Plato and Susan Sontag :::::::::::: Group 11
(Maziar, Ron, Rammy, Jo)
The allegory of the cave serves very well as a metaphor of media, where everything is filtered and then distributed to people. Media serves as the wall. But the question is: with the new media and the new technologies, is this process of filtering still possible? Do we have the access to reality now?
The other important point in the Socrates idea is how he admires dialectics and communications, which to him is the main way of transferring reality or at least a sense of reality to those in the cave. And this is one of the main responsibilities of the media today. But another question that raises here is that “are the people (prisoners) incapable of accepting truth-- some thing that they don’t know what it is? And that’s where the person who has seen the light has to justify himself, as it happened to those who took the photographs in the Abu Quraib prison. They were prosecuted just like those who committed the crimes and observing U.S. officials, they were considered the most responsible rather than those who were committing the crime in the pictures. So is it necessary for the “prisoners” to know the truth? Won’t they be happier not knowing that the shadows are not actual reality (As many people, particularly Americans, don’t bother themselves observing politics)?
Considering education, Socrates mentions that instead of Compulsion, the best way of finding the natural bent, is to teach with amusements rather than force, the same element which was used in the Triumph of the Will, and the military advertises in the local Medias.
Now is this “Perfect society” that Socrates illustrates, practical? We believe, as Carl Marx’s theory of communism was beautiful in theory but corruptive in practice, this perfect empire is also going to fail because it contradicts the equilibrium laws.
The allegory of the cave serves very well as a metaphor of media, where everything is filtered and then distributed to people. Media serves as the wall. But the question is: with the new media and the new technologies, is this process of filtering still possible? Do we have the access to reality now?
The other important point in the Socrates idea is how he admires dialectics and communications, which to him is the main way of transferring reality or at least a sense of reality to those in the cave. And this is one of the main responsibilities of the media today. But another question that raises here is that “are the people (prisoners) incapable of accepting truth-- some thing that they don’t know what it is? And that’s where the person who has seen the light has to justify himself, as it happened to those who took the photographs in the Abu Quraib prison. They were prosecuted just like those who committed the crimes and observing U.S. officials, they were considered the most responsible rather than those who were committing the crime in the pictures. So is it necessary for the “prisoners” to know the truth? Won’t they be happier not knowing that the shadows are not actual reality (As many people, particularly Americans, don’t bother themselves observing politics)?
Considering education, Socrates mentions that instead of Compulsion, the best way of finding the natural bent, is to teach with amusements rather than force, the same element which was used in the Triumph of the Will, and the military advertises in the local Medias.
Now is this “Perfect society” that Socrates illustrates, practical? We believe, as Carl Marx’s theory of communism was beautiful in theory but corruptive in practice, this perfect empire is also going to fail because it contradicts the equilibrium laws.
posted by --- at 5:39 PM
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