Response to Plato by Jeannie, Alex, Emmanuel and Alexina

Plato's Allegory of the Cave serves as a basis for educating on the unequal knowledge of Man and on our search for improvement. Points of view on the subject will unequivocally be different for everyone, these diverse opinions makes our quest for truth a nearly impossible task, for everything that we say and do is shaped by experience (what we've seen and heard before). Therefore, such a combination of experiences might stimulate doubt. For instance, the theory of evolution over that of creationism, or technological advancement versus a status quo are scenarios where questioning personal values becomes crutial. Other individuals accept things as they are. Most likely caused by fear of the unknown or lack of sufficient knowledge. This leads us back to an unending search for improvement: lose a turn or advance a square?

Following the reading of Plato’s allegory and the film The Net, we established, during our discussion, that the two can be linked: the danger in searching for intellectual advancement is one who doesn't agree with general consensus can be easily manipulated to share identical beliefs as his peers. Plato was often antagonized for his "illuminating" ideas, believing that we must only trust ourselves to find the truth. Not others because that may be construed as brainwashing. He seems to have been against conglomerate evolution. Kaczynski, similarly, was locked into jail for not adhering to a technologically demanding society's idealisms. However, isn't technological evolution responsible for what made us realize that we come from the ape, that while man isn't superior to black man, and that typing is really much faster than writing?