found out by
catching your parents eating Santa’s cookies or the cool kids on the playground
spread the word, it’s a life altering moment in every Christmas celebrating
child’s life. Here are some recorded experiences of this traumatic experience if you never went through it yourself:
Okay, so maybe this is not life
altering, but a figure both your parents and the media have created in your
mind as this jolly, perfect, present bearing man, suddenly does not exist.
Now you question everything your
parents told you. Is everything they say a lie? Does the tooth fairy not exist
either? Do babies really come from storks? Does the boy who pushes you off the
slide really have a crush on you? Is everything they told a lie?
This situation is exactly what the released
prisoner in Plato’s cave must have experienced. In the cave the prisoners have
no choice to believe anything other than what is presented to them. To the
prisoner, the shadows of the objects are reality, not the actual objects
themselves. Their reality is only what they know, even if it isn’t accurate.
Once released into the “real world” where the prisoner is told what he thought
was real isn’t real at all, this concept is earth shattering. Everything you
thought was an allusion, but if its been your reality for your whole life,
wouldn’t you want to revert back to what was once safe, and comfortable, and
seemingly real?
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As I was pondering all of this I was reminded of a book I read in middle school called The Giver. For those of you who haven’t read it, read it because it’s an amazing book. But for those of you who haven’t, I will fill you in. Basically, in a futuristic society where all the evils of the world (love, hate, lust, war, famine, etc.) have been eliminated, only one person has to bear the burden of knowledge of these things. While all other people can live peaceful, easy ignorant lives, the person with this knowledge, the Giver, has to deal with everything. Sounds great right? Not so much.
Jonas, the main character, is next
in line to take over this role. Jonas is like the released prisoner; he knows
things no one else can possibly ever understand. Though both are given “the
gift of knowledge,” to the Giver it is no gift but actually an immense burden
that Jonah ultimately can’t deal with. In the cave, it is more of an internal
unwillingness of the other prisoners to seek knowledge and their ignorance that
leads to the released prisoners demise. The prisoner’s knowledge is a burden
because it leads to his exile, but also is presented as almost a gift when he
“see’s the light.” However, in Jonas’s world he is forced to keep this
knowledge all to himself and this is what leads to his eventual demise. His
knowledge is prevented by the title of his job to be spread, and the weight of this
takes quite the toll. Though this is unrealistic in our increasingly connected
world, it seems as though in this world too much knowledge is a bad thing.
This connection then made me think
of Socrates, and ultimately how politics and knowledge interact in our world
today. We credit leaders for being knowledgeable on topics like the economy,
international relations, and all the terrible things that happen in today’s
world. How much are we as citizens willing to know though? What can we ignore
and leave up to our leaders to deal with? Is it better to stay ignorant like
the prisoners and the people in Jonas’s society if it prevents us from getting
hurt? Wouldn't it be easier if we could all just believe in Santa forever? As we all get closer to being pushed into the real world outside of
college and continue making decisions about what kind of citizens we want to
be, these are questions I encourage you all to think about.
Elyssa,
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up very interesting points and comparisons in this blog and I was really struck by your question, "Is it better to stay ignorant like the prisoners and the people in Jonas's society if it prevents us from getting hurt?" I think half the ease of the prisoners and Jonas's situation is the fact that they don't realize they're ignorant. I find it a lot more difficult to live ignorantly, in terms of political issues and such, when they all affect me so much. I think my recognition of my own ignorance to specific issues pushes me to educate myself whereas I don't think there is that same pressure there for Jonas or the prisoners.
This is a very interesting post and I agree with it on several points but I also want to suggest a couple more possibilities. To start, I agree with the fact that it seems too much knowledge, or at least knowledge that is unwanted, can be a bad thing. In the examples you gave it might be better for the one bearing all of the knowledge of society to know less than he does because bearing the knowledge provides him with sadness and guilt that others do not have to bear. However, I do not think it is in our human nature to want to be ignorant without first learning the real truth. Additionally, I believe it can be harmful or helpful to live in a reality that is not 100 percent true. One example of living in ignorance being harmful is in the case of an unknown illness. Let's say a person has cancer but does not know it and it will not cause harm for a couple of months. This person lives a completely happy life believing he or she is healthy. Now the knowledge that he or she has cancer would obviously cause great turmoil, but on the other hand it would lead to possibly eradicating the cancer and saving one's life. So even though going through life unknowing of this illness might make the person happier because the individual does not believe he or she possesses cancer, it is obvious that these benefits from having too little knowledge is far more detrimental to a person than helpful. But there are other instances in where not knowing things likely makes the person better off. Using the allegory of the cave example it might be better for the prisoner to live in a world that he has become accustomed to. However, I think no matter how beneficial ignorance can be we are always looking for the truth as human beings. Even if the information we find harms us and we wish we could go back, we still have a yearning to know the truth. Overall, I agree that the allegory of the cave sheds light on the fact that living in a false reality can make a person happier, but as humans I do not believe it is in our nature to not want to know things.
