Paper #1
HMXP 102
Dr. Van Aller
The Allegory of the Cave The society we now live in has become so immune to free thinking due to the explosion of technology and the mass media. We tend to just believe what we are told by those who run the media societies, or by those who are integrated in our own comfort zone. In The Allegory of the Cave, Plato says our “bonds prevent us from turning our heads around”. This quote can be taken many different ways, but I chose to read into this statement by emphasizing how people are so comfortable being the way it is that they are unwilling to step out and explore life and the world around them. People in today’s society have become lazy thinkers and would rather be told how to behave and what to believe rather than making these decisions on their own. A truly educated person, is one who is open to new ideas in every area of expertise and encourages others to give their opinions, as well as stating their own on the subject matter. My question for the knowledgeable and educated is, how can you be truly educated without a sense of pride? In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, he states that even though a person is opened up to knew things and ways of believing; when that person tries to open up their peer to the same thing, the unexposed will become prideful in what they believe. This sense of pride will lead the unexposed to believing their way is the only way. Plato may not say the word prideful in the passage, but I took his statement as an innuendo to a person who is prideful. A “good thinker” is someone who can lay out all possible options and opinions that can be made prominent on an issue and decides what the best solution is for all those that would be impacted. A good example that can be applied to the reading is the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s in the United States and how Martin Luther King Jr. impacted all those he came in contact with. He may not have impacted them in the way he