“And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be reality clearer than the things what are now being shown to him?”
The first read of the article caught my interest and brought forward that old tutored righteous didactic voice from the back of my head. A man being released into the ‘light of life’ of candid reality from his endless physical position of facing a wall looking at shadows and false impressions, is an allegory that retains thorough connotations.
But after my second and third read, I was tempted to re-quote Nietzsche’s popular comment “Plato was a bore.” Sitting above absolutes and unlikely ideals, Plato defines them as morally proper. I'd like to think though that Plato was more of a stargaze than boring, unrealistic idealism that, when the goal actually achieved by those seeking it, is clearly unnecessary and expensive, though deemed ‘ethical and moral’ (though the introduction of the article before Plato’s passage however isn’t as wholly illusory).
The long time period in history between Plato to Nietzsche cannot be argued- the gradual development of humans in the understanding of the mind and society would have progressed (not necessarily but likely) from Plato till today. So Platonic dialogue is viewed as an archaic, self-satisfied indulgent kind of dialectic, such as his opinion that there is one perfect version of Good for all people, whether they are rich or poor, powerful or weak, an unalterable Good which man should prize above all else.
Thus I see these two perspectives, both of which I can relate to- Plato’s theoretical preconditioned understandings we gather of life and Nietzsche’s practical experiential approach towards life.
Plato’s ideas are today disguised as the ‘rules’- a foundation that sets the stage, allowing me to do whatever I want with those ideas. Plato’s ideas embody external authoritative figures. Nietzsche on the other hand is a part of nihilism, which negates one single objective voice of truth and states that the power resides inside, here embodying my mind and heart.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment