A CAST ON OUR SHADOWS (Group 1)
Posted by Group 1: Jason, Brent, Mohammad, Etienne, Bastien, Jonathan K.
Born in Athens or Aegina in 427 or 428 BCE, Plato was an incredibly influential Greek philosopher. One of his most revolutionary and complete texts can be found in book eight of The Republic, an open interpretation of the shadows and realities in education. Paralleling to Plato’s ideologies, in a modern outlook, Susan Sontag’s article from the New York Times Regarding the Tortures of Others (2005), delves into visual cultures and the images impact on our shadows. The following will discuss our groups understanding on both articles, and will furthermore discuss the significant relationship and intertwining between the two texts.
Transcribed in Book VII of The Republic, the main philosophical standpoint expressed at the forefront in Plato’s writings are the limitedness we see in our shadows of truth, only understanding a mere part of them and not the entire picture. In his writings, Plato explains a few people have seen the light, representing the “truth”, and as a result have acquired a better understanding of reality then those inhabitants still chained inside the cave. Plato’s conception of truth and reality can be applied to our modern world in many significant ways. The concept and purpose of war, which has been a frequent and ongoing event between many nations and cultures in the world throughout history, consists of two opposing sides whom so passionately believe that their political and religious viewpoints are how a nation (or the entire world) is to be structured. According to Plato’s philosophies, are these two opposing sides to be interpreted as two separate distinct shadows? Or is one side closer to the truth than the other? At one instance, Plato says that an enlightened prisoner must go back to the cave to share his knowledge. But what if he does not? Will he be tempted to use his greater understanding of our world to control, use, and exploit them, not sharing his same knowledge? Knowledge is power.
Photography has become such an important part of our everyday life that we feel we have to take pictures of everything out of the ordinary; it is used as a visual memory (since we respond to a photograph’s worth as a 1000 words). We function differently everyday thanks to photography, posing with our photography grin: “To live is to be photographed…but to live is also to pose” (Sontag, 2005) The fact that we can see so much thanks to photography affects our mental limits of what is acceptable and what is not. For example, what was used to be seen as pornography is now considered as a college prank (ex: piling bodies on top of each other). Relating to Plato’s text, photography can be compared to the shadows on the wall, where we see, learn and believe the presented images confronted to us. Accepting and believing its “truths”, the more different shadows one is exposed to, the more consciously aware you think you know about life. In Sontag’s article, the photographs she refers to are those that depict torture ad rape. As prohibited and condemned by several international treaties throughout history, torture becomes, through what photography has exposed, an opposite reality to that sold by its perpetuators.
Plato’s discussion on justice, systems of government and behaviors of aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny well forecasts today’s modern world structure, or as the philosopher refers to as the “habit”. Plato’s philosophies, expressed in The Republic, has a considerable relationship with Susan Sontag’s article from the New York Times “Regarding the Tortures of Others”, an interpretation of the degrading and provoking images taken place at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq. In Plato’s philosophy, he effectively uses the sun as a metaphor to represent the mediated images being imposed on our shadows: “The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey.” (Plato, 4) Giving light to something that we have never witnessed ‘nor experienced, the images that are presented to us by the media, shape our understanding of a specific subject matter, as it becomes our only recollection of them. Our vast dependence on visual culture not only poses a great influence on our views and beliefs of the world inside and outside an individual’s culture, they also play a significant impact on the development on our identity and “shadows”. Major media networks and corporations such as CNN, CBC, and Al-Jazeera all take advantage of their impact on culture by broadcasting a biased viewpoint, always keeping their target audience in mind. Images of tyranny and war stimulate dissimilar emotions on opposing cultures. Awakening, shocking, and emotionally wounding the viewer, these images are incredibly subjective. For example, CNN’s broadcast of the Iraq war is mostly interested in the American’s perspective of it, and most certainly not of the Islamic world. Eclipsing other forms of understanding and remembering, the only recollection one can generate is represented solely through the images we see: “When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth.” (Plato, 8) An experience can make us understand. The image does something else: it haunts us.
Our perception of reality is determined by what is real to us individually. The cave, as Plato mentions, is comparable to a country on the opposite end of the world with a different government, laws and way of life than the outside world which is comparable to the other country which is perceived as our reality. Unless you see the other world for yourself it’s only a shadow to you as its not a fact. All images are deceiving, because we are not able to decipher the whole truth for ourselves until it is actually experienced first hand.
