Sample Essay On Plato Cave Reflection

The analogy of the cave by Plato gives one of the most interesting insights into the concept of society and the human mind. As in any analogy, a number of themes are in direct concurrence with our lives. The essay would begin with a few brief observations on advertising and individual consumption levels. Further, the essay will attempt to focus on the manner in which most of us tend to live in a cave all our life by comparing certain themes from the analogy with those in our contemporary life.
A study conducted by Brulle and Young showed three different observations. The first observation was that advertising had a significant role in the growth of personal consumption. (533) The second observation was that that determinants of consumption will vary by type of consumption. It follows that advertising had a very little impact on consumption of basic commodities, but a very large impact on consumption of luxury goods. (536) The third observation was that analysis did not show any significant statistical effect of television advertising on personal consumption, except in case of household appliances. (539) Of the three observations, the last finding is the most surprising one since most of us tend to believe otherwise, given the strong theoretical assertion.
If one were to analyze the relationships between Plato’s analogy and the findings in the Brulle and Young study, one would find many similarities. Firstly, advertising seeks to reinforce artificial wants as highlighted by the study in the second observation. This is similar to the plight of the cavemen who begin to believe, after having spent a lifetime in the cave, begin to believe that the prison-cave with its bondage is much better off than a free world. (Plato 2)
Secondly, advertising develops and builds on the human preoccupation with images. Most advertising professionals, therefore, use media images to influence human thought and, thus, consumer choices. In Plato’s analogy, the cavemen develop a similar preoccupation with images in the form of shadows created by the blazing fire that are continually projected on the wall opposite them by puppeteers. (2) A consumer does not realize that most of the advertisements are akin to the artificial images, which are simply controlled by puppeteers, and observed by the cavemen. Like the cavemen in Plato’s analogy, the consumer too starts to believe that these artificially reinforced concepts are better than the natural choices that consumers would have otherwise made in the absence of such reinforcement. Therefore, much like the cavemen who prefer bondage to freedom, the consumer prefers the artificial imagery to natural choices. Also, the concepts of beauty that advertising seeks to endorse are somewhat similar. This type of advertising tends to blur the lines between the products that are trivial for us and those that are important. As consumers, we tend to buy products that are trivial believing we need them, while ignoring the ones that are important. This behavior is somewhat similar to Plato’s cavemen who trivialize their own state within the cave, but do not want to pursue what is important for them, namely freedom.
Most commercials depict women or men in a particular form or appearance which they define as beautiful. In short, advertising seeks to provide ‘a good life’ or ‘a life worth emulating’. A constant exposure to latent messages socializes individuals to the satisfaction of needs and desires through market based commodities. This, in turn, leads to the eclipsing of an individual’s ability to find pleasure or affect change outside the boundaries of the commodity system. (Brulle & Young 528) In Plato’s analogy, one could view this phenomenon as the dilemma of the genuine copy or the original fake. In case of the cavemen, the person who is liberated and returns cannot convince his fellow cavemen that they are in bondage inside, when there is really freedom outside. His fellow cavemen also experience a similar sense of an eclipsed ability to find pleasure outside the cave. (Plato 6)
One could also extend the application of this theme to items such as food – for instance, advertising endorses eating a Subway sandwich as healthy through the example of one person who changed his life eating that sandwich. Similarly, a MacDonald commercial represents happiness amongst the people consuming their products. These instances are similar to the limited awareness that Plato’s cavemen display when they are in the cave as compared to the unlimited awareness they display when freed from their shackles. Further, they do not even believe their own fellow caveman who experienced unlimited awareness and freedom, but would rather continue with their mundane lives. (Plato 3) Not many people, likewise, see beyond these commercials to examine the ill-effects of junk food on one’s health due to regular consumption and neither do we heed the advice of those people who would try to wean us away from such unhealthy foods. In fact, a lot of people get addicted to such food and end up suffering for their excesses in food consumption. In a way, therefore, we are like the cavemen who do not believe their formerly liberated comrade and his experiences of freedom. We would rather prefer to suffer through our rigid beliefs and reinforced views than examining other’s viewpoints that might lead us towards a better life.
Similarly, one can extend these rigid ways of thought that the cavemen exhibit to religion as well. Different religions have different beliefs. In Plato’s analogy, the cavemen have developed a certain world-view and are ready to kill their liberated comrade who has a different world-view. (6) One can see the same thing playing out amongst members of different religions. Some religions target others over practices such as idolatry or other religious practices that do not conform to their own world view, simply because of the ‘default ways of thinking’ that their own religion had inculcated in them. Plato tries to highlight this aspect of human nature through this analogy as well.
In conclusion, one can understand that a number of themes from Plato’s cave analogy hold true in our lives. We all tend to live in a cave with nearly everything in contemporary life, including advertising, consumerism, religious beliefs and concepts of food and beauty being constantly reinforced in us by external agents similar to the manner in which the puppeteers reinforce certain rigid concepts in the minds of the cavemen through fixed imagery and conditioning.

Works Cited

Brulle, Robert & Young, Lindsey. “Advertising, Individual Consumption Levels, and the Natural Environment, 1900–2000.” Sociological Inquiry Journal. 77.4 (2007): 522 – 542. Print.
Plato. “The Republic – Book VII.” Trans. Thomas Sheehan. n.d. PDF File.