The cave represents the physical world that humankind lives in at present. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave provides descriptive scenarios equivalent to practices in a human being’s ordinary physical world (Altman, 2018). In that cave, human knowledge grows upon getting closer to reality aided by light from the fire and the sun.
The sun represents the realm of knowledge illustrated by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The excerpt notes that if one of the chained men accessed sunlight, their perspective on shadows would change (Altman, 2018). As illustrated by Plato, values, and morals of truth should guide the right decisions for accurate justice delivery.
The cave-dwellers react to the freed prisoner as an outcast of their community (Altman, 2018). Ideally, the former see the freed prisoner as an outsider who opted to leave their inherent and conservative surrounding that determined knowledge.
Personally, social media resembles Plato’s cave in my world. Online activities have overwhelmed the need to search for knowledge by getting distracted by digital media platforms. Long hours of online activities have inhibited the perfect scheduling of knowledge-seeking activities away from digital sources.
I would want to be freed from Plato’s cave through the path leading to the outside world. The act of reasoned judgment based on truth and the idea of well represented by Plato would mark access to real knowledge (Altman, 2018). Ideally, this would include the strategic identification of useful content that enhances good knowledge in the modern world.
I think that an individual has the power to shape their ideas and perspective of knowledge. The change is inherent and must be intrinsically motivated from within an individual’s interest to transform. Taking charge of one’s power of shaping ideas and beliefs is useful in ensuring consistency in perseverance throughout the change process.
Reference
Altman, W. H. (2018). Ascent to the good: The reading order of Plato’s dialogues from Symposium to Republic. Lexington Books.