Uncle Tom II Shouts Into ‘Plato’s Cave’

Imagine being raised from birth as a slave to a reality that never existed. That’s the idea in Book VII of Plato’s “Republic” (380 BC) in a conversation between Glaucon and his teacher Socrates who compared man’s ignorance to prisoners confined in an underground cave.    “… they have been confined, from their childhood, with their legs and necks so shackled, that they are obliged to sit still and look straight forward, because their chains make it impossible for them to turn their heads …” The prisoners are forced to watch the shadows on a wall in front of them, created by men they can’t see.  The men, like puppeteers, use light from a fire to project images of wooden men and other objects, as the real voices of passersby echo through the cave.  Because they are forced to only look “straight forward,” the prisoners grow up believing that the shadows are real men, and that the echoes are their real voices. “You are describing …