Imagine an underground chamber like a cave, with a long entrance open to the daylight and as wide as the cave. In this chamber are men who have been prisoners there since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads…

This is the foundation of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The idea is that humans are completely ignorant to what it going on around us. We only know what we see and experience. This allegory also outlines a sort of hierarchy among individuals that is very common in the Topian genre.

In Plato’s allegory of the Cave the people that have been raised just watching the shadows on the walls of the cave are the most oppressed ones. The knowledge that the shadow-watchers have access to is not knowledge at all. They cannot think or have ideas outside of the shadows cast on the walls because it is all they have ever known. Download free ris file opener online. The people a step up from them are the people that operate the marionettes that cast the shadows on the walls of the cave. Although less ignorant and having more of an understanding of an outside world, they do still not have much knowledge. It is the people who control what the operators of the marionettes do that are the biggest concern in a Topian novel, and the societies in this genre seem to follow a similar structure.

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I believe the allegory of the cave is a significant metaphor Bradbury conveys in Fahrenheit 451. This is almost literally stated by Montag:

“I’ve heard rumours; the world is starving, but we’re well-fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much? I’ve heard the rumours about hate, too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don’t, that’s sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes!” – Fahrenheit 451 (Chapter 2, Page 27)

This quote connects the society of Fahrenheit 451 with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave through the depictions of ignorance, and the blatant allusion to being trapped inside a cave. The ‘cave’ in Fahrenheit 451 could be seen as the levitation screens that members of the societies fill their lives with. They are unable to move their heads or even avert their eyes from the screens that they are so obsessed with. They even go so far as to call the people on the screens their “family”. What is so interesting about the society in Fahrenheit 451 is that they have literally chosen to shut themselves in the cave.

It seems this society wanted an end to sadness and in doing so they forfeited feeling anything at all. Of course as in most dystopias there is an authority on this. The firemen who create fires to destroy books instead of destroying fires as we know firemen to do in our world. These firemen are the ones in Plato’s allegory of the cave that operate the marionettes: they are the highest in the hierarchy of control. Then there’s Beatty who knows exactly what is going on and controls the other firemen. He best describes the ignorance of the society in Fahrenheit 451:

“Coloured people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.”

What is most interesting about this is that the society has chosen ignorance. Yet, they are so invested in it that they cannot see that people’s varying tastes and opinions is actually a good and productive thing. This is what literature is for. Hearing the truth about the world that Montag lives in does not pacify him in any way as Beatty thought it would. Instead this knowledge draws him out of the cave and ensures his inability to be happy with going back to being complacent in his ignorance.

Plato (427–347 B.C.) was one of the leading philosophers in ancient Athens. His family included notable political leaders, and he served Athens, first, by a term in the military during Athens’s war against Sparta, and, second, through his intellectual and cultural contributions. Plato formulated his philosophy during a period of intense intellectual activity in ancient Athens.

He observed his teacher Socrates (470?–399 B.C.) critique the Sophists, a group of philosophers who taught the art of rhetoric and who claimed among their practitioners the philosopher Protagoras (480?–411 B.C.). The search for wisdom—not the mastery of the art of rhetorical argument should engage the mind, according to Socrates. Socrates’ philosophizing brought him into conflict with the political elites of Athens, who condemned him to death in 399 B.C. on charges of impiety and the corruption of youth.

Both Socrates and Plato lived through the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, in which Athens was finally defeated in 405 B.C. This war was chronicled by the great Athenian historian and theorist Thucydides (460?– 404? B.C.). In his history of the war, Thucydides records the famous funeral oration of the Athenian leader Pericles (495?–429 B.C.), delivered during the first year (434 B.C.) of the war. In this oration, Thucydides praises Athens as a city- state devoted to intellectual and cultural excellence as well as the realization of the common good of the entire citizenry.

Plato’s Academy taught students between the years 387? B.C. and A.D. 529. The Academy educated Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) and others in philosophy, law, mathematics, and logic. Plato’s writings would influence scholars such as Philo of Alexandria (15 B.C.?–A.D. 50?), who integrated Platonic teachings with Judaism; St. Augustine (A.D. 354–430), whose works on Christian political theory were influential in shaping ideas on secular–religious relations during the medieval period; and Averro¨es (A.D. 1126–1198), an influential Islamic writer whose works have contributed to legal, religious, and political theory.

