WEEK 4 "The Allegory of the Cave"

For the required readings for this week, I've attempted to read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". At first it was quite confusing until I found this video that made me understand it a bit more.

However, after understanding it I questioned my self if Plato’s allegory is still relevant to today’s society? I think it is. Specifically, when the prisoners believe that the shadows that they see and the echoes that they hear are real. And once a prisoner is freed, it becomes difficult for him to distinct what is real and what isn’t.

To compare it to our society, the shadows that the prisoners see can be a metaphor of the technology, media, and the government. We’ve become the prisoners of these controllers. How much do we really know about what we see and hear from the media, which perhaps is controlled by the government? Therefore, we still believe in what we see on television, what we hear on the radio and what we read on the Internet. And it’s because it’s challenging for us to recognise what is real, what is untold or how they have shaped the truth into a different story. 

Source: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/platoscave.html