PLATO's CAVE AND THE ROAD TO 2024: Beware of the Shadows

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the citizenry of the polis (city) find themselves at the bottom of a cavernous edifice staring at projections on the wall of a cave.  These images are not real but mere shadows, illusions which are carefully manipulated by so-called puppeteers who seek to control the flow of information to the people.  Life and existence is predicated by these manipulators who create reality and determine how facts will become truth.  The inhabitants of the cave believe they are a free, sovereign people who are able to discern fact from fiction and are unaware of the existence of the puppeteers. The main storyteller of the drama, Socrates, is explaining the allegory to an audience.  He poses the question of what would happen if an individual is able to free himself from the depths of the abyss and make his way to the surface.  The individual will now be able to cast his eyes on the sun, interpret forms and information free from manipulation, and then, he will finally understand what is truth and what it means to be truly free and sovereign.  After this revelation, this individual returns to the caverns and shares his new experiences with the others with newfound exuberance. But instead of being lauded and praised, he is greeted with laughter, jeers and derision. He is received as a fool, a person obviously out of touch with reality and quite possibly out of his mind.  The populace are not concerned with his revelations.  On the contrary, the masses continue to be shrouded with the projected imagery and encompassed in chains. And what is the purpose? Socrates is not utilizing this story as a mere allegory, or an intellectual exercise, it is a reality the citizenry of every age finds in its midst on a daily basis. In a constitutional republic, the puppeteers come in the form of the media, government officials and the political parties.  The people expect from them a modicum of truth but these institutions play another role as we shall see.  On June 26th, 2024 Joe Biden made his way to the presidential debate stage where he would tangle with his opponent in an exchange of ideas and policies.  Biden repeatedly stammered, stumbled and embarrassed himself in front of a national audience.  The public was aghast and left in shock.  They had been told that in private the President was sharp, at the top of his game, assertions by the opposition that the President’s cognitive abilities were diminishing were mere propaganda.   But the President was in obvious decline and this decay did not begin in the days before the debate.  Biden’s performance exposed such statements of Biden’s sharp mental acuity as not just moderately false but ludicrous in the extreme.  The truth had been withheld from the American people by the Democrat Party, government officials and the media, but now the people had seen reality and were temporarily freed from its chains of propaganda and were now exposed to the sunlight. In the aftermath, Democratic operatives and elites scurried looking for an explanation and a solution.  Biden would be scuttled and Kamala Harris would be reinvented with the full support of the media, our puppeteers, as the embodiment of joy.  But this was not always the case.  From 2021-2024 Kamala Harris had been the butt of many jokes because of her constant nonsensical “word salads,” her lack of people skills and the constant turnover of grumbling personnel from her office.  Her approval ratings were below that of her boss with some arguing she was a drag on the presidential ticket.  But all would change with Joe Biden being pressured to retire and with $250 million in donations at stake, Kamala Harris would be allowed to take center stage as if she were a new candidate, fresh from victory in the primaries.  But this nominee would receive special priviliges.  Since she was not adept at fielding questions, the media did not ask, nor was she expected to answer questions or give policy positions.  When the Vice President decided to voyage into the arena of proposing an agenda, she flipped from her previous radical position to a moderate, benign viewpoint which would be acceptable to the mainstream and to various important constituents.  Our grand puppeteers did not query her regarding this obvious political ploy.  Instead such a position was lauded as evolutionary, savvy and responding to the popular will, all in line with the view of the puppeteers.  But let’s take a glimpse into Kamala’s worldview. In 2022 the Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act which was filled with excessive government spending which significantly increased the quantity of money in the economy fueling demand and leading to a rise in prices. Oddly enough, the Vice President was on the campaign trail railing against price gouging on the part of food producers.  I guess no one read the fine print of the Inflation Reduction Act which would have led one to realize this legislation was not aptly named. Then Harris stood up and said it was time for action!  She called for an investigation!  There was a need for the bureaucracy to take action! There was a cry for legislation for price controls!  What?  Was she serious?  This certainly raised eyebrows since anyone in the know understands price controls lead to shortages, angry consumers and eventually hostile voters.  Quickly the puppeteers rolled this one back.  Nothing to see here!  Don’t ask her questions.  Don’t let her comment.  Just roll it back.  And the puppeteers returned to their work as the people gazed upon the images on the walls of the cave.  But for Harris and her party, the dye would be cast and the people would make their way to the surface, free of the puppeteers for the time being.