Dueling Dualities
The selection “Allegory of the Cave”, from Plato’s premier political treatise “The Republic”, offers the reader a duality of choice both within the narrative and the reader’s own life. The most readily apparent of these choices demonstrates the juxtaposition between the desire for either security or safety that is inherent within the pursuit of knowledge or contentment with the status-quo. Speaking as Socrates, Plato sets the scene and purpose of his allegory by telling Glaucon, “And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.” (Plato) A man’s fundamental nature is therefore either in a state of enlightenment, or he is unenlightened. The over-arching theme of duality is consistent…show more content… In setting the scene, Plato repeats the theme of “dueling dualities” or contrasting conditions. The outside has sunlight; whereas, the cave is dark. The prisoners live in ignorance; whereas, the puppet-masters live with full knowledge. The shadows represent life in the abstract; whereas, the objects represent life in the concrete. Life as a prisoner is simple; whereas, life as a puppet-master comes with some responsibility. Socrates tells Glaucon, “We shall not wrong the philosophers who grow up among us, but we shall treat them fairly when we compel them to add to their duties the care and guardianship of the other people.” (Plato) Enlightenment, via education, clearly comes with responsibility as indicated by Plato. The puppet-masters are responsible for the care and general welfare of the prisoners; in turn, the puppet-masters deftly use carefully chosen objects to construct a shadow-paradigm of their choosing in which the prisoners live. The prisoners, lacking education, are unable to interpret the shadows as anything more than the abstract images constructed by the puppet-masters. Plato’s implication is that it is the responsibility of those enlightened few to act as caretakers for the blissfully ignorant. “The business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all” is an example of Socrates, via Plato, making this point explicitly clear. (Plato) What is interesting is that Plato seems to go beyond a feeling of ethical obligation and extends his sentiments into the realm of outright morality. The sunlight entering the cave represents “good” while the “darkness” of the cave represents something sinister. Education not only brings enlightenment – it brings one into the light of
