Annotated 31-2
I’ve been run ragged by other work commitments of late, so I’m just going to give this one over to Plato, specifically the beginning of The Republic‘s Book Seven. Though this is in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s own brother, most scholars agree that at least some of these words were Plato’s, put in his old master’s mouth:
And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: –Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?
And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error…
“Cool story, bro”
Didn’t notice on my first reading that the silhouette in the final panel is supposed to look like HR, nor had I heard Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s cover of Blinded by the Light so this update is rather enlightening in a way.
To think that the whole Republic is just supposed to be dinner chat…
I feel like an important part is that it’s not just “some student”, it’s Plato’s brother. Plato wrote a fanfic where his teacher disses his brother’s philosophy and it got massively published. People have just been people for thousands of years.
The wrinkle that it was Plato’s own brother is important and I’ve updated the text to reflect that. But let’s not get so iconoclastic that we get CRAZY, here. Plato’s work survived because it was a fantastic body of general thought and philosophy, imperfect to be sure, but still enlightening to countless readers. The fact that it’s also a bit of a friend-fiction puppet show just proves it was written by a human.
Oh absolutely, not to say he wasn’t a great philosopher or anything, I just appreciate the little things that show we’re not actually that different than people in the past. (see also e.g. the Pompeii graffiti, “Halfdan was here” at the Hagia Sophia, etc)
I getcha!
Not sure if I noticed this on the first read but there are five prisoners.
I definitely didn’t. Also, two are women, one with an almost-familiar-looking short hairstyle, and three men, one of which has a beard. Neat to see details put in that you can catch later.
Unrelated to the current page, but Phil and Erica’s creator links just go to, presumably hacked, tumblr and wordpress sites that have nothing to do with their namesakes.