Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Plato's Allegory of the Cave, discusses whether a person would be willing to sacrifice what they knew to learn of a different reality. In the story, it talks about prisoners who have lived by a different reality their whole life. This text is as a conversation between great Greek philosopher, Socrates and his disciple, Glaucon in which Socrates explains the true meaning of enlightenment. This ultimately ties to the movie, The Matrix. In the movie, the main character is given a choice of taking one of two pills. The blue pill lets him stay in his own reality with whatever thoughts he has. The red pill has him stay in the fake reality to find the true meaning behind all of it and what the Matrix actually is. Neo, the main character ends up taking the red pill. This begs the question, would humans now take the red pill or the blue pill? I believe that even though we have progressed from back when Socrates was killed for his teachings and we accept things with more knowledge, there are still people that would rather take the blue pill.

The media can be easily tweaked today and yet some people would still just take in whatever information is given to them whether it be fake or real. “Everybody wants to get enlightened but nobody wants to change”(Andrew Cohen) is a quote that grasps what I am saying as the idea of enlightenment seems great, but most people are to scared to change. There are also still people who are scared to change from their old lifestyle in order to find something new or to have their life change as seen through the quote, "Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending..."(Plato Allegory of the Cave). This quotes shows the fear that many humans have of experiencing new things. There are still many people also who are searching for the easier way instead of the hard, yet helpful way of doing things. There is also a level of mistrust as if someone gets enlightened, most people won’t believe what he is saying as shown in the Allegory of the Cave. There are still a few people in the world today who have been enlightened and have chosen that path and would sacrifice for their reality. According to Plato, these people would make the best kings because they would see things from a different perspective. Finally, I believe that humans don’t seem like they would take the red pill if given the choice.