Well, at least we can once again focus intently on the fact that Plato thinks the average person imprisoned-since-birth would sooner kill a former friend than risk going outside, just because said old bro looked like an idiot right after coming back into the dark.
And that gets really difficult to believe when you recall that these people probably don’t know the first thing about how to walk or use their hands.
Obviously they would catch their friend, chain him up again, and break his legs so that he wouldn’t be tempted to go back into the light. That’s what friends are for.
Obviously the problem are these blasted legs of ours to begin with! They’re tempting all of us towards deviancy! I propose a policy that we break all our legs, and all of our children’s legs to prevent these horrible acts from ever happening again.
Yes, they would. Life is full of people who were enlightened or realised the truth of things, and when they tried to explain it to their brethren, they were killed or subjugated for it as it didn’t align with their own beliefs or comfortable lies or ways of life or profit.
It’s also full of people who’ve arrived with knowledge or technology and were praised as magical beings or descendents of gods or figures you’d drink funny tasting kool-aid for.
Wasn’t Socrates made to drink hemlock not long before this? And what Plato is talking about here is overturning the entire world as it is known (philosophically, of course, but that’s huge nonetheless).
And what Plato is talking about here is depicted a little anachronistic as Plato research suggests that he wrote – and very probably taught – the Politeia in his middle period.
A club of relaxing philosophers were relaxing enjoying their company – and wine – when a feline howling just outside a window interrupted their banter.
C.S. Lewis said: That animal is in pain. There is a problem with pain.
Paul of Tarsus: Let us pray for it.
Marx: Won’t work. Religion is the opiate of the people – not cats.
Catharine Sedgewick: Ignore it. Live and let live.
Bond, with irritation: You mean live and let DIE.
The maid: That stray’s wanted for weeks for us to take it in.
Franklin: If it trades liberty for security, it deserves neither.
Maid: And it defecates all over the yard!
Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly poo.
Descartes: We should end its misery, I think … therefore I am. Killing it, that is.
Berkeley: Have mercy! If the cat howls in the yard and there was no one to hear it, would it make a sound?
Sartre: Yes, kill! It was born for no reason, lives thru weakness – but won’t die by accident.
Steinem: Does slaughtering another living thing make you feel sexually virile and superior?
Freud: Don’t over think this. Sometimes a pussy is just a cat.
Nietzsche jumped up, grabbed Occam’s razor and Damocle’s sword, and ran into the yard. An animal scream, then silence. Nietzsche returned, boasting: Cat is dead! It remains dead! And I have killed it!
The howling began again. Socrates looked out the window and moaned. “It’s Schrodinger’s cat,” he said. “It’s dead – and alive simultaneously.”
Meanwhile, somewhere in Tsarist Russia, a frustrated fiddler on a nondescript rooftop was visited by a vision of an endless source of cat gut, and set off on a journey to find it…
Hey hey now, Freud wasn’t ALWAYS about the mother fucking. Sometimes he was about the father killing, giving cocaine to children, and women wanting penises (admittedly, so they could fuck their mothers).
Gravedust: “Well my little furry friend, I could help you pass on, if you’d like, but it seems to me that you’ve already found your paradise, annoying those uppity bastards for the rest of their miserable existences.”
is it just me, or does the not-Plato half of this conversation seem to bear a resemblance to Whatshername-the reporter in the general schnoz area? It’s probably a coincidence.
There is ?!? Because I always end up on the latest page of the comic when I click on your banner, and the other links up on the page don’t redirect to anything that even slightly look like a main page…
Maybe I’m stupid, but I’m definitely not chained to a cave wall. I’m quite used to dim-lit places though, I may be blinded by the brightness of the solution…
I’m still kinda wondering if Sepia World is the cave, instead of the other way around. What if all of characters in Sepia World are actually Arkerrans, trapped in a magical Matrix? The tubes wouldn’t be for immersing in an MMORPG, they’d be giving The Five access to their real bodies in Arkerra. Maybe HR isn’t trying to become a god in Arkerra. Maybe he wants to become the god of Sepia World.
Aw. All of the stuff from last time got deleted?
Well, at least we can once again focus intently on the fact that Plato thinks the average person imprisoned-since-birth would sooner kill a former friend than risk going outside, just because said old bro looked like an idiot right after coming back into the dark.
And that gets really difficult to believe when you recall that these people probably don’t know the first thing about how to walk or use their hands.
Go on, someone tell me it’s an allegory :D
It’s an allegory!
Obviously they would catch their friend, chain him up again, and break his legs so that he wouldn’t be tempted to go back into the light. That’s what friends are for.
*nods sagely while stroking his beard*
You stroked your beard right off
Quick, chain him to the wall and break his legs, lest he tempt the rest of us with his shavenly ways!
Obviously the problem are these blasted legs of ours to begin with! They’re tempting all of us towards deviancy! I propose a policy that we break all our legs, and all of our children’s legs to prevent these horrible acts from ever happening again.
You would lead us into hand-standedness-walkery then, sir? Fie, I say!
(breaks Jake’s arms just in case)
Yes, they would. Life is full of people who were enlightened or realised the truth of things, and when they tried to explain it to their brethren, they were killed or subjugated for it as it didn’t align with their own beliefs or comfortable lies or ways of life or profit.
It’s also full of people who’ve arrived with knowledge or technology and were praised as magical beings or descendents of gods or figures you’d drink funny tasting kool-aid for.
They don’t know they’re imprisoned. It’s not implied in the comic here, but I’m pretty sure that’s Plato’s intent.
Wasn’t Socrates made to drink hemlock not long before this? And what Plato is talking about here is overturning the entire world as it is known (philosophically, of course, but that’s huge nonetheless).
Socrates died a year before, yes.
