#TwistedTropes 13. Plato's empty cave

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Plato was a Greek philosopher who had a splendidly long beard. He was the hipster of philosophers (what? - Editor). He spent a lot of his time thinking, which led to some strange ideas, all of which were in Greek.

"Why don't you go out and get yourself a proper job?" his parents would often ask (also in Greek), but Plato studiously ignored them and continued to spend his time pontificating, wandering around in olive groves, and drinking Retsina. And wrestling. He also did some wrestling. Mostly he wrestled with his thoughts, but now and again he also enjoyed two falls or a submission (Please take this seriously - Editor).

Today, philosophers talk about Plato's cave. Plato didn't really own a cave (he couldn't afford the ground rent) but was in fact an allegory (which is less expensive). If he had owned a cave, he would probably have chained people inside it, facing the wall with a fire behind them, the sadist (surely not? - Editor). The fire wouldn't be there to keep them warm, because Greece is pretty much a furnace for most of the year, but Plato would make sure it was there to create flickering shadows on the wall the chained people were forced to gaze at. It was real people and animals passing by behind the prisoners that created the shadows, but the prisoners didn't know this. They were forced to face the front, a bit like today's students.

If this strange torture wasn't enough, Plato also imagined one of these poor deluded souls being released into the world, and seeing it as it actually is. It is a huge shock for the poor sap, who is so conditioned to sitting in chains in the cave watching shadows of his version of reality flickering on the walls, that he rejects reality in favour of his lived experience. Worse, if he returns to the cave and tells his former cave-mates, they wouldn't believe him, and would probably think he had a screw loose. Releasing him potentially causes more harm than keeping him where he is, safe and sound in his deluded little spot inside the cave.

What we don't know can't hurt us, it's said. In a sense that may be true, but what about when we are confronted with a reality we cannot or will not accept? What if we learn something that runs completely counter to our beliefs or perceptions? What if we return to the cave and it's empty? Such a culture shock, such a cognitive dissonance is what nightmares are made of. It's also the basis of great learning. When students leave the artificiality of the traditional classroom and enter the real world, they quickly discover that everything is joined up, rather than being presented in discreet subject sessions. All the stuff they learnt in school is connected out there in the real world. It probably takes a lot of time for some to adjust to this new reality. This is where their real education begins.

Plato's cave therefore makes a lot of sense in an education context. So although Plato was probably a sadist, he was also a clever old stick. And a clever sadist is definitely someone we should all be wary of (This is poor writing and I'm not convinced it resolves anything. See me after class - Editor).

Next time: Aladdin's miserly lamp

Previous posts in the #TwistedTropes series
1. Pavlov's drooling dog
2. Chekhov's smoking gun
3. Occam's bloody razor
4. Schrödinger’s undead cat
5. Pandora's closed box
6. Frankenstein's well-meaning monster
7. Thor's lost hammer
8. Noah's character ark
9. Hobson's multiple choice
10. Fibonacci's annoying sequence
11. Sod's unlucky law
12. Dante's lukewarm inferno


Plato's empty cave by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Posted by Steve Wheeler from Learning with e's