The Allegory of the Cave(Jeff Barnard)

When reading Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, I at first thought that it would be too deep for me to get what he was saying. But as I kept going, I began to understand what he was trying to point out about a man shackled in a cave that is released into the world and what he made of it. It would seem that this man, forced to look at his own shadow for so long and then released into the “upper world”, would see things in a much different way than say a person that wasn’t in the cave. His interpretation of things are different because to him the sun is like the fire in the cave and the things that our realities are not the same to him because of his past experience. His ability to better analyze himself by looking at his reflection in water in the daylight reminds me of trying to write about yourself but having to rely on your past adventures to remind you of what makes you you.
The writing even seems to point out that if one person out of an entire group experiences something not accepted by the group he is to be put to death. That seems a bit extreme to me because I would think that new experiences can make one a better person and that it could improve the society he lived in. I think that for this part Plato was trying to point out that something new in a society of old traditions would be like a culture shock and that it is not always accepted until certain events take place. He goes on to say that the new thing that is introduced can be seen as beautiful but ultimately, it can only be seen by those who make the effort to go see it. I think that it means that if we as individuals want to grow, we need to put ourselves in weird positions in order to get there.
In Conclusion, I think that what Plato was trying to get at was that people accept what they’re most familiar with and don’t often accept other cultures that our different from their own. But in order to gain a new understanding of our fellow people, we need to be able to change some things within ourselves. Plato states that we should seek wisdom and virtue in our lives so that we not only improve ourselves but also the society we live in. I agree with that because if we look at our history, major thing only occurred when we enriched as a society and not as individuals. As students, I think that means that with knowledge comes better ways to create our work and improvement of one’s self.