Born in Athens or Aegina in 427 or 428 BCE, Plato was an incredibly influential Greek philosopher. One of his most revolutionary and complete texts can be found in book eight of The Republic, an open interpretation of the shadows and realities in education. Paralleling to Plato’s ideologies, in a modern outlook, Susan Sontag’s article from the New York Times Regarding the Tortures of Others (2005), delves into visual cultures and the images impact on our shadows. The following will discuss our groups understanding on both articles, and will furthermore discuss the significant relationship and intertwining between the two texts.
Transcribed in Book VII of The Republic, the main philosophical standpoint expressed at the forefront in Plato’s writings are the limitedness we see in our shadows of truth, only understanding a mere part of them and not the entire picture. In his writings, Plato explains a few people have seen the light, representing the “truth”, and as a result have acquired a better understanding of reality then those inhabitants still chained inside the cave. Plato’s conception of truth and reality can be applied to our modern world in many significant ways. The concept and purpose of war, which has been a frequent and ongoing event between many nations and cultures in the world throughout history, consists of two opposing sides whom so passionately believe that their political and religious viewpoints are how a nation (or the entire world) is to be structured. According to Plato’s philosophies, are these two opposing sides to be interpreted as two separate distinct shadows? Or is one side closer to the truth than the other? At one instance, Plato says that an enlightened prisoner must go back to the cave to share his knowledge. But what if he does not? Will he be tempted to use his greater understanding of our world to control, use, and exploit them, not sharing his same knowledge? Knowledge is power.
Photography has become such an important part of our everyday life that we feel we have to take pictures of everything out of the ordinary; it is used as a visual memory (since we respond to a photograph’s worth as a 1000 words). We function differently everyday thanks to photography, posing with our photography grin: “To live is to be photographed…but to live is also to pose” (Sontag, 2005) The fact that we can see so much thanks to photography affects our mental limits of what is acceptable and what is not. For example, what was used to be seen as pornography is now considered as a college prank (ex: piling bodies on top of each other). Relating to Plato’s text, photography can be compared to the shadows on the wall, where we see, learn and believe the presented images confronted to us. Accepting and believing its “truths”, the more different shadows one is exposed to, the more consciously aware you think you know about life. In Sontag’s article, the photographs she refers to are those that depict torture ad rape. As prohibited and condemned by several international treaties throughout history, torture becomes, through what photography has exposed, an opposite reality to that sold by its perpetuators.
Plato’s discussion on justice, systems of government and behaviors of aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny well forecasts today’s modern world structure, or as the philosopher refers to as the “habit”. Plato’s philosophies, expressed in The Republic, has a considerable relationship with Susan Sontag’s article from the New York Times “Regarding the Tortures of Others”, an interpretation of the degrading and provoking images taken place at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq. In Plato’s philosophy, he effectively uses the sun as a metaphor to represent the mediated images being imposed on our shadows: “The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey.” (Plato, 4) Giving light to something that we have never witnessed ‘nor experienced, the images that are presented to us by the media, shape our understanding of a specific subject matter, as it becomes our only recollection of them. Our vast dependence on visual culture not only poses a great influence on our views and beliefs of the world inside and outside an individual’s culture, they also play a significant impact on the development on our identity and “shadows”. Major media networks and corporations such as CNN, CBC, and Al-Jazeera all take advantage of their impact on culture by broadcasting a biased viewpoint, always keeping their target audience in mind. Images of tyranny and war stimulate dissimilar emotions on opposing cultures. Awakening, shocking, and emotionally wounding the viewer, these images are incredibly subjective. For example, CNN’s broadcast of the Iraq war is mostly interested in the American’s perspective of it, and most certainly not of the Islamic world. Eclipsing other forms of understanding and remembering, the only recollection one can generate is represented solely through the images we see: “When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth.” (Plato, 8) An experience can make us understand. The image does something else: it haunts us.
Our perception of reality is determined by what is real to us individually. The cave, as Plato mentions, is comparable to a country on the opposite end of the world with a different government, laws and way of life than the outside world which is comparable to the other country which is perceived as our reality. Unless you see the other world for yourself it’s only a shadow to you as its not a fact. All images are deceiving, because we are not able to decipher the whole truth for ourselves until it is actually experienced first hand.
posted by jason at 6:28 PM
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