Cave people

Plato uses allegories beautifully, and one of my other favorites appears in The Republic as “The Allegory of the Cave.”

Plato originally used it to help illustrate his understanding of how the perfect concepts in the Realm of Pure Forms appear imperfectly in human minds. In his usage, the light of a bonfire partially illuminates a cavern. Inside the cave, people are chained in such a way as to allow them to look only at the light as it reflects from the wall in front of them; they can’t turn their heads to look at the source of the light, directly, much less go outside.

The wall in front of them also shows the shadows of the activities of people on a raised platform behind them, and they can hear what those people say. However, they can’t turn their heads to see those people for who they really are, either. The only information they have about the light and shadows comes from that they can see in front of them, and what they can hear from behind.

Plato said that, were people raised in this sort of environment their whole lives, never knowing anything else and never learning they could even begin to question it, then the experience would shape their views of reality, itself, as well as their own places in it. Knowing no other life, or even that some other existence might be possible, they’d accept their situation as the only reality, and would eventually define their culture and their own personal identities according to those experiences.

As such, should someone later come into this isolated culture, describe the world outside the cave and offer to free them from their chains, Plato said most of the cave people would react very badly. In fact, the vast majority would perceive this as a threat to their very identities, fiercely deny the claims made by the interlopers, resist losing their chains, and even react violently toward invaders they perceived as harmful to everything they think they know about themselves and the stony world around them.

As far as allegories go, this one remains unquestionably relevant for the modern world, more than 2,300 years after Plato first decided to use it. I frequently refer to the allegory in conjunction with some ideas about socialization I heard in a guest lecture by Dr. Oneida Meranto, in a class I took on Revolutions and Social Change at Metropolitan State University of Denver (then Metropolitan State College), in the mid-1990s.

Meranto noted that, while the details of the expectations, ethics and social mores can and do substantially differ from one culture to another, the process of socialization, itself, used by people in all cultures follows the same general pattern.

As young children, our parents teach us basic social skills, as well as our society’s standard expectations about gender and sexual identity. They not only teach us to not bite, not hit, keep ourselves clean and use the potty, they also teach us that boys and girls have differences, and what it should mean to be a little boy or a little girl.

For instance, in the time I grew up (the mid ‘60s through the early ‘80s), boys played with Tonka trucks and little green army men, while girls played with Barbie dolls and Easy-Bake Ovens. Girls wore pink, and boys wore blue. Boys were made of “snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails,” while girls were made of “sugar and spice and all things nice.” Girls in Disney movies sang and danced and wore lovely dresses, while boys bore boots and swords and heroically slayed dragons.

Once children reached elementary school age, the process of socialization expands and continues, and children start to learn skills their parents may not know how to teach well, but which society says they need to learn. So, while girls and boys have “cooties” to each other and learn to go to different bathrooms, both sexes in the United States learn to basics such as shapes and colors, reading and writing and ‘rithmetic (including basic geometry), as much music as the school district can afford, simple science, and sanitized versions of history.

If they have a particularly dedicated teacher, he or (most likely) she will put in some extra effort to read district approved books to the kids (Laura Ingalls Wilder was particularly popular, when I was in school).

(Interestingly, I understand most teachers recognize that discipline problems start to appear in third or fourth grade. That’s when most children in the United States learn multiplication, division and fractions, which require abstract thinking in a way most kids have never had to learn, before. The need to grasp abstraction often proves so challenging for some kids that they start to act out their frustrations, which manifest as disciplinary issues.)

The socialization process runs into its first major challenge in middle school (junior high, when I was a kid), when adolescence adds hormonally-induced emotional instability to issues of sex and gender, and students begin to learn even more abstractions in the maths and sciences. Also, middle schools tend to draw from a number of elementary schools in different neighborhoods, and many students become exposed for the first time to classmates who come from vastly different social, cultural and economic backgrounds. The need to learn to deal with such diversity adds a much more challenging layer of complexity to the need for continued socialization.

Hopefully (although certainly not always), by the time they reach high school, students have internalized the social mores of the majority culture, and can start to acquire the basic skills that will help them become “productive citizens” – which, in the United States, most likely means workers for small businesses or private sector corporations.

At about the time I reached high school, it had started to become apparent to many that the sort of financial success enjoyed by high school graduates in the past would now require a college degree. Schools in most urban areas began to shift focus toward college preparation, while those in more rural areas continued to prepare students for the traditional jobs found, there.

That emphasis on financial success mostly accompanies definitions of what each society, each culture, considers “success.” In the United States, of course, we call this “The American Dream.” According to the American Dream, the definition of a successful life includes some (slight) variation on two kids, two cars, two pets, a loving spouse, two weeks of vacation each year, a hobby or two, an occasional night out or ball game, and a genteel retirement that begins about age 65-67.

The interesting aspect of this is that, regardless of ethnic heritage or economic background, almost every American learns to want a similar American Dream. While a larger fraction of (say) those of different sexual orientations may have a range of wishes that vary more, even the majority of the LGBTQs still want something that resembles the American Dream, more or less. They want prosperous lives and even families with kids, and the stress comes not because of those expectations, themselves, but because they feel they’re denied something that everybody “should” have.

Needless to say, I found Dr. Meranto’s initial lecture quite insightful, and I’ve built upon it quite a bit, in the 22 years or so since I first heard the discussion.

Here’s the thing. That process of socialization is exactly what Plato described in the Allegory of the Cave.

Now, then, the American Dream Cave is a much nicer place than the one Plato described. It strongly resembles a hobbit-hole, “… not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat….” The American Dream Cave is a pretty comfortable place, and offers a quality of life that most of the world looks upon with envy, and rightfully so.

But it’s still a cave, and the heavy chains we bear lie in our minds. They were forged, there, by loving parents and dedicated teachers who wanted only what they thought was best, for us, and to them that meant lives that closely resembled those they were taught to want, for themselves.

Remember, as Dr. Meranto noted, every society does this, because it’s a necessary and very human thing to do. The details about gender identity and “proper” sexual roles, and the definitions of “family” and “prosperity,” can and do differ, sometimes widely, from one culture to the next. However, at some point, all children learn their society’s definitions of those concepts, and they do so from the significant adults in their lives.

That said, none of these socio-cultural “caves” basks fully in the bright light of reason. As with any human creation, they bear their fair share of flaws and limits that reflect the shortcomings of their creators. These flaws and limits mean the various “caves” may not suit every member of the societies that built and advocate them.

Some people just aren’t meant to be cave people, and even those who are struggle sometimes with a society’s shortcomings.

That doesn’t make the caves “bad” places. However, because they’re flawed places and not suitable for everyone, the decision to live in them (which I think most people would honestly continue to do) should be made deliberately, after careful consideration, and not just accepted by default by those who never learn that alternatives might be possible. Moreover, to recognize that they exist as artificial creations allows us to identify the flaws and shortcomings more easily, and try to change our societies and our cultures for the better.

At least, that’s what Socrates apparently thought and what Plato taught, which means Socrates’ fate provides a valuable reminder of the hazards of such endeavors. The efforts of those who try to free minds may not find much appreciation and, in fact, may draw dangerous amounts of resentment and resistance.

However, the flaws exist and the shortcomings are real, and addressing them will help us create a better quality of life for humanity in the long term. That makes it worth doing, in spite of everything.

Links:

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-allegory-of-the-cave-120330

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7657660.Oneida_Meranto

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/ancient-maya-cave-exploration-photos