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Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

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“History is created by victors.” Although the exact source of this quote cannot be located, some accredit it to Winston Churchill while others trace it back to Niccolò Machiavelli. This quote, or a similar variation of it, is widely considered a truism and as such communicates that history cannot be subjective. History is influenced by the experiences and implicit biases of the author; however, this does not mean that history books are not an accurate representation of the events that transpired. The quote conveys that historical events have a greater complexity than the simplified view demonstrated by one person. No historian can fully capture the conflicting viewpoints associated with a specific event. To grasp the entirety of history, one …show more content…

In this dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, Socrates sets up a scenario and debates the intricacies and the conflicts that can arise between people with different perceptions of reality. When one person is dragged away from his earlier life and into the light, he learns the truth and realizes that his experiences were false (Bloom). Returning to his earlier life, he finds that he cannot adjust, thus bringing ridicule from his former companions. Although he is the only person having attained knowledge outside of the cave, everyone around him insults him and questions his intelligence. To those inside the cave, the darkness and the shadow represent reality. When he attempts to challenge everything in their world, they become hostile towards and disregard his ideas (Bloom). His experiences have allowed for him to gain a new perspective on life and the cave, meanwhile their lack of experience give them an entirely different perspective. This allegory perfectly shows the conflicts of modern life. There are those who refuse to break out of their bubble and experience other aspects of life, even when there is evidence pointing to something new and unusual. This unwillingness to question their own viewpoint and expand beyond their bubble leads to an incomplete reality. These people are not wrong and their reality is perfectly valid, albeit it is

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Plato tells us that the prisoners are confused on their emergence from the cave and that the prisoners’ will be blinded once they had been freed from the cave. After a period of time they will adjust their eyesight and begin to understand the true reality that the world poses. The stubbornness to develop a different perspective is seen in much of today’s society. The allegory of the cave is an understanding of what the true world is and how many people never see it because of their views of the society they are raised in.

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