Will of the heart to change the mind

The Allegory of the Cave is a hot topic right now and while I did not want to jump on the Plato bandwagon for this, I do want to talk about the importance of the many meanings of this tale, but more importantly to truth of how to rise to new truths. He teaches that once you see the truth, you cannot go back, this is a true concept in any situation. However, my focus is on what it takes to be the person to break away and what it will take to make it heard. The man was freed and saw the world for what it truly was, no longer accepting the overall truths and laws from inside the cave, and from that had his eyes, “opened,” to what his world really had to offer. However, when he brought it back to his comrades, they were very aggressive in their position on their world, all of the just knowing that they are right and that this one man is lying. On this topic,

we would have to reference Socrates in an interesting conversation he had with a top student of one of his friends and fellow teachers. I have been searching, but cannot find it (thanks Google, real help there), however if you ever get a chance to take philosophy with Randy Harris, you will most certainly talk about Socrates own thoughts and talk about what it means to know something. In it, he pointed out that everyone has his or her own perception of the world, so knowledge must pass through this perception. In a more direct statement he says that upon first perceiving something we make our own judgments that, to ourselves at that moment, are right. In basic view, we all have our own perceptions and our perceptions are personally right until shown otherwise. I think this is very relevant to understanding both sides of this argument, and to answer the question of, “Why didn’t they just turn around and at least try?”

Moving on, he tries so hard to push this topic, to show his friends that there is something more than shadows and shackles, and that all they need to do is look around them and see. This is still met with much resistance, and goes as far as ending with the statement that the others within the cave would have torn him limb from limb if they were not shackled.

This is a very powerful statement to me, in two ways: one, it shows what you face when you decide to seek higher, or more, knowledge then what society has to give and two, what you must do in order to share that with the world, and the trials. First, what you will face is isolation, at least at first, from the society. You will be kept at a distance and will be constantly bombarded with negative comments either to self or to your ideal. Sadly to me, this makes sense. Essentially, from the establishment of perception in knowledge given earlier, when you present a new idea or outlook on something, you are invading a person’s “world” of perception and trying to change what they see and what they’ve set as their personal truths and answers. The more drastic the idea, the more resistance will be, and proof will be needed to be, presented. Thinking back to different figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. whose ideals greatly rivaled to overall thinking and views of society, believing in equality, had him to receive much pain and discrimination, as far as being sent to prison for trying to have a voice in these times. By trying to change a world, he accepted many different negative actions towards him, even leading to his assassination. However, and also leading to my second point, he still did it and accepted everything in order to change a world. You MUST be willing to accept all pain and suffering in order to change a world, and it will in most cases be initially a lonely pain. However, in order to provoke any change of either action or thought you must be willing to fight through opposition and continue to show what you find or what you believe to be true in order for any different truth to be realized. This is shown in the story by the statement that if he were closer to them they would kill him. I know it said that if they were not shackled they would, but I feel it goes both ways; the enlightened man could not advance for fear of pain and maiming. However, it still leaves the lesson that in order to make someone see you must break them free of their restraints, which will be a dangerous task because people are not too accepting of those trying to change their world. It is necessary to be able to accept this fact, and to press onward regardless of what may happen in order to change views and lives.

I apologize for the long post, it was just a lot that needed to be said, and I am more than interested to hear what others think on this.