Franklin Fehrman

Dr. Phillips
Philosophy 101 Honors Option
4/30/2014

Platos Allegory of the Cave and New Media
Introduction
One of the greatest emerging problems in the Western countries and most notably, the
United States, is the negative effects on individuals of increasing use of immersive forms of
technology or new media. Effectively, this new media puts us into an illusory world. Daniel
Boorstin writes in The Image: A Guide to Psuedo-Events in America:
We risk being the first people in history to have been able to have
been able to have been able to make their illusions so vived, so
persuasive, so realistic that they can live in them. We are the
most illusioned people on earth. Yet we dare not become
dislillusioned, because our illusions are the very house in which we
live; the yare our news, our heroes, our adventure, our forms of art,
our very expericience.
Paper after paper from psychological journals to New York Times articles chronicle the
negative effects of this illusory state; from increased narcissism (page), lack of empathy (page),
to deleterious effects on our ability to learn (page), this new media has shown us in just a little
more than a few decades (for simplicitys sake, I will start this new media movement from the
advent of the internet in the mid-90s). And if the effects of new media are already readily
apparent today, and staying in the world of illusion or fiction can be proven to be a negative
factor on the human mind, what keeps the human seated in his chair watching the flickering light
and shadow play across her brand new high-definition television? Is this just a sign of the times,
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or will we find that participating to a greater degree in the world of illusion is not only bad for
the individual, but for society as well?
Thankfully, those of us who still read books are able to get an early forewarning from
none other than, arguably, the greatest philosopher in history, Plato. Plato wrote many books and
nearly everyone starred his mentor Socrates, but for our purposes we will visit his The Republic.
In the first two parts of this paper, I will discuss two of his analogies from The Republic, the
Divided Line and the Myth of the Cave. By analyzing them both I will show that they overlap
and complement each other. Specifically, by showing the four parts of Divided Line and showing
that the lowest part of the line that represents pure illusion is the position in the cave that is the
deepest. In this part of the cave, the denizens are held in place and can only see the shadows of
truth. In the third part of this paper, I will discuss New Media: what it is, how popular and
pervasive it has become within our culture of the United States, and show why New Media plays
a very big role within the context of Platos dialectic. Once we have a clear idea of New Media
and the Myth of the Cave, it will be evident that not only does New Media represent the shadows
the denizens of the cave watch, its allure and glamour holds the denizens with invisible chains of
mesmerisation. And if for Plato, the road out of the cave was a path toward the Form of the Good
(within his meta-theory of the Forms), or wisdom of all things, would not the reverse road be
towards the reverse of wisdom? Of the Form of Good? The opposite of wisdom is ignorance, and
the opposite of good could be said to be evil. Therefore, New Media keeps those in the cave
and in a state of illusion and ignorance.
Platos Divided Line
Without resorting to reprinting the actual dialogue, as many writers before me have done
and will continue to do, I will summarize Platos line with an illustration. (fig.1) To give a brief
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background, the Divided Line appears in Platos The Republic in a between Socrates and
Glaucon between 509D and 511E. This simile precedes the Myth of the Cave.

Figure 1
For our purposes, we should look at the above figure and as an ascending order, that is,
the bottom level A is the lowest level of imagining or illusion and the top level D is the highest
of the Forms. Level D is also notably closest to what Plato refers to as The Good, or The Form of
the Good which sat at the top of Platos hierarchy (page ). Not only do we see division of four,
we see the four divided in half; the bottom most being the World of Appearances, or the Visible
World, and the highest being the Intelligible World. The World of Appearances is visible to us
with our senses, but Plato claims that the better world is the Intelligible World which exists in
our mind in the form of Knowledge and of Thinking.
Of the lowest realm in the hierarchy, that of Images or shadows and reflections we
would think of visible thing such as an Eagle casting a shadow maybe on a canyon wall. Is the
shadow the Eagle? No it is not. It is a faade. It may be distorted and exaggerated by the light of
the sun perhaps. Could one have knowledge of eagles based solely on the shadow they saw of an
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eagle? Of course not. And one who insisted in the face of modern science to have a greater
understanding of eagles based on the sensory facsimile of an eagle would certainly be in a bad
way!
Plato says that the next section of Belief and Visible Things stands for the objects which
are the originals of the images the animals around us, and every plant and manufactured object
(Page). In analogy of the canyon, this would be you seeing the eagle. Maybe briefly or
fleetingly as it passed the narrow expanse above the canyon. But this would still be far from
knowing eagles.
