Blog #3

Coming out the cave has two interpretations, one is being enlighten and coming out to a beautiful reality as Socrates mentioned. The other is as seen in the movie The Matrix; humans coming out into a dystopian reality, horrible to live in. We can all agree that seeing the truth is better than being exposed to a lie, but the truth sometimes can be awful. There are many who prefer to not know, and claim that ignorance is bliss. When it comes to finding out an ugly truth, I can honestly say that is preferable to want to live with ignorance and not know. However, by denying ourselves the truth we just give in into a false reality full of deception and lies because it pleases us. I like to resist the given and try to seek the truth, no matter how terrible and ugly the truth will be.

            Plato’s theory and The Matrix are total opposites. One has a happy ending and the other does not. I would like to clarify that when Socrates says leaving the cave will give you a much better  life once your embrace it, he means according to John Chaffee’s book (The Philosophers Way) that you would feel good about yourself knowing that there is a bigger reality than humans can ever know. Being aware that there are many possibilities and that we make our own world. A life where an individual finally gets to use his mind, and think for himself. Not following others ideas and way of being. When one comes to conclude that the answers we thought were true have more answers and more possibilities, not just the one taught to us by our parents and society. Then we will come to a beautiful realization, a new world, we will wake up and be enlightened and the world we knew (the cave) will no longer exist, only our new reality which will be beautiful as Socrates mentioned.

            Though the way we view the world will be beautiful, we have not free the others from the cave. As we are forced to interact with the prisoners that do not know their in a cave, will make us once again be reminded that we were once there and will make us want to free them but at the same time be angry that they cannot see their prisoners. Since we are living together and they have not seen the light, it makes the enlightened person’s life in a way miserable because he is forced to live with people who live in a world of illusions and dreams created by others. Ridiculed if he so much as tries to explain to them that they are living in a cave. They will laugh at him and think his crazy. That being said, leaving the cave will be extraordinary but we cannot free everybody and our misery comes from living in a world where were exposed to live with unenlightened dumbasses. That is the ugly truth, to know that you’re awake but others are still sleepwalking. In a way both Plato’s Theory and The Matrix end up in a dystopian world, is just that in The Matrix is a bit worse.

            The Matrix has a sad truth once one comes out the cave, there’s barely enough hope to live in a beautiful world unless all the machines are destroyed. This is a sign I take also as if all the machines are destroyed then there will be happiness. Therefore, if all human prisoners in Plato’s theory come out of the cave, there will be happiness. We cannot know if everyone will leave the cave but we do know that if they do, the world will be a beautiful one. The Matrix I believe is a way of showing that once an individual has been enlightened and sees things more clearly he is still forced to live in a world of hell. In Plato’s theory you are free and enlightened but like I explain you are also forced to live in a world of hell though you see everything more beautifully than before. One is glad to have left the cave but sad that he cannot help others do the same. Knowing a new reality can make you depress looking at everyone else reality.