Lessons from 1984, The Matrix, and The Allegory of The Cave

The Dangers of Institutional Thinking – Lessons from 1984, The Matrix, and The Allegory of the Cave

By Ethan Indigo Smith
Contributor, ZenGardner.com

“On the walls of the Cave, only the shadows are the Truth.” ~ from Plato’s ‘Allegory of The Cave’.

Some philosophical work is so profound as to be influential for thousands of years. Plato’s ‘The Republic‘ is one such series of dialogues. It explains and explores the relationship between state institutions and individuals, and has provided humanity with lessons in politics, philosophy and individual enlightenment since it was penned some two thousand years ago.

One of the central dialogues in The Republic is called the Allegory of the Cave. The lessons the Allegory of the Cave provides to today’s world are numerous, and its depiction of our insidious societal structure is extremely accurate and insightful — despite often going unacknowledged as such. Through its exploration of our political outer states, it also explores our psychological inner state as well.

The Allegory of The Cave proposes that what people take to be ‘reality’ in total is only a partial reality, or an all out illusion. As is all similar philosophy, the allegory is layered, but it is partially about breaking from mainstream thinking and seeking individual knowledge; the ascension of perspective; being in a cave and coming out of a cave. It’s about how we can ascend from the bottom to stand face-to-face with the golden Sun.

Socrates begins: “Let me show you in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened Behold! Human beings living in an underground cave”.

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