The Allegory of the Cave, written by the founder of Western political thinking and one of the pillars of our very own civilization, hailing from the Isles of Greece, "where burning Saphos loved and sung, where grew the arts of war and peace, where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet, but all except their sun, is set."
- Lord Byron
The parallels between the famed allegory presented in "The Republic" and the unfortunate cult of ignorance, a world in which your ignorance is as good and as valid as my wisdom, thoughts of impunity and even contempt for knowledge have become another plague of the narrow minded sheeps longing for the all mighty, all knowing and all wise shepherd to guide them through the perils of life, a life in which they are but delayed corpses with a breeding function, ah, a pitiful existence? Is it not? If only ignorance was only a bliss, it is also a bless.
In the allegory, Plato displays Socrates describing a group of people that have lived their entire lives chained to the wall of a cave, facing a blank wall. Shadows are seen projected on the walls as a result of things passing in front of a fire behind them, the people begin to ascribe forms to the shadows, while Socrates in the allegory explains that the shadows are as close as the people will ever be, regarding reality and consciousness. He then proceeds to explain that the philosopher is like a prisoner who has escaped from the cave, and thus his understanding about the shadows evolves and understands that the shadows on the wall do not make up for reality in any sense, for the philosopher can understand the true form of reality, as opposed to the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.
This very concept is as true today as it was in 380 BC, no amount of technological advance can overrule some of the most basic premises/conditions/limitations/commodity of human nature throughout the ages, Plato believed that the world needed to be apprehended intellectually, one might "cowardly" argument that not everyone has the "need" or the "capacity" for such feat, the subjectiveness of intellectuality is used as the clementia for the scarcity of our intellectual zeitgeist, fed by every imaginable form that diffuses ideology , from all the media, adding to that the entertainment industry of all kind and the political system that rewards the "bless/bliss" of citizen apathy, we are taught to execute and not to think, thinking has become a very perilous, and rare, phenomenon in this world, "ideas are more dangerous than guns", even a psychopath had the lucidity to recognize such base truth.
The need of reason and philosophy to understand the world is, however, something that I personally reserve as a bene placito, the Inquisition has long passed and inquisition of thought is not the aim of this humble, and rhetoric, is to bring thought towards idle mind. Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.
In conclusion, we need a new Renaissance, we need to develop taste towards knowledge and wisdom, these positive traits beget love, compassion, solidarity, and above all, individual , free, uncorrupted thought towards the improvement of oneself and the improvement of all, following our own path alone casting away the peer pressure and social control of preying, jealous and insecure eyes, afraid of difference, afraid of individuality and still cloaked in the very same shadows described by Plato, the sun will dawn once again and a new era will arrive, whether it will be on this very same aeon, or it will remain the utopian dream of a new wave of the agitators of thought, it depends on you, yes, yourself, so put those thousands of atoms and stardust to work and think for yourself.
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
- George Orwell, 1984
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