The foundation for his distrust of The Institution of Democracy comes from his first-hand observations of the unstable Athenian Forums' bungled micro-mismanagement of the disastrous Peloponnesian War against the ruthless efficiency of fascist Sparta. Plato's political dabblings are laid out in detail in his epic document The Republic, a proto-fascist blueprint for clumsy totalitarian regimes ever since. I get the nagging vibe that he thinks he is the one who is perfect, and everybody else has to strive to measure up. (Plato's student Aristotle later loosely applied this theory of forms and hierarchies with somewhat less bold imagination, but with much more functionality and focus). This concept has no basis in reality, and limited practical usefulness. He had this weird theory of ideal forms, where he presented the premise that any physical object, such as a horse, for example, shares common characteristics with all other horses, but whoa hold on, he also goes on to say that these common traits are all imperfect reflections of a perfect horse which only exists in his imagination. Of course we learn useful tidbits data and factoids from various authorities teachers sages and gurus, but the truly profound insights we gather in our voyage to the sublime are the ones which we teach ourselves, those often involving suffering, and frequently from unexpected sources. The protagonist of this drama makes a claim to exalted insight based upon his moral superiority: he is better than the average cave-dweller, but why? Based upon his experience, and really, only because he says so. Plato's Cave is the perfect example of a flawed imperfect philosophical metaphor. Only the natural born enlightened philosopher king has the moral strength to turn his back upon this cozy little society of the spectacle and grope his way out of the cavern to the blinding light of the sun, and once his eyes adjust, perceive the real world in startling clarity, the one on which the artificial entertainment of the cave is merely a perverse parody. A bunch of people are sitting in a cave watching a puppet show.
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