ReplyDeleteElyssa,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this post I started to think about the countless lies we are told as children by our parents. Personally, I thought your example of Santa was great! It made me look back on my own childhood and all of the things that I once believed to be true. Specifically, I thought of Disney. The concept of Disney is based upon a fantasy world that has been idolized by children for years. I remember going to Disney World as a kid with nerves of excitement rushing through my body when I thought I was meeting the "real" Disney princesses. I couldn't get over my ability to hug them, take a picture and even get their autograph in my little Mickey Mouse autograph book. It was mind boggling at the time and one of my fond memories as a kid, at least when I believed it was all real. Now looking back on my beloved vacations to Disney World (regardless of my love for Disney now), I view Disney in a rather different light, especially after reading Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
This might be a stretch, but think of Disney as the reality and the real world as the cave. Parents encourage their kids to believe in everything that makes Disney what it is. Most parents encourage their kids to accept the characters and their stories as true. Therefore, when children go to Disney they are entering a world of the “reality” their parents have encouraged them to form. Although Disney World is combined with what we know and recognize as our reality, there are so many falsities to it as well. When kids are told that they are going to Disney World they view it as a gift from their parents, similar to the idea of being granted a present when being released from the cave (in this example, the real world). Children are excited to discover the other world they have been longing to experience after being told many "truths" to it and watching countless Disney films. However, what are the results of kids realizing that Disney is all a lie? How do kids react (in comparison to Socrates) when discovering the truth?
Lets picture me as a child believing in Disney for so long that it becomes the place I long to venture to. It is the "happiest place on Earth,” a place full of people and things that I am longing to meet and discover. Where I can fly with Dumbo and go Under the Sea with Ariel. But then there comes a time when I discover the truth behind everything. I am sitting on Ariel's lap ready to take a picture, but when I go to caress her long red hair it falls off. I realize it’s a wig! She's a fake! I run away crying and disappointed that a character that I treated as my idol isn't real anymore. Similar to the prisoners, all I want to do is run back to the world (cave) that I was familiar with instead of the one I was longing to experience. I want to leave Disney World as quickly as possible and return to the “cave” in which I was raised. I no longer believe that girls who wear tiaras are princesses or boys who wear tights can fly to Neverland. Upon my arrival to the real world (cave), all I want to do is tell my friends and younger siblings (the other prisoners) about my discovery, however, my parents encourage me not to because they will not understand without experience.
Evidently, there are many truths to the Allegory of the Cave when applied to the world we are raised and live in. Especailly when considering the falsehoods of many childhood beliefs and the shocking truths we discover as we age. As we grow older and soon find ourselves in our parent’s shoes, it is definitely interesting to think about and acknowledge this concept. As we become adults and parents, we gain the responsibility to form another reality for our children or simply raise them in the one we know.
Elyssa,
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting concept but it is so hard to discuss because what we might want in theory is so impossible to make a reality. I would argue that theoretically life would be better if we could live so naively and continue on happy with our ignorance. With every day that passes, even as a child, you learn more and more about the cruel truths of life. The saddest thing to see is children be exposed to poverty, racism, and so many other cruelties in the world. I think the example of children proves this perfectly that to a certain degree everyone pushes for us to live in ignorance. We come to accept as adults that we can't escape these awful things in life, so we try to shelter children from it until they get old enough where we realize it is hopeless. They are too old to not question the things they know. They no longer accept what they are told and shown and begin to look past what they know. This is arguably one of the worst times in a parent, older sibling, aunts, uncles, grandparents life because you have to sit back and watch as they learn about the bad parts of life you've always shielded them from.
I think because we do this, although one might argue that living in ignorance is a bad thing, we all try to make it happen to a certain degree. Even if we don't realize it. I think that honestly, we would be happier if we did. But sadly it is impossible. We all reach that point in childhood when just because of age we start to question what we know. And from there it goes downhill. At least this is how I see it really.