I used to tell Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to my English students. I’d start with a sketch on the blackboard. My artistic rendition always left much to be desired but it gave them a reference for the narrative.
These people are in a dark cave from birth and have been chained to face the back. There is a fire behind them and a roadway outside with people walking by in the bright sunlight casting shadows on the wall.
Their perception of the shadows is the prisoners’ only reality until one day when someone breaks free of the chains and makes their way out of the cave. It is painful to make the adjustment from the darkness to the light.
Upon seeing the origin of the shadows and the broader perspective of the world outside, the escapee makes his way back in to explain to the others and again it is painful to adjust his vision between the bright light and the darkness. “This is not what is real! You don’t understand!”
And they don’t. They can’t. It’s not in their purview. It’s outside the realm of their experience.
Then I draw a “Modern Allegory of the Cave” which consists of stick figures sitting on the semblance of a couch facing a box with tall ears, a TV representing the media. Perception shapes one’s truth.
It is much like the blind men and the elephant. Each approaches a different part of the animal and declares it to be either a rope or a wall or a tree and so on. The poem by John Godfrey Saxe concludes as follows:
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
Like the blind men, we get a hold of a part and create a whole interpretation. And like the people in Plato’s cave, we are all somewhat in the dark, chained to our perspectives while seeing shadows we interpret as our reality.
How would we ever get the whole picture of anything when there is such a vastness to our existence? The takeaway is to not be too rigid in any position and to take a step back to allow for other points of view. Holding on too tight to something pinches us off from connection to the everything.
The mind can interpret from multiple perspectives in infinite ways. In the final analysis, we must turn to the wholeness of the heart.
Let there be love.
You may also read this on Medium. And an updated version for our racial justice times on Elephant Journal.
article photo: doseofjasmin from Pixabay