Blog 2: The Allegory of the Cave

     In The Republic, Plato uses the cave as an allegory to symbolize how certain people would much rather live their life in the comforts of an illusion created by a web of lies as opposed to accepting the cold hard truth for what it really is. These situations not only exist within the texts of Plato, but have also managed to appear in certain parts of world history, and even in our lives today.
     In fact, one of the biggest and outstanding examples of the argument could be found in the late 18th century Romantic era (1780-1850). This time period was a highly quarrelsome one; with the rise of the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment period heavy on their way at just about the same time. The Industrial Revolution took a great toll on people. The invention of new working machinery put a lot of people out of their jobs and homes, forcing families of tens and fifteens into one bedroom apartments. In other cases, just the opposite happened, where people were so determined to keep their job that they'd put their own families at stake. Young children were used to operate small working places in machinery where the average adult was not able to work in. Pollution given off by the new material was also a risk, and the heavy lifting and machinery endangered people's health.
     Here is where Romanticism was born. As strange as it sounds, Romanticism arose from all of the suffering from the Industrial Revolution. To cope with these tragedies and hardships, people looked for comfort in emotions and creativity, at times even looking to Religion as a form of escape or hope from the cruel realities of the world. Death was romanticized by cartoonists in the paper, in paintings, and in articles, where dying people were looked at as heroes, despite the worsening conditions. Art became the primary thought of the people, and they believed that as long as they believed they were genuinely happy, they would be.
     Those who were supporters of the Enlightenment were well aware of the illusion Romantics were trying to portray to the world and sought out an intellectual, scientific, and cultural approach to put a final end to the suffering of the Industrial Revolution. The Enlightenment encouraged the government to take it's role in society and help the people. Providing new ways of technology, medical advances, and laws that provided the people with a sense of independence.
     The realism of the Enlightenment period was a savior for those who had undergone the suffering of the Industrial Revolution, and in a sense depicts the same idea Plato expresses to his audience in The Republic. Although the prisoners in Plato's cave and the people from the Industrial Revolution believed that the best way to cope with a bad situation was to pretend it was perfectly fine, they ultimately failed to realize that the situation will only worsen if not approached by it's core.

Website: http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture16a.html