The Force, The Matrix, Hogwarts, and Plato

The concept I'm discussing in this entry is more of a general philosophical one instead of a politically-themed one, although it does have some relevance to politics which I'll mention later.  I wrote about it because it's such a well-known thought experiment, as well as a prolific one in books, movies, and TV shows (especially in the sci-fi genre).

The ancient Greek thinker known as Plato is one of the most influential philosophers in history.  Even if a person has never read any of Plato's works or doesn't realize how vast of an impact he had, they are usually aware that he has been hugely influential.  One of his most well-known philosophical concepts was his allegory of the cave.  I won't go into a lot of detail about the allegory, but you can read about it here.  Plato's main thrust of the story is that most people don't see the world for how it really is.  They're deceived by illusions that create a false image of the world, and few people make the journey out of this illusory world and into the real one.  The imaginary world is a world filled with a person's false perceptions and ignorance, and they enter the real world when they discover fact based upon the application of reason and intellect.

This concept doesn't have a lot of relevance to politics.  The closest application I can think of comes from my own personal experience - although it's still a bit of a stretch.  Getting a security clearance and being able to read classified intelligence reports opened up a doorway to a lot of information that usually doesn't make it into the news (a lot of that intelligence is exaggerated, half-true, or outright false - but that's another post in itself).  The point is that, to some degree, I had shifted from one way of seeing the world to another.  I got to read reports summarizing conversations between countries that didn't appear to have any meaningful relationship, at least based on what I read in the news.  But mostly, Plato's "cave" fable applies to politics like that classic Bismarck quote: "No one should see how laws or sausages are made."

The "cave" concept shows up a lot in works of fiction, though.  It's been a key theme in a handful of extremely popular sci-fi and fantasy franchises, as well as many lesser-known ones.  Whenever one of the main characters gets introduced to a fantastic world they previously had no idea even existed, you're seeing an example of the allegory of the cave.  Here's a handful of popular ones: Harry Potter's introduction to the world of magic, Luke Skywalker learning about The Force, Neo and the Matrix, and Agent K joining the Men in Black (okay, maybe this one's not quite as popular as the others).

So there you go.  You've probably watched at least one movie or TV show, or read a book, that used Plato's allegory of the cave without realizing it.  If you look for it, you'll see it lots of places.