And what Plato is talking about here is depicted a little anachronistic as Plato research suggests that he wrote – and very probably taught – the Politeia in his middle period.
considering every culture since then has done LITERALLY what he is talking about. Not as much of an allegory as we’d like.
Well, it’s obvious what this page seems to be foreshadowing.
And I sincerely hope that that doesn’t happen to Payet.
For all we know, he’ll return as an enlightened Rock-wizard with knowledge of the techno-magicks AND a kickass guitar.
He’ll be a member of the Wyld Stallyns? Maybe he got to meet SoCrates and Miss of Arc.
He is gone, and he’s not. coming. BACK!!!
Believing that Best is not coming back is the second step on the road to disappointment, the first step being hope of course.
Best will come back as a starship captain, I’m certain.
you sure he won’t come back as a trolololol?
Panel 2 is best reaction face.
Which one? The guy telling the story (Plato?) or the one bringing their togas?
A toga is a robe with a very specific kind of draping. And only worn by the romans and their neighbors. The greeks did not wear them.
Tunic? Blanket? What’s the right word?
It’s
*sigh* Failure. It’s Chiton, as seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiton_%28costume%29
He’s a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is.
The fact that these were posted out of order is somewhat poetic to the context of the situation.
A club of relaxing philosophers were relaxing enjoying their company – and wine – when a feline howling just outside a window interrupted their banter.
C.S. Lewis said: That animal is in pain. There is a problem with pain.
Paul of Tarsus: Let us pray for it.
Marx: Won’t work. Religion is the opiate of the people – not cats.
Catharine Sedgewick: Ignore it. Live and let live.
Bond, with irritation: You mean live and let DIE.
The maid: That stray’s wanted for weeks for us to take it in.
Franklin: If it trades liberty for security, it deserves neither.
Maid: And it defecates all over the yard!
Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly poo.
Descartes: We should end its misery, I think … therefore I am. Killing it, that is.
Berkeley: Have mercy! If the cat howls in the yard and there was no one to hear it, would it make a sound?
Sartre: Yes, kill! It was born for no reason, lives thru weakness – but won’t die by accident.
Steinem: Does slaughtering another living thing make you feel sexually virile and superior?
Freud: Don’t over think this. Sometimes a pussy is just a cat.
Nietzsche jumped up, grabbed Occam’s razor and Damocle’s sword, and ran into the yard. An animal scream, then silence. Nietzsche returned, boasting: Cat is dead! It remains dead! And I have killed it!
The howling began again. Socrates looked out the window and moaned. “It’s Schrodinger’s cat,” he said. “It’s dead – and alive simultaneously.”
Meanwhile, somewhere in Tsarist Russia, a frustrated fiddler on a nondescript rooftop was visited by a vision of an endless source of cat gut, and set off on a journey to find it…
Fiddler on the Route.
+1
Steinem: Does slaughtering another living thing make you feel sexually virile and superior?
Absolutely. Otherwise I wouldn’t be playing this game.
Schrodinger: No no no no! That’s not what I meant at all!
Heisenberg: You probably made the setup of your thought experiment too understandable.
Someone else who knows what Schrodingerling meant :D
My only real complaint with your masterpiece is that Freud would actually say:
Freud: The real reason you’re obsessing over the cat is because your subconscious wishes to *bleep* your mother.
Hey hey now, Freud wasn’t ALWAYS about the mother fucking. Sometimes he was about the father killing, giving cocaine to children, and women wanting penises (admittedly, so they could fuck their mothers).
Oi. No killing hypothetical cats.
Gravedust: “Well my little furry friend, I could help you pass on, if you’d like, but it seems to me that you’ve already found your paradise, annoying those uppity bastards for the rest of their miserable existences.”
I’m having the weirdest deja vu right now…
is it just me, or does the not-Plato half of this conversation seem to bear a resemblance to Whatshername-the reporter in the general schnoz area? It’s probably a coincidence.
i thought so too.
Nah, it’s not anywhere near long or annoying enough.
It’s like deja vu all over agaain
No one has done what a friend suggested to me once. Create a band called Deja Voodoo.
Look again, there is a band called “Deja Voodoo” from Timaru
Apparently, there is also a band from Helsinki
I should think that his friends would need to escape their chains first… And then what?
They’re unwilling. the shadows are their world, and their “enlightened” friend is obviously stupid, incompetent and insane.
That is definitely The Frigg in panel 4 :D
You can lead a man to the light, but you can’t make him see. Ignorance is strength.
So I just found out there is a “main page” to this website… it has monsters, and robots, and news.
It is a scary place, I’m glad I found my way back to the comments section.
But seriously… I had no idea!
I don’t… how…
How does one not know this sort of thing?
Maybe they were chained by their legs and neck to a cave wall, unable to move!
There is ?!? Because I always end up on the latest page of the comic when I click on your banner, and the other links up on the page don’t redirect to anything that even slightly look like a main page…
Maybe I’m stupid, but I’m definitely not chained to a cave wall. I’m quite used to dim-lit places though, I may be blinded by the brightness of the solution…
OR it’s the lack of iris in my eyes… Gosh, this gravatar is creepy.
I just bookmarked the comic, and apparently it was not the “main page” :P
There’s more to this website?!
Oh…yeah. There is.
And I’m probably blocking it.
Excellent description of every religious war ever.
He is still pissed about Socrates, then
I’m still kinda wondering if Sepia World is the cave, instead of the other way around. What if all of characters in Sepia World are actually Arkerrans, trapped in a magical Matrix? The tubes wouldn’t be for immersing in an MMORPG, they’d be giving The Five access to their real bodies in Arkerra. Maybe HR isn’t trying to become a god in Arkerra. Maybe he wants to become the god of Sepia World.