Sunday, August 18, 2013

Theory for Therapy

Am beavering away at the Masters and mostly enjoying it, but in case you were wondering, that's the reason that blogging has taken a back seat. This semester we are thinking about thinking and been reading Plato, and Aristotle and various other philosophers. I love Plato's cave story, including the irony that he wrote it to illustrate how dangerous art is because it deludes us into thinking that the 'shadow' world of imitation is 'reality', when everyone knows 'truth' is only possible via rational thought. Being a 'parable' or 'metaphor' it is clearly relying on art to convey the message that art conveys a dangerous message. That aside, it is a perfect analogy of what we fondly call 'reality' television - a phenomenon that is driving me further and further up the wall.

Obviously (least I hope it is) it is portraying what is actually a highly engineered, artificial, circumstance as reality. I feel very sorry for those gullible enough to be involved in the various shows and who are terribly exploited. For those of you who like to watch these shows, for heavens sake, read Ben Elton's Dead Famous, and wise up! One day, reality TV will undoubtedly lose favour and hopefully disappear to a large extent. I just hope they don't kill someone before that happens.

Anyway, I'm putting in a link to an animation of Plato's Cave, which you might like to watch in the interest of your cerebral nourishment! Enjoy.

Plato's Cave Animation