Plato's Shadowy Cave

Plato believed that we all live in a shadowy cave and can only see the shadowy reflections of reality, but not reality itself. He believed in aspects of physical objects in a literal sense; of them actually possessing an entity of form, which one could move toward understanding through intellectual discourse. The closer one came to identifying the form, the close one gets to reality. But in Essence we are all trapped in a dark cave and only the intellectual elite were capable of at the very least, shining a dim light of understanding into the 'cave' of 'unknowable' reality.

What Plato meant in more specific terms, is that every object such as trees, dogs, books etc, has a perfect form within the universe and what we grasp is only a shadow of that perfect form. In reality, what this really means, is that the universe is fundamentally unknowable, because the fundamental form of every physicality of nature, is forever beyond our reach.

It was Plato's ideas of form, that later coupled with religious edicts from individuals such as St Augustine, lent credence to the concept of heaven. Plato believed that there must be a "perfect Platonic heaven" where we go to at death and experience the 'forms' and step out of the dark cave. Well, this concept of platonic heaven, fits perfectly within the Christian concept of heaven. St Augustine was a big fan of the works of Plato and exploited this Platonic concept to the full, to strengthen the framework of the Christian ethic, built around heaven and hell.

Plato could best be called a subjectivist in the sense that nothing in reality is objectively knowable, because the 'forms' of reality are always out of reach. This was in direct contrast to Aristotle who was the student of Plato. Aristotle has been called the first true scientist by many. Aristotle was the pole opposite of Plato, in that he did not buy into the theory of forms and he believed that the universe was knowable through the process of logic and observation.

Plato essentially believed that, to understand reality (though never perfectly)... One simply had to intellectualize and could do so independent of observations in the real World. The simple process of intellectual discourse and study was the process necessary to get closer to understanding the "forms". The history of the idea of the 'unwashed masses' as apposed to the 'intellectual elite' stems directly from these original ideas of Plato. This idea is still prevalent among many academics, who often as just one example deride open source information, such as that in the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, because the authors are the general public... 'the unwashed masses' ...This begs the question of course, are the general public any less able to intellectualize than the elites in high places. From the studies of Wikipedia that have been carried out, it appears that the articles are no worse than that of mainstream encyclopedias and many of the articles may start of in unfinished form, but because of the editing progress a natural and one might say almost organic, editing process occurs, that leads to increased corrections which build on one another, which leads to articles that are no less accurate than those found in 'standard' encyclopedias.

The influence of Plato is far reaching and can be seen in the many existentialist ideas that permeate modern society. Indeed, politicians are often big fans of Plato. perhaps because of his "absolute truths" ...Politicians are very fond of absolute truths and often throw about statements like "unquestionable" "absolutely no doubt" "we are the one true party".

Another big influence that can be traced back to Plato as the subjectively unknowable are the teaching methods of John Dewey... Dewey like Plato believed that learning could be achieved independent of observation and merely as an intellectual exercise independent of that observation. This led to a spate of teaching methods based on the idea of simply "throwing an idea at a child" and then letting them "run with it" and "see where it leads" ...In reality, this has led to an appalling dumbing down of the education system, which should be based on the concept of the teacher, teaching the child real knowledge and not leaving the child to 'teach' itself.




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Poetry ...What's the Harm?

Poetry, because of its sing-song rhythm is very right brain. Poetry like music is a very powerful means of jump-skipping past rational left brain logic and embedding itself into the subconscious. This is why poetry can be so deeply effecting on an emotional level.

It can be noted that poetry accesses a different part of the brain, than normal speech does. In the same way that singing lyrics of a song accesses a different part of the brain than left brain speech.

Indeed, take someone who suffers from a stammer, when using normal every day speech in conversation. Get the same person to sing a song and the stammer 'miraculously' disappears. When one realizes that the individual is accessing a different part of the brain for singing as apposed to talking, then it is easy to see that there is really nothing miraculous going on.

The same that can be said for musical lyrics can be said for poetry. The rhythmic structure of ordinary language in common day communication, is different than the rhythmic structure of poetry. Indeed, in reading a poem, the rhythms are very similar to musical rhythms and again, an individual who suffers from a stammer will find it goes away when reading poetry... It does so, for the same reason that it does when singing lyrics, one is accessing a different part of the brain, than that used in ordinary everyday speech.

Poetry can actually be harmful to logical thinking, if the reader swallows the poem 'wholesale' ...without analyzing what is being communicated. Indeed, the rhythmic effect of poetry is often used by great orators when giving public speeches, to mass rallies. The great speakers ad rhythms to their speeches, which gives them a poetic cadence. This rhythm can lead to the audience dropping their mental guard and swallowing what is being said without analysis. Indeed, such speeches can be so emotional that they can whip audiences up into a frenzy of hollers and screams.

As one example of emotional oratory, Adolph Hitler was very good at it. Of course his speeches were illogical, but because of the rhythmic nature of such oratory it very easily bypasses the logical mind and embeds in the subconscious mind un-analyzed.

The potential damaging effect of poetry on the none-thinking masses, has been understood for a long time and was identified by Plato.

Does this mean poetry is fundamentally bad and should be avoided. Of course not. Poetry can be very enjoyable, both in the reading and writing of. But one should not take in gulps of un-analyzed poetic "truths" as if they are true.

Another example of the fact that when we sing a lyric or read a line of poetry, that we access a different part of the brain, than that in everyday conversation is to do the following easy exercise. Try singing a normal conversation; your words will very quickly collapse into meaningless gibberish. It is virtually impossible to sing a normal conversation, because normal conversation and singing switch on different areas of the brain.

Out of all the major art forms of poetry, painting, music, dance... Poetry is perhaps the weakest art form and the easiest to create. Indeed, writing poetry is the least reliant on left brain logic, than all other art forms; that's what makes it so easy. The best poets often come up with their poems in a none-thinking stupor. Not surprising that many of histories best poets liked a drink and poetry is often associated with drugs.

The best paintings, music and dance on the other hand are created from right brain emotion and left brain logic. The best music is not only emotionally appealing it is well structured mathematically and rhythmically ...painting and dance are the same.

The reason William Shakespeare stands out as perhaps the greats poet of all time, is that his poetry, was a combination of poetry and prose. Shakespeare is deservedly considered a genius of the written word. Unlike most poetry, Shakespeare's was combined within prose which gave it logic structure within a storyline. So, Shakespeare is a good example of an artist who managed to perfectly combine left brain prose with right brain poetry and produce masterpieces of the English language.

On the other hand, when you analyze most poetry it is almost all lacking in any rationality. Of course there are many exceptions to this rule. Nevertheless much poetry is of this kind.




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