One commonly held view has it that if one wants to live a fulfilled life; he had better

listen to his parents. Listening to what others say for fulfilment in life, however, is what Plato
criticizes in his famous Allegory of the Cave found in the book VII of the Republic. Plato tells us
that not all we see and hear is a credible source of truth and that if we are free to investigate the
truth; we will not always believe what we see and consequently stop believing in what we see or
hear. From my perspective Plato’s work is highly applicable to the concept of family in the sense
that parents generally do not let their children question their own truth and become highly
resistant when they do so.

To begin with, we are not allowed to investigate the truth of what is told to us by our
parents and just like the prisoners believed in shadows because that is what they have seen since
birth, and because they had no freedom to move their necks and heads to investigate the truth of
what they are seeing and hearing; our childhood periods could be related to that of the prisoners.
In The Allegory of the cave, Plato (380 BC, para: 12) states ‘The truth would be literally nothing
but the shadows of the images’. In making this comment, Plato argues that an unenlightened
environment gives people no chance but to believe in the truths imposed on them. This reminds
me of my childhood experiences where I was made to believe in strict religious rules and gender
stereotypes imposed by my family. Having been born into a religious family, all I could see on
the walls of my childhood cave was to strictly follow the religious rules and abide by all the
gender stereotypes that were expected of a boy. Essentially, I am arguing that as children we all
had to believe in the truths reflected by our families as we had no such option to question them.

Following the childhood comes a stage where we start to go out of the comfort zone of
our families and it is at this stage where we start to encounter truths that contradict the ones we
were exposed to before. Like the freed prisoner in the allegory, we are now able to discover how
we were prisoned back then by just listening to what our parents told us without investigating the
truth of it. Plato (380 BC, para: 17) states ‘He will need to grow accustomed to the sight of the
upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men’. Plato’s point
makes me think that it first becomes so difficult for us to accept this new reality we find
ourselves in but we eventually change in time same as the freed prisoner. Yet emerges another
challenge when we confront with our puppeteers- in this context our families. In his work, Plato
states ‘Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes’ ( 380 BC,
para: 25). In other words, Plato draws attention to the fact that once a person is enlightened; it is
a huge burden for that person to challenge the views of other prisoners back in the cave. That I
can relate to the conflict I have been having with my parents after studying at an academic
environment and living abroad for some time. Like the rest of the prisoners in the cave, they still
resist to the fact that their shadows do not reflect my own reality. In sum then, after seeing the
light, one arrives at a point where he needs to challenge his’ norms.

As a last word, we can only succeed in discovering the real truth when we are
independent individuals and need to challenge even those who are closest to us with the truth that
we ourselves discovered. For me, Plato’s work is highly inspirational and sheds light on how we
can do so.