Plato's Cave

[koan]

This came up in recent conversation. The claymation version is a pretty good summary.



Have you made it out of the cave? Have you tried to tell people what you saw?

[Ahso!]

Thats a good video! I also like this commentary on Plato's Cave and how it relates to us.

Plato's Cave: Escape from Virtual Reality « Sam Keen

An excerpt; Plato’s parable shows us it has always been difficult to separate shadow from substance, propaganda from reasoned conviction, data from meaning, opinion from wisdom. Every culture has had its image smiths, propagandists, myth makers, and newsmen. The first storytellers sitting around ancient fires fascinated their audiences and convinced them without evidence that floods were a sign of the wrath of god and rainbows a symbol of divine favor. In Medieval times the perils of sin and the pleasures of the good life were advertised for all to see in the stained glass windows of cathedrals. Crusades and holy wars were promoted by song and sermon long before the printing press invented yellow journalism or television helped politicians convert a struggle between haves and have-nots into a battle between heroes and evil empires. The manipulation of public opinion is as old as civilization and as inevitable as the lust for power.

The mark of a free mind and a free society is the ability to question authorities, be critical of institutions and resist the seductions of propaganda and advertisement. Every citizen has a moral and civic obligation to reason, deliberate, weigh evidence, evaluate and make informed judgments. Ergo: it is the task of education to teach the skills of visual literacy that help us understand how we are manipulated by images and seduced by media generated virtual worlds that increasingly inform our perceptions and values. Newspapers and television could do a better job of presenting us with information and a variety of opinions, but they can never do our thinking for us, make our decisions, or choose the values by which we will live.