As you all know, today was one of those days that hit close to home for many individuals. After reading comments from both sides I was motivated to re-read this story from Plato. It's essentially the 'slap in the face' I use to wake myself up when I know I've been completely ignorant. The problem is, it usually comes after the fact: in hindsight. For that reason I want to share it. Not because I'm particularly enlightened by any means, but because this is what has always helped me make some sense of my thoughts.

Plato was a Greek philosopher born in Athens, Greece around 400BC who wrote extensively about Socrates, his travels, teachings, trial, and death. While the life of Socrates is questionable at best (pieced together from the writings of Plato and others), his stories are so applicable that I can't help but think back to them when I'm looking for insight into my own beliefs.

The story I'm talking about is "The allegory of the cave", and again I'm not trying to preach to anyone, simply sharing the story that I turn to in these situations.

I put the link below if you want to jump straight to the narrative, but I also want to spit out an overview of the story so I'm going to do that here. Please excuse me if I'm not interpreting every detail 100%, and I'm so anxious to hear insights from this community on this because, again, this is my favorite.

The story takes place in a cave with a single large room which is very dark and shielded from all daylight. A long hallway wraps around and enters the room on the bottom right corner (if looking at a map). To the left of the entry, inside the large room, sit the dwellers of the cave with their backs against the wall so they are facing deeper into the cave. The cave dwellers are shackled in place so that they can not move their heads or legs to look around. They have only ever been allowed to see that which is in front of them. They have never been outside the cave.

Above the dwellers heads, and unbeknownst to them, running the full length of the wall, is a deep and tall inlet.  A small partition is built up inside of the inlet such that it runs the entire length of the inlet and is flush with the cave wall (right above the dwellers heads). In the back of the inlet, a large fire is burning, casting light over the partition and onto the cave wall in front of the dwellers as in a projector screen.

Behind the partition, other men hide and hold statues and figures just over the screen and run back and fourth making voices which echo from the other side of the cave. The dwellers, so used to the shadows projected on the wall, have taken to giving them names and compete with each other to be the first to point out which shadow is in front, or in back, and which shadows are together.

One day, the group is unshackled, brought to their feet, and turned around so that they see the partition and the fire burning in the distance. Their eyes burn from the light, and the other men point out that what they saw before was an illusion and what they see now is a clearer vision of the truth. The dwellers are perplexed, believing the items they are looking at now are the illusion. One man shows the statues and figurines to the group, and asks them to name them, they cannot. The light hurts their eyes, and they are drawn back to the ‘reality’ of the shadows.

One of the dwellers is then dragged out of the cave and into the sunlight, reluctantly, where he is immediately blinded by the brightness. He begins to see shadows, then reflections of the world across the water, then he begins to make out the world around him. Later he sees the moon and the stars, then eventually, the sun itself, which he believes to be the creator of all objects (as they appear in the presence of the sun). He begins to see the reality around him.

He remembers the cave, his fellow dwellers, and the competitions they used to have with the shadows. He does not want to go back. He realizes that nobody will believe him. They will believe that he left and came back unable to see (his eyes will not re-adjust to the darkness in the same way), for this reason, they would never want to leave the cave. He reasons that if he were to go back, and try to remove any of the other dwellers from the cave, they would retaliate in order to save themselves from harm.

Granted this is only a story, and a theoretical one at that, but I think it’s very important on this day. Thanks for reading, I linked to the full transcript below. This page also contains another description (probably better than mine) of the story and it’s setting.

For anybody wondering, no I’m not gay nor am I religious. I do think Prop 8 should have been overruled. Thanks for listening.

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html