Climbing up the hierarchy we move now out of the physical world and into the world
of the mind or the Intelligible World. This level is the level of scientific and mathematical
Thinking. Using the previous levels of Image and Visible Things, the mind uses the originals of
the visible order in their turn . . . to base its inquiries on assumptions and proceed . . . to a
conclusion (page). This stage is the precursor to Knowledge. It could be equated to the sciences,
the various logies. This is the eagle having fallen into the canyon and is now being understood
and analyzed and moving from opinion and belief to potentially a Knowledge of the Form of
Eagles. Not just the one that had fallen to the bottom of the canyon, but potentially all eagles.
This last and highest stage is as mentioned the Form itself. This stage moves from
assumption to a first principle which involves no assumption, without the images used in the
other sub-section, but pursuing its inquiry solely by and through forms themselves (page). This
being the highest level, attaining to it in maybe not one way, that of eagles, but say, many ways,
would lend itself to clearer understanding of the world. It could be called Dialectic (page). This
dialectic process, Plato goes on to illustrate more meaningfully in his Myth of the Cave.
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The Myth of the Cave
Directly after the Divided Line analogy Socrates continues to illustrate to Glaucon the
dialectic process. In this new way, he describes a cave. For our purposes we will describe the
cave into the four parts of the Divided Line. Socrates describes to Glaucon a cave, the bottom of
which contains men who have been prisoners there since they were children, their legs and
necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their
heads (514A). These men are only looking at shadows on the wall. These shadows and men are
our aforementioned Images: the lowest segment in our Divided line. The shadows are entirely
fictiscous. The men who only see the shadows believe the shadows to be reality.
Just above the shadows or Images (and the poor prisoners) are a group of men with
puppets in front of a fire. These men are using the light cast by the fire to make shadows on the
back wall of the cave with their puppets. Here at the second stage, in connections with our
Divided Line is the segment labeled Visible Things or Belief. Together with the first stage just
mentioned are the World of Appearances of our Divided Line. Interestingly, there at this stage
are three symbols: the Puppeteers, the Puppets, and the Fire. These three terms will hold use to
us later in this paper. For now, we can say that these cave dwellers constitute the lower half of
the Divided Line.
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Behind this fire, Socrates says is a steep and rugged ascent (516A). This brief
description is really the third segment. It isnt just a rugged ascent, but is a path, a path that
started down by the first level prisoners and that leads all the way outside of the cave. This third
stage is the first stage in the Intelligible World and on the Divided Line is equated with Thinking
and Mathematical thought. In speaking of the metaphor, Socrates describes a prisoner that had
been freed from the lower depths and had stumbled away from his entranced comrades, past the
Puppeteers, and that on reaching this third segment would be forcibly dragged up and in to the
fourth segment.
The last segment of our line is actually outside the cave. It is the real world. There are
shadows and reflections and objects, but there is also the Sun and this fourth and highest segment
is the highest form of thought. On our Divided Line this is the stage where one understands the
Forms. It is the segment of Knowledge and of Intelligence. The only higher stage is the Sun,
which Socrates defines as the closest thing to a penultimate Form: Later on he would come to
the conclusion that it is the Sun that produces . . . everything in the visible world, and is . . .
responsible for everything that he and his fellow-prisoners used to see (516C). This fourth
segment could also be called the Dialectic and be equated with wisdom.

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In and Out of the Cave
In our Myth of the Cave we used Platos on intention of further illustrating his idea of the
Forms and of his idea of understanding and the process whereby one attains knowledge. Plato
understood that it wasnt all men and women who sat in the cave staring at the shadows on the
wall, or even that in all disciplines and understandings would all men sit at the bottom; there
would be for all men and women, in all the various fields of understanding denizens at various
levels of this four segmented pathway. Though I say this, I am not implying that Plato meant
this, I understand the Myth of the Cave to be a meta-understanding of the idea of the Forms, but I
also believe that Plato meant this definition as well.
In his narrative by Socrates to Glaucon, Plato describes an individual on this pathway out
into the Sun. This is the bottom to the top of our Divided Line. It symbolizes an ascent out of
ignorance to wisdom; at the bottom, in the cave are the ignorant, in the Sun are the wise. This
move up and out of the cave is a positive process. Therefore the reverse path would be a negative
process. Plato doesnt imply that by describing our newly freed individual going back to the cave
bottom to help his former comrades, only to be killed. This of course, was Platos jibe at the
citizens of Athens who had killed his mentor Socrates. Needless to say, Plato viewed the first
segment as the antithesis of Wise, the antithesis of the Good. For our purposes, we might use
words to define this lowest segment as ignorant, or even Bad or Evil.
We have just given a very brief explanation of the Myth of the Cave and of the Divided
Line, and whereas we could go back over and describe the top three segments in the Divided
Line, for the purposes of this paper we should stay with the Lowest segment, because this
segment is relevant to the current state of the masses of Americans in that this lowest segment
clearly symbolic of individuals relying on illusion, having at best beliefs about ideas and events.
