Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Modernity

In the beginning of book VII of Plato's Republic, Socrates begins to describe his most famous story -- the allegory of the cave. 

"And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: Behold! Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open toward the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood and have their legs and necks chains 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 puppets" [514]. 

An illustration would aid in understanding Socrates' scenario, with shadows being created on the wall the prisoners are facing. 

"To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images" [515c].  

To Socrates, this is the dark aura of the unenlightened persons -- living in the mere shadows of reality and lacking any movement beyond the state of mind that was molded of them. Unable to move their heads, the prisoners are unaware of the real mechanisms that guide their lives, instead they resort to the reflections as an understanding rather than being able to comprehend the reasons behind these reflections. So what occurs when the prisoners are released from their shackles, and forced to see the light? Socrates explains.

"And now look again, and see waht will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and  compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look toward the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned toward more real existence, he has a clearer vision -- what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them -- will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?" [515d] 

"...and if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now becoming shown to him?" [515e]

Socrates here makes a crucial point, and it is this aspect of his telling that is the most relevant. Although the individual has been freed of the prison he was once kept in, he still yearns to go back to the comfortable reality of ignorance (the shadows). The newly-awakened sense of consciousness is suppressed, and replaced with comfortable thoughts; those that coincide with the reality the individual once took as 'real.'

Socrates, with this simply allegory, describes a phenomena that is common and persistent in modern social groups and cultural mores. He also describes psychological attributes which are a common theme in psychiatric studies, which have ramifications far beyond individual enlightenment. In Freudian terms, such mechanisms can be described as one of the major defense characteristics of the mediating ego -- outright simple denial, in this case. Being one of the more primitive of the mental defenses, such a reaction is knee-jerk one which lacks any rationalization when initially done. It is done to purely derive pleasure (i.e relieving anxiety and restoring one's comfort zone), and, lacking any justification, it falls into the trap of succumbing to the id, the instinctual drives that seeks to maximize pleasure. It is unresponsive to one's real positioning in reality, which is shown when the freed individual in the cave rejects what is true. 

Now, the basic question -- what does this all this Freudian lingo translate to and what are its implications? In modern society, especially in the Western world, we are bombarded with information more so than any other period in history. With such immense amounts of information, one must, consciously or not, form a concrete methodology of understanding; choosing out of this immensity, what one wishes to engage in. Much of this "choosing" occurs unconsciously; we are driven towards our ideology, at least to the unaware, towards what is fed to us. The media cultivates our perceived normality, reinforces our social positioning, and ferments in us certain desires. This is what I would presume Socrates would call "the cave" -- be it through reality TV, or creating a character of ourselves on social networking, these all create reflections that we perceive as integral to our consciousness. The shadows themselves are manifested in viewing our personal taste as authentic, but they are merely constructs of social mediums (i.e the puppeteers). Submitting to the id, certain such mediums tap into our pleasure principle -- creating desires and indulgences, or as Marx would call it, the fetishism of the commodity.

There is a twist to Socrates' tale, however. There is no need for such a 'bringer of light' that shows the prisoner the enlightenment. Knowledge in the Information Age is not suppressed, rather it is steadily subdued and structurally ignored. The knowledge of the internet is in the open, ready to be accessed, however social mechanisms and cultural norms that have been created over the years have created such a culture where information is paradoxically restricted. Be it in the political sphere, in literature, or any other -- structures within our own system facilitates "the cave" while subduing the enlightenment Socrates' pushes. Alienating to an insatiable degree, it bears resembles to one of the eerie mottoes of The Party in George Orwell's book 1984; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. It grants strength to the structures that dominate our consciousness, and consequently empowers the overseers of our individualistic demise.

Regarding Human Nature

To those that constantly use the naturalistic fallacy and resort to faulty arguments of appealing to human nature:

"Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed? 

John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?" - Emma Goldman

A short post, but I'll leave it at that.  

What is Work?

Work is difficult to define. In the modern mindset, it has become synonymous with economic productivity -- a primary cornerstone to progressing society: a kind of necessary evil.

Fundamentally, however, work does not implicitly have a negative connotation it. Contrary to its function in today's modern context, work is not objectively a burden nor a pleasure; It simply is. Work is indeed a necessity, that much is true, but must work be pursued and viewed as solely a negative aspect of one's lifestyle and be downgraded to the point of dissatisfaction, hatred, and dissuasion? Yugoslav Marxist-humanist Mihailo Marković, in his philosophical work titled "From Affluence to Praxis" addresses this dilemma eloquently:

"Work is a neutral concept. It refers to an activity which is a necessary condition of human survival and development in any type of society" [65].

The indispensable nature of "work" is crucial to the praxis of Marxism. The elimination of the "free rider" issue is a paramount dilemma, and has to be properly discussed before goods are allocated accordingly. Specifically speaking, this requires a clear correlation between work done and goods received to be able to function fairly; however, the proper criteria and definition of work must be defined for such concepts to be handled.

The initial question that must be answered is -- what is work, and how is it different from labor? Marković makes a stark distinction:

"In labor the worker uses only those abilities and skills which he can sell, which are needed in the process of commodity production... [Work] is the permanent exchange of matter with nature" [63].

"[Work] is the self-realization and satisfaction of human needs... [labor] might be maximization of income, or increase of power" [66].

Perhaps most importantly, work is a natural concept. It is not, by nature, exploitative nor negative. Only in the current mechanisms of the market, is "work" (better said as labor) defined by its productive forces -- by its potential to produce more capital and profit. Realistically speaking, virtually all action that progresses the social being is work once this chained view of labor is broken. Leisure, which is seen as an valueless in economic terms, is indeed a form of work. It is used as an outlet to break from the routine of labor that is a commonplace in today's age of modernity; an attempt to free oneself from the objectification of what he does. 

The largest obstacle to the realization of pure work, the fullest self-realization and satisfaction of human needs, is the alienating nature of today's labor. Marković defines it quite well:

"Alienated labor is the activity in the process of which man fails to be what he is, that is, fails to actualize his potential capacities and to satisfy his basic needs. Marx distinguished the following four dimensions of this type of alienation: (a) One loses control over produced commodities. The blind forces of market enslave man isnterad of being ruled by him. (b) In his struggle for more property and power man becomes estranged from his fellow man. Exploitation, envy, mistrust, competition, and conflict cominuate relationships among individuals. (c) Instead of employing his capacities in creative, stimulating work, man becomes an appendage of the machine, a iving tool, a mere object. (d) As no opportunity has been offered to him to fulfill his potential abilities, to develop and satisfy various higher-level needs, his whole life remains poor, one-sided, animal-like, his existence remains far below the real possibilities of his being" [63]. 

Although poetic in its definition, it is fundamentally true. Is it not human to become more inclined to work, if one feels involved in the final product? Is one not more inclined to work if he feels it is necessary for the community, which he has clearly learned, through praxis, that it likewise benefits him as well? The struggle, then, is to liberate work from being a status of wealth and power. Rather, it should be seen as a necessity for human conditioning and improvement. "Work" is not simply a commodity to be used and exhausted, to be stripped of creative spirit; it is has definite aesthetic qualities. If one realizes the beauty in work, the individual is more inclined to work to reach the means that was once outside its productive sphere. Work would develop beyond being a collection of one-sided mundane tasks for indefinite periods of time; it would serve as a necessary form of expression of one's abilities and talents.
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Labor's Struggle for Supremacy by Eugene V Debs.
The Right to be Lazy by Paul Lafargue

Man of the Ages

Slavoj Zizek expresses his contempt for flowers, especially tulips.