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What Are The Stereotypes In The Allegory Of The Cave

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Ignorance seeped into the fabric of our society like a wine stain on a white couch. It's a stubborn thing, always lingering way longer than you would hope. In modern society, ignorance is constantly encountered. Stereotypes about appearance often lead to assumptions about an individual's capabilities, specifically in terms of gender. Often, women are perceived as less capable than men. Moreover, gender bias has led to an engineered blindness in which both men and women perceive men as the dominant power in society. This paper will explore how ignorance born from deep-rooted societal stereotypes causes women to be viewed as weaker and men to be viewed as stronger. As well, through the exploration of Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” the deep …show more content…

The people are bound with limited mobility, causing them to live a life lacking knowledge beyond the reality in the cave constructed for them by puppeteers. In essence, these people become prisoners chained to a limited perspective. Socrates emphasizes this by noting that, “The prisoners would in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts” (Plato, The Allegory of the Cave, 2). Being all that they know, the prisoners make assumptions solely based on what they can see and hear within the cave. This situation constructs a form of radical ignorance, as the prisoners lack perspective and motivation to discover knowledge they do not know exists. Socrates emphasizes that radical ignorance is born from an inability to seek an awareness that individuals do not realize exists. In order to fix this problem, a solution can be found in education. Socrates states, “Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn’t turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately” (Plato, The Allegory of the Cave,

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In the Allegory of the Cave by Plato the people who can only see shadows create their own version of the truth based on what they know, “To them [the people stuck in the cave unable to move],’

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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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The people who are chained up get set free by the keeper, who is a symbol of the sun, or the “Rooster” who wakes people up from their illusions. The people are blinded by the sun and they want to go back to their illusion of life. This is when the people are in the Belly of the Whale or when they are symbolically dead. Once the people realize there is no way of going back to the way it was, they are “reborn” from their illusions and live their lives to the fullest and not take for granted what they have. Plato’s Allegory of the cave is

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“The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, and A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt all have in common a person that is challenged by a group of people on their beliefs, ideas, as well as knowledge. In “The Allegory of the Cave”, one person is challenged based on his knowledge about the world outside the cave. Next, An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, Dr. Thomas Stockmann is challenged by the people of his town on his belies of the water being contaminated that later is proven to be true because he sends a sample to be tested. Lastly, A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, Thomas More is challenged by King Henry and his followers on his idea of divorce because he is dedicated to the Catholic Church which doesn’t approve of King Henry divorce. Furthermore, I believe Dr. Thomas Stockmann is a greater hero than Thomas More.

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(Plato, The Allegory of the Cave). According to Socrates, most of what the prisoners are exposed to is the extent of their knowledge. The initial description paints a picture of chained prisoners to Glaucaon. The prisoners are sat facing a wall, behind the wall a fire is blazing. There is a small roadway that allows puppeteers to display various objects facing the sunlight.

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Acclaimed inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla once said that “it is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.” In other words, Tesla believes that when man becomes enlightened, he becomes aware of mankind’s limitations both individually and societally. Additionally, the introduction of new ideas and the edification of others enhances the progression of society. This idea of the truth of enlightenment is explored in both “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, and The Matrix by

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In basic terms, this means people where happy with their lack of knowledge. When confronted about their lack of knowledge, most people responded with hostility. This behavior was typical during Plato’s era. Plato’s allegory of the cave is based upon the conception of true reality and manufactured reality. The true form of reality relates to life outside the cave whereas manufactured reality relates to shadows cast against a wall inside the cave.

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Socrates’ “allegory of the cave” represents the conflict between education and the nature of man. In the cave, the people are exposed to new knowledge and shown the light, however as they are shackled to the caves walls they are limited by what they see and choose to believe. The darkness in the cave represents the unknown or a lack of complete understanding, while the light illustrates the truth and education. The light projects itself in the cave producing castings against the walls. Meanwhile, these shadows that the prisoners see in the caves depict their perceptions of how the interpret the images.

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It’s a society which people are limited to many rigid controls and can only see the “shadows” of the real facts so that they can only understand the lesser level of the world. 3. The prisoners in the cave won’t believe that there can be the “real facts” other than what they see and think in the cave. They are challenged and won’t accept the fact that they are in

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In Plato’s Republic where Plato was receiving the philosophical lessons about education from his teacher Socrates, the analogy of the cave was an impressive approach to convey that people believe what they see with their sight without further thinking about whether it’s actually what it is assumed to be. They also tend to be satisfied with being ignorant than being exposed to the truth because the truth is just difficult to experience. It can be painful. That’s why teachers like philosophers are there to open our blindfolds and lead us to light.

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Application In Plato's philosophy, he states that the people in the caves were imprisoned. The men in the cave were chained up in the cave all their lives, starring at a wall to only see the shadows of people on the outside of the cave. They could only think and imagine what was on the outside of the cave. The men in the cave thought their lives were normal and perfect, they wouldn't change their lifestyle for nothing.

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As Socrates discusses the cave-dwelling to his friend, He conceives of people living in a cave, with their “legs and necks fettered from childhood,” so that they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads” (514 B). They do not realize that behind them is a fire. Between them and the fire are fake animals and statues, reproductions in stone or wood carried by men that are cast in shadow form on the wall by the fire “like a screen at a puppet show in front of the performers who show their puppets above it” (514 B). They imagine one prisoner being freed from this cave-like existence and finding light in the real world. When the one prisoner adjusts to the light in “the real world”

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In “The Allegory of the Cave”, Plato’s idea of the human who escaped the cave, but came back to tell about his learnings but the other people in the cave did not want to listen to him since they believed that the cave was the real truth and did not want to be educated about the outside

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Allegory of the Cave” Each and every day in this modern society or to be precise in the 21st century we individuals are presented with innovative, new and different pictures through the virtual world that includes the media, government and social networking sites. The allegory of the cave is relevant to today’s world because people today as well as people in the cave blindly followed the views of other people without actually questioning the fact, why something is believed so. There is constantly someone above us in power for example, the government which controls the media constantly. These are the people who think they can control the entire world or as Plato said the “Ones they keep chained.” Thus in today’s world, people’s views are controlled by posts on social media, mass media and advertisements and last but not the least the way of living.

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In Plato’s Republic, he narrates how puppeteers are able to utilize their skill in the art of manipulation to control benighted men into believing lies; however, the cave also dramatizes how some of these men are later enlightened to see through the manipulation and educate the uneducated into seeing the same. In “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato demonstrates how as part of the human condition, uneducated men can easily be manipulated by men with the power of knowledge until they can be free from their ignorance. The artist Jan Saenredam thoughtfully illuminates Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” through the incorporation of the puppeteers, the prisoners, the sun, and the shadows. In Saenredam’s illustration, the puppeteers are positioned on a high ledge to represent their power over the prisoners who are trapped beneath their feet.

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