Plato uses Socrates as a major character in many of his works. In The Republic, Plato presents an allegory that is useful in illustrating the difficulties and rewards of critical, philosophical analysis. This allegory, the allegory of the cave, may be read as a parable of political theory. Like all parables and allegories, the richness of its teachings lies not in the literal details of the story but rather in the larger philosophical questions implied by the details. Just as the parable of the boy who cried wolf, for example, is not really meant to teach the mechanics of sheep herding or wolf tracking, but instead is a compelling allegory because it teaches us about issues such as honesty and human needs, so it is with Plato’s allegory of the cave. It is not really about caves at all; it is about grappling with the questions we need to understand in order to become enlightened about the world.

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In The Republic, Plato has the character of Socrates begin the allegory of the cave by telling us the allegory is supposed to illustrate the process of achieving understanding and enlightenment. This is why the allegory is so useful as a parable of political theorizing, because political theory is a history of the search for enlightenment on the normative questions of politics.

What is the human condition as it pertains to enlightenment or ignorance? In the allegory, Socrates contends that to begin answering this question, we should imagine ourselves living in an underground cave.

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As residents of this cave, we are unaware of the most fundamental aspects of our environment. For example, we do not know we are actually inside a cave because we assume the surroundings we observe constitute the entire universe. We have no idea that above us is a ground level, a sky, a sun, because we automatically believe all that we see is all that is real. Our vision in this cave, Socrates explains, is very limited. The cave is dimly lit, and discerning images and shapes is difficult. However, because we have always lived in this cave, we do not feel it is dark and blurry; to us, everything looks normal.

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Things are going on in this cave that we do not know about. We are shackled so we can only look forward. Having never experienced looking back- ward, we do not know this is even possible, and therefore we do not realize we are shackled. Behind us are three important objects: a fire casting light on the walls of the cave, a pathway leading out of the cave, and groups of people moving objects that cast shadows on the walls of the cave. We see only the shadows in front of us and have no clue these are merely shadows being created by moving objects. Having no reason to think otherwise, we consider the shadows real.

Thus, our lives consist of watching shadows. We are mesmerized by our world, not knowing its vacuous nature. We are entertained, informed, and reassured by the mundane and the sublime in our reality, not knowing both are merely artificial constructs. We are so certain that we know reality—after all, we are empirically observing it—that our complacency has become part of our nature. All is right with the world, we feel.

Then something shatters life in the cave: A person stands and looks around. On making these unprecedented movements and looking into these new directions, the person feels intense discomfort. Standing up, turning around, seeing the fire—all these bold moves strain muscles and eyes unaccustomed to such ‘‘unnatural’’ things. The individual experiences confusion, as his or her vision and equilibrium have to adjust to the newness of standing and seeing light. The individual, Socrates continues, immediately considers rejecting everything he or she sees: It all looks unfamiliar, unreal, untrue, unnatural, wrong. It makes the individual feel very uncomfortable. The individual may want desperately to turn away from all these new things, but what if he or she does not? What if the individual moves up the cave’s pathway and above ground? Here the individual encounters more shocks and becomes even more frightened and miserable because the light of the sun is completely overwhelming to someone who has always lived in a cave. The individual is blind and lost.

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Yet slowly things begin to change. The eyes adjust, and the individual begins to see not only the sun but also the land, the sky, the world. The individual now realizes there is an entire universe beyond the underground cave. The cave is not the world, living in shackles is not living freely, watching shadows play along a wall is not knowledge of what is real—the former prisoner now knows all these things.
The enlightened individual begins to feel an urgent need to share this wonderful knowledge with the others in the cave.

Thus, in the allegory, the individual goes back down the pathway, reenters the cave, and starts revealing to the others that there is a life above ground. He or she tells the cave dwellers that they are in shackles, looking backward is possible, standing up and moving around is possible, and those shadows they have been watching all their lives (and which their parents watched before them) are just images created by movements they have never seen.

How do you think the prisoners respond to these claims? In the allegory, the prisoners decide the individual is mad, dangerous, or both. They assume the individual’s vision has been ruined. The individual has lost touch with reality if he or she thinks looking backward is ‘‘normal.’’ The individual is talking nonsense, the cave dwellers conclude. If the individual persists in trying to liberate the others, Socrates is very clear on what will happen: The individual will be killed by the cave dwellers.

All of us relive the journey of the individual in Plato’s allegory, perhaps, when we think critically about politics. Critical thinking is difficult and some- times unsettling, and it often produces conclusions at odds with the status quo of our ‘‘caves.’’ Thinking critically about the purposes of the state may lead us to believe that the accepted wisdom of our society is no more real than a shadow on a wall. As a result, political theory has produced ideas that are often controversial and sometimes elicit strong opposition. Socrates himself was considered dangerous and was condemned to death by Athens.