THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

In the following text, I will make a deep reflection on the allegory of Plato's cave,
trying to find the meaning of this story in my personal life in order to obtain a benefit.
The work will consist of two parts: in the first part I will contextualize Plato's story and
I will look for an example of the present life where we can appreciate the same fact
of the story. In the second part, as I said, I will write my personal experience with this
same thought.

From my point of view, the allegory of Plato's cave could be summarized in that we
can never close ourselves to new learning even though sometimes it may sound
absurd, otherwise we would always be living in complete ignorance.
As it happens to the prisoners, they have in their mind their world idealized by their
imagination. That is why when the other prisoner tells them what he has seen with
his own eyes, they do not believe him thinking that it is impossible because of their
idealization of life.
It is all a matter of knowing how to be open to new knowledge, even if sometimes it
seems frightening just to be different so as not to live in ignorance.

The case that I could relate to this story is the current political and social situation
that North Korea is going through.
In this country, they live in almost complete isolation from the outside world and with
a great censorship of freedom of expression, which makes it like a "big cave"
because the people who were born into this regime and with this censorship, know
practically nothing of the outside world, therefore, they live in a situation of ignorance
about the rest of the world because they are tied to a series of rules and thoughts.
That makes them have a great lack of knowledge.

To conclude with the reflection, regarding my personal experience and during my

daily life, we can observe during the evolution and the mental process of each
person since we are children, different times and different scenes (especially when
we are kids) where one simply refuses to want to listen at least to the opinion or

Tomás Tena Muñoz

point of view of something else for the simple fact of not being the thing you have in
your head.
This is an example of the ignorance and arrogance that practically all of us have
shown at some time in our lives, and it is right there when you realize that your
thoughts are still very small and you live isolated in many occasions in your own
cave.
Fortunately, as we grow up, we develop in some cases the ability to listen and
analyze other points of view that make you grow as a person.

To conclude, the word that best summarizes Plato's allegory is knowledge.

Tomás Tena Muñoz