But I Like the Shadows!: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Appearance, and Spectacle
As I embark on another semester of “acting” like I know what I’m talking about, I am quite excited to begin my (completely-unrelated-to-dissertation) literature course with Plato’s Allegory. I imagine that all of my new students today rushed off to the CTA or dorms with their PDFs in hand, eager to delve into the thought experiment of Plato’s Allegory. Perhaps my excitement makes me slightly delusional…but whatever.
Rereading Plato, nevertheless, has made me rethink the Allegory of the Cave, as I attempt to prepare translating his ideas to non-philosophy and -english majors. His Theory of Forms will not fly with this crowd, but will fancy-footing in Truth work? I’m considering relating the appearance of things and people on the cave wall to Debord’s notion of the spectacle as a political demystification. But, Truth goes completely into question when we think about the Allegory of the Cave through Debord’s psuedo-ideology. Truth awareness becomes questionable from an ideology perspective because Truth is never “real” in the first place. Nothing is “real” under ideology. If I teach it this way, I’m afraid my students will simply see Plato as bs…
I will, of course, deal with the traditional route to Plato’s Allegory by looking at language and naming. The naming of appearances and shadows, for Plato, simply obscures reality (Truth) for the prisoner of perception. But, I think, naming is simply a part of the cave spectacle. Naming, I believe, is no different than the shadows. Naming is simply appearance. If I approach it this way, I think I can demonstrate the literary effects of representation. I might even be able to hoodwink my students into believing that we are on the search for Truth as we read, having to question specific words, etc., within our readings (hello close-reading endorsement!). Update coming later…
Update: I don’t think I blew any minds…ah, well