13 Comments
User's avatar
Kelly Thompson TNWWY's avatar

What a great allegory! Social media is the cave.

Ascend Book Club's avatar

Yes. There are jokes that modern man, having found himself in Plato’s Cave, elected to dig deeper - and this is done via our technology that removes us further and further from reality.

Kelly Thompson TNWWY's avatar

So real.

Beauty Matters's avatar

I'm in for the read along! This is going to be wonderful 🤝

Zack G's avatar

Reminds me somewhat of Exodus. The comfort of slavery vs the freedom in the desert / wilderness.

Ascend Book Club's avatar

Good. Compare the ascent of the person out of the cave and then his descent back into the cave to help to similar narratives in the Bible, like Moses ascending Sinai and then coming down to Israel or Christ ascending Tabor and then coming down into his Passion.

The ascend/descend spiritual journey is both Platonic and Biblical.

Anthony's avatar

What if we never left it?

Ascend Book Club's avatar

For Plato, we are all born inside the Cave, as the Cave represents our ascent from ignorance to true, eternal knowledge.

Beth's avatar

Ah, yes. The algorithm creating the fabulous echo chamber in the cave...some will never escape.

Peter Morrell's avatar

Fascinating. Wise. Relevant from 2000 years ago. What we need now is a modern version of the Athenian Agora.

Siddhartha Mukherjee's avatar

“You’re not actually shackled to the wall.”

That is where the metaphor becomes modern. The possibility isn’t that algorithms curate shadows, but that convenience makes us collaborators. The cave survives because familiarity feels safer than illumination.

Provocative. Accessible. Timely. I'M SUBSCRIBING!

I write at The Reflective State—do visit sometime.

Rosa Maria's avatar

Plato's cave. At times, not taught anymore.