The biggest issue of being a teacher is that you must know everything or at least appear to know everything!
Like if you want to be a coach then you must have been a great player! If you want to teach someone about finance then you must be adequately rich!
Even if you are giving the correct advice, if you are giving by appearing to be weak then no one will listen or follow you!
This is something mentioned by Plato ages ago in his famous work called the Allegory of the Cave!
I learnt about it when it was the clue for a NYT quick crossword! Knowledge can be found anywhere!
Allegory refers to a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a famous philosophical parable from Book VII of his work The Republic, illustrating the effect of education on the human soul and the journey from ignorance to knowledge.
The book itself is a dialogue between Socrates and Plato’s brother Glaucon, Socrates describes a group of people who have been imprisoned in a cave since childhood.
The prisoners are chained so they can only look at the wall in front of them. A fire burns behind them, and puppeteers on a raised walkway hold up objects, casting shadows on the wall. The prisoners, having never seen anything else, believe these shadows are the only reality and even assign prestige based on their ability to predict the movement of the shadows!
The change happens when a prisoner is freed and dragged out of the cave against his will. The light from the fire, and then the sunlight, is initially painful and disorienting. Slowly, his eyes adjust, and he begins to see the objects, their reflections, and eventually, the sun itself, realizing that the shadows were just illusions!
The enlightened prisoner feels a duty to return to the cave to share his newfound knowledge and free his fellow prisoners. However, back in the darkness, his eyes are once again blinded, making him clumsy and less adept at discerning the shadows than those who never left.
The remaining prisoners see his blindness and infer that the journey outside has harmed him, concluding that the outside world is a dangerous place not worth seeking.
If the freed prisoner were to try to unchain and guide them, they would mock him and, if able, kill him for his efforts! Again re confirming the fact that you cannot teach those who cannot be taught!
Of course it is an age old story where the cave represents ignorance and being cooped up in your own world! While the sun is Knowledge!
The Shadows symbolize the distorted, second-hand, or incomplete understanding of reality that most people accept as truth, based on mere appearances and sense perception!
Ironically even Plato’s mentor Socrates met with the same fate! He was executed by the Athenian democracy! That is the issue with a single thought process; any deviation is met with only death! Such regimes may not even tolerate art and artists! Like the super artist and singer Geeta Dutt! Even now her peppy songs will bring life and light in any darkness!
SHubh Ratri!
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