Looking back at 400 B.C.E., I find it endearing (perhaps a funny choice of word, but the way I feel all the same) that Gorgias and Plato were writing things that sound so familiar.
I want to begin by commending Gorgias with ending his argument with “I wished to write this speech for Helen’s encomium and my amusement” (Gorgias 41). His amusement – I love that. He reminds me of the casual forum poster or blogger of today, writing an essay (of course they probably wouldn’t call it an essay) about their favorite character on their favorite television series. The fact that nothing has changed in some 2,000+ years but myths replaced with TV and gods with superheroes is something incredible to see. This is the way so many of us engage with the myths of our own day and age, especially now thanks to the internet. Today, we are all our own Gorgiases, and it’s cool and crazy (at least for me) to see where it all began thousands of years ago.
Plato is quite an interesting fellow. Of course we’ve seen his ideas crop up often enough throughout history, the positives and the negatives of his ideal Republic. Again, I have to begin by commending him for being an open-minded, logical, and humble enough person to admit at the end of his dialogues that he might be wrong, and that if his “allegations met a poetic rebuttal” he would be “justified in letting poetry return” to his Republic (Plato 76). This makes me more inclined to listen to him, for he admits his theories are only that – theories, and should be challenged when necessary.
Plato’s fears are of course reasonable. He’s not wrong, he’s just a pessimist, essentially. He sees all the negatives of literature and art and none of the positives, believing the only positive to be a superficial entertainment value. Plato is the concerned parent of today whose paranoia over what their kids are exposed to on TV outweighs their willingness to let their kids actually learn from the media they consume. Plato wants one set of ideals expressed in a literal way. He assumes the majority of people are too stupid to understand the concept of metaphor. He believes metaphor is dangerous, anything not literally true is dangerous, because people are too stupid not to take things literally.
Plato, like many parents today, has reason to be concerned, yes. But at the same time he greatly underestimates the masses. He thinks the dangers of metaphor make their positives unimportant. He thinks it better to eliminate expression rather than explore it and understand it. He would prefer censorship to understanding. And so, ironically, he is the one advocating the very cave he supposedly detests in his cave analogy. A cave in which people are blocked out from a world of fiction.
Of course, to Plato this would be blasphemy. I am equating fiction with the highest, purest forms of reality! The cave is fiction, the world outside reality. I acknowledge his fears, don’t get me wrong. One can’t simply stay inside all day watching TV, ignoring the world outdoors. But on the flipside, should one live only in the outside world, never once using fiction for positive reasons? Not at all. Fiction is truly helpful when it helps us to face reality. And it does this plenty.
So I guess I can’t help but speak of Plato negatively, even when I wanted to stay neutral. I blame it on my upbringing and the fact that I am clearly, clearly an artist.
I mean, I’ve been brainwashed. Whoops. (Aristotle, I think it’s your turn now.)
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