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Further, what do the shadows actually represent if brought to bear on the current state of
Americans? I believe that the shadows on the wall are analogous to the images on the screens we
surround ourselves with, the screens that are and deliver what is known as New Media.
New Media and The Cave
Technology delivers us, and holds inside Platos cave. This technology has been given a
the name, new media, [a] catchall term used to define all that is related to the internet the
interplay between technology, images and sound (New Media Institute). The world that
technology delivers to us is not real though. It at best relays truth through the medium of a
technology or device, making the truth secondary in our tactile world to the primary experience
of looking down at our iPhone. At worst, technology immerses us in a completely fictionalized
world bereft of any real world consequences, yet being more and more realistic in its delivery.
New media are not only the smartphones, the video game consoles, the laptops, but they are also
specific forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, even online games.
New media is so popular today, that at least 56% of adults in the United States own
smartphones (phones that are also internet accessible) (Statista). If you happen to be sitting on a
bus or a subway these days, or even if you catch yourself waiting for anything, look around
you and watch the number of people glued to their technological devices. As for the young
generation, the generation that takes the oddness of being around a bunch of people and not
talking to each other for granted, 94% of teens use Facebook (Sterling), and 59% of tiny children
(under 10) use new media (Lange).
If new media offers illusion, it is in contrast to what I would consider reality. Reality is
tactile engagement, with no lasting physical consequences in your life. Therefore, if you are
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playing the video game Grand Theft Auto and your avatar, or online fictional representation of
yourself, has sex with a prostitute, does a heavy narcotic, beats an old woman to death in the
street, and then goes on a high speed car chase with the cops before driving off a cliff in a fiery
explosion, you can put the controller down, you can look down at your body, fully intact and go
about your real day.
New media is premised in a greater and greater immersion in worlds that are becoming
better reflections and truer in appearance to our actual reality. 3D movies, in my opinion are the
vanguard to what will be virtual reality films. Video games in the future will reach a pinnacle of
sophistication in their ability to look just like reality until the great Singularity, or merging of
human mind and this fictional world that Ray Kurzweil has been championing for years. His
view is regarded as transhumanism, and is a mirror of his meta-theme (The Technological
Citizen). Today, you have to engage a computer to play and immerse yourself in the online game
World of Warcraft. Tomorrow, you may only have to will it through implantable biotechnology.
Conclusion
Throughout history, human have been inventing things, artifacts to make our lives easier.
We have invented tractors to take away the back-breaking field work, the automobile to take out
the weeks long journey to somewhere in the neighboring state, and the cotton gin to make cotton
production less arduous. But all of these devices have made us physically weaker. Sure the plow
was hard to drag across the dirt, but it made your physical body powerful. With the tractor those
same muscles atrophied. New media are devices that dont make physical labor any easier. They
portend to make us smarter, to make information more accessible. But I contend that if the
process of thinking is given away to our smartphone, we are given more and greater leisure time,
time for pleasure. New media delivers this to us as well. That concept is the chains of the cave;
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they hold us in place, staring at the illusions. The illusions on the back of the cave are the infinite
fantasies shown in countless online pornographic films, the deviant exercise of wanton violence
we get to experience in immersive video games, and the endless amount of news and information
constantly keeping us on the internet for hours and hours.
And if we are to regard Plato, and we are to accept as to a certain degree accurate the
parallels between the Myth of the Cave and our current relationship with new media, then we
may see that there is a danger in our participation in sitting, staring at the shadows. Will ideas of
wisdom be sought after, if wisdom means unplugging our smartphones and laptops for years to
come? What will we miss? We will be afraid that the newest and most glamorous television
show will come and go and we will not have seen it. As new media becomes more and more
immersive, what difference will it make if Grandma dies? Sure she loved you, but in your
alternate, illusionary world, you are a barbarian king in a Tolkien-esque world receiving sexual
favors from a beautiful elven queen. What difference will political engagement in the real world
matter when you can exist in a fictional world of your choosing anytime? Will First World
countries disconnecting into worlds of cyber reality even participate democratically? Will states
dissolve?
For the sake of humanity and the search for wisdom, and the path out of the cave that
Plato speaks about, advocate reality against fiction. More is to be gained by leaving the cave than
by staying at the very bottom. Technology and new media will continue to become more
immersive and its content more appealing to us. This will to a greater extent cement many to the
world of fiction, and let many forget about the real world. For you, the reader of this treatise, you
may heed my words, but I hope that you study Plato well. That we all may be wise in the
illuminating Sun outside the cave, together.