From Kelly Gneiting at the Independent American Party website:
(Much of this came from Bryce Hammond in A Modern Worldview of Plato’s Cave)
One of the most well-known works of Plato is his book The Republic. In this book, Plato describes his vision of the ideal society. He writes that the majority of humanity is unable to comprehend the truth about many things. Accordingly, only those capable of this understanding are qualified to be rulers and leaders.
A key part of this book is an allegory that Plato gives to further explain his view of the nature of the world. It has become known as the Allegory of the Cave. In this allegory, prisoners are in chains at the back of the cave facing the back wall. They have been there all their life and their chains keep their heads immobile so they are unable to look around. Behind the prisoners and before the opening to the cave is a fire. In front of the fire are puppeteers that hold objects up over a screen so that their shadows from the fire are cast on the back wall of the cave. These shadows are all that the prisoners have been able to see their whole lives; therefore, the prisoners take the shadows to be the actual items. As Plato says, “such persons would certainly believe that there were no realities except those shadows of handmade things.”
Plato then poses the question: What would happen if one of the prisoners was released from his chains and allowed to turn his head? In answer, Plato explains that the prisoner would see the objects creating the shadows and realize that what he had seen before was a shadow. Plato says, “What do you think he would say, if someone told him that what he saw before was foolery, but now he saw more rightly, being a bit nearer reality and turned towards what was a little more real? . . . Don’t you think he would be puzzled, and believe what he saw before was more true than what was shown to him now?”
In other words, it would, initially, be hard for the person to believe that what he saw before was not the real thing, but just a shadow of the real thing. The person would be puzzled and disoriented. Plato continues the allegory assuming what would happen if the person were then compelled to go towards the entrance to the cave, towards the real light. The light would hurt his eyes, and he would want to turn back to look at the shadows he was used to seeing before. If he were taken to the entrance of the cave and then out into the sunlight, the light would completely blind him and he would not be able to see anything at first. He would have to get used to the light. After some time, he would be able to see the things in the outside world, including the sun.
What if the person was now reminded of his first place in the cave and of his fellow prisoners? Plato continues that he would much rather know the truth and be free from the cave than be left in that condition – “Would he not feel as Homer says, and heartily desire rather to be serf of some landless man on earth and to endure anything in the world, rather than to opine as they did and to live in that way?”
If he returned to the cave, his eyes would once again go blind and be filled with darkness and he would not be able to see anything for a time. Plato explains that his fellow prisoners would laugh at him, saying that he was not smart to have left the cave. If the freed one were to try and free the others of their chains, they would try to kill him.
Living in 2011 America is a lot like living in Plato’s cave.
In contrast to Plato, the philosopher Bertrand Russell openly accepted the inevitability of a controlling One World Government, founded on the basis of hard scientific values, and was disturbingly frank about the culture that would result. Writing in his 1953 book The Impact of Science on Society, he states:
Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible…
…Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organised insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.
The Independent American Party boldly condones putting politics in it’s proper place, and God front and center. To truly “exit the cave” our attack must center on that same guiding star that inspired our Founders, who gained the ever-present “hand of providence” on their behalf.