English Literature

Plato in his Allegory of the Cave presented a situation that does not differ very much from the way that people in modern times too frequently confuse biased representations of reality from actual reality.  The way that people stare so passively into the television, much like Platos prisoners had stared at shadows on the wall, demonstrates the durability of Platos warnings and advice.  Specifically, representations of reality are fed to us even today.  Citizens may not be physically chained to their sofas and chairs.  They may be able to tilt their heads and look away, but they remain captive nevertheless to interpretations of reality that are clearly filtered through corporate media enterprises.  This is particularly true with respect to never-ending War on Terror where the television spews shadowy images that often contradict reality.  This essay will argue that the mainstream media news outlets function in many ways that are frighteningly similar to Platos cave.  In support of this thesis, that too many Americans are imprisoned by the corporate media, this essay will discuss how television news functions as a type of fire burning in the distance, how the medias access to and control of information allows it to misrepresent the truth so easily, and why true knowledge demands turning away from the mainstream media.
 
It is almost impossible to read about Platos cave without imagining a man in his living room watching television.  Television demands attention though people watching television are not prisoners in the literal sense, there is a strong figurative connection that exists between chained prisoners in a cave and an individual addicted to television.  This addiction suggests a type of dependence.  A television viewer can sit motionless for hours as the television informs and entertains.  The viewer, however, is not allowed to ask questions.  With respect to the War on terror, for example, the viewer cannot question a media statement to the effect that terror is motivated by a hatred of western values rather than the occupation of land or the rape of natural resources such as oil.  The viewer is not allowed to demand who shall be interviewed or what stories shall be covered quite the contrary, all of the programming and editorial decisions are made by the mass media.  We are in this respect little more than passive recipients of news stories that have been adjudicated valuable by distant corporate entities and dominant political influences.  This modern scenario is strikingly similar to the initial scenario where Plato portrays prisoners staring at shadows reflected on an otherwise empty wall and in which the images function as puppets whose strings are pulled by sources beyond the viewers knowledge or comprehension (Plato 514).  There was a time when I used to believe the news, when there seemed no reason to question the editorial positions advocated or the stories selected, and in which personal ignorance seemed rather blissful.  Ignorance is to a certain extant intended by the mass media, I think, but it can and should be transcended.

Although it is hardly uncommon to hear people accuse others of being ignorant or foolish in the modern age, a deeper analysis of the sources of ignorance demonstrates that many of the causes are external.  It is just as unfair to condemn people today for slavishly believing the television as it would have been to condemn the prisoners in the Socratic hypothetical for believing the procession of shadows on the wall to constitute an objective reality.  There are constraints to true knowledge.  Plato presented physical constraints in order to frame his allegory.  Modern times might be better characterized as being constrained by socio-economic factors and class interests.  The War on Terror certainly benefits the oil companies who are constructing pipelines abroad on its back and the financial and armaments industries which finance and supply this alleged war.  The media is owned by multinational corporations and those corporations have interests that need promotion and protection.  The media manipulates the images of Muslim hatred and suicide bombings in ways that function as specifically designed shadows emanating from the television.  The medias main source of revenue, advertising, also imposes constraints.  The news cannot be presented in a manner that threatens to turn the public against policies and programs that might benefit these multinational corporations and their advertisers.  It can be argued to a certain extant therefore that people are not to be exclusively blamed for their underlying ignorance.  Plato recognized the same type of justification for individual ignorance when he inquired how individuals could be expected to determine the truth if they were never allowed to control the means of discourse (515).  By controlling what information is communicated to the public, and the editorial emphasis, the modern mass media is in many ways not allowing citizens to move their heads.  Citizens must begin to recognize that the mainstream media is very similar to Platos cave and that the cave must be abandoned if truth is to become truly known.

In terms of learning about the outside world, nothing is perhaps more akin to Platos reality outside of the cave than the modern Internet.  Surveying different opinions, and watching non-commercial videos on the Internet, is very much like leaving the constraining cave of mass media and entering an entirely new world.  Plato had described this illumination as a type of ascension from the dark into the light that would be both painful and shocking (Plato 516).  The pain would be the confusion and the shock the hesitant type of recognition that the shadows in the cave had been representations of reality rather than reality itself.  One can take almost any news issue in the world and draw contrasts between the manner in which these issues are represented in the mass media cave and the way the issues are presented in the less inhibited world known as cyberspace.   In the cave, for instance, the soldiers are moral and patriotic.  In cyberspace, on the other hand, they are often brutal and corrupt.  The Middle East is represented differently in the cave and in cyberspace as is the Patriot Act and the Wall Street bailouts.  This is not meant to say that cyberspace is the exclusive domain of absolute truth, for this is most certainly false, but instead meant to suggest that discovering truth demands a mind that will not accept mainstream representations as being true.  Platos sun can only be seen and known, in contrast to mere reflections or representations, when modern citizens recognize how the mainstream media functions as a type of deceptive cave that imprisons our minds (516).

In the final analysis, Platos cave speaks to me very personally and very intimately.  This is because the lessons of the cave are applicable today.  Truth is no more ascertainable for individuals intentionally subjected to repetitively false representations than it was to Platos hypothetical prisoners chained in the cave.  Truth demands that answers often be sought outside of the cave, outside of the mainstream media, and only then will the outside world become more accessible and more comprehensible.