DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
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2022Week6ReadingMaterial.docx2022 Week 6 Reading Material
Lecture 5: Education (therapy), indoctrination (brainwash).
Plato (428/427 or 424/423 BC-348/347 BC)
[A]
The Cave Allegory
[514a] “Next,” said I, “compare our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern 1 with a long entrance open 2 to the light on its entire width. Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered 3 from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot,
[514b] able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows 1 have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.” “All that I see,” he said. “See also, then, men carrying 2 past the wall
[514c] implements of all kinds that rise above the wall, and human images
[515a] and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled
[515b] to hold their heads unmoved through life?” “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” “Surely.” “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw 1 they were naming the passing objects?” “Necessarily.” “And if their prison had an echo 2 from the wall opposite them, when one of the passersby uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker?” “By Zeus, I do not,” said he. “Then in every way
[515c] such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release 1 and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature 2 something of this sort should happen to them: When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw,
[515d] what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss 1 and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?” “Far more real,” he said.
“And if he were compelled to look at the light itself,
[515e] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” “It is so,” he said. “And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent 1 which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when
[516a] he came out into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see 1 even one of the things that we call real?” “Why, no, not immediately,” he said. “Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water 2 of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light
[516b] of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light. 1” “Of course.” “And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting, 2 but in and by itself in its own place.” “Necessarily,” he said. “And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region,
[516c] and is in some sort the cause 1 of all these things that they had seen.” “Obviously,” he said, “that would be the next step.” “Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them 2?” “He would indeed.” “And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences,
[516d] sequences and co-existences, 1 and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer 2 and “‘greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man,’”Hom. Od. 11.489 and endure anything rather than opine with them
[516e] and live that life?” “Yes,” he said, “I think that he would choose to endure anything rather than such a life.” “And consider this also,” said I, “if such a one should go down again and take his old place would he not get his eyes full 1 of darkness, thus suddenly coming out of the sunlight?” “He would indeed.” “Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners
[517a] in 'evaluating' these shadows while his vision was still dim and before his eyes were accustomed to the dark—and this time required for habituation would not be very short—would he not provoke laughter, 1 and would it not be said of him that he had returned from his journey aloft with his eyes ruined and that it was not worth while even to attempt the ascent? And if it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him 2?” “They certainly would,” he said.
“This image then, dear Glaucon, we must apply as a whole to all that has been said,
[517b] likening the region revealed through sight to the habitation of the prison, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun. And if you assume that the ascent and the contemplation of the things above is the soul's ascension to the intelligible region, 1 you will not miss my surmise, since that is what you desire to hear. But God knows 2 whether it is true. But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known the last thing to be seen and hardly seen is the idea of good,
[517c] and that when seen it must needs point us to the conclusion that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful, giving birth 1 in the visible world to light, and the author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic source of truth and reason, and that anyone who is to act wisely 2 in private or public must have caught sight of this.” “I concur,” he said, “so far as I am able.” “Come then,” I said, “and join me in this further thought, and do not be surprised that those who have attained to this height are not willing 3 to occupy themselves with the affairs of men, but their souls ever feel the upward urge and
[517d] the yearning for that sojourn above. For this, I take it, is likely if in this point too the likeness of our image holds” “Yes, it is likely.” “And again, do you think it at all strange,” said I, “if a man returning from divine contemplations to the petty miseries 1 of men cuts a sorry figure 2 and appears most ridiculous, if, while still blinking through the gloom, and before he has become sufficiently accustomed to the environing darkness, he is compelled in courtrooms 3 or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice or the images 4 that cast the shadows and to wrangle in debate
[517e] about the notions of these things in the minds of those who have never seen justice itself?” “It would be by no men strange,” he said. “But a sensible man,”
[518a] I said, “would remember that there are two distinct disturbances of the eyes arising from two causes, according as the shift is from light to darkness or from darkness to light, 1 and, believing that the same thing happens to the soul too, whenever he saw a soul perturbed and unable to discern something, he would not laugh 2 unthinkingly, but would observe whether coming from a brighter life its vision was obscured by the unfamiliar darkness, or
[518b] whether the passage from the deeper dark of ignorance into a more luminous world and the greater brightness had dazzled its vision. 1 And so 2 he would deem the one happy in its experience and way of life and pity the other, and if it pleased him to laugh at it, his laughter would be less laughable than that at the expense of the soul that had come down from the light above.” “That is a very fair statement,” he said.
“Then, if this is true, our view of these matters must be this, that education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their professions. 3
[518c] What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they were inserting 1 vision into blind eyes.” “They do indeed,” he said. “But our present argument indicates,” said I, “that the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body. Even so this organ of knowledge must be turned around from the world of becoming together with the entire soul, like the scene-shifting periact 2 in the theater, until the soul is able to endure the contemplation of essence and the brightest region of being.
[518d] And this, we say, is the good, 1 do we not?” “Yes.” “Of this very thing, then,” I said, “there might be an art, 2 an art of the speediest and most effective shifting or conversion of the soul, not an art of producing vision in it, but on the assumption that it possesses vision but does not rightly direct it and does not look where it should, an art of bringing this about.” “Yes, that seems likely,” he said. “Then the other so-called virtues 3 of the soul do seem akin to those of the body.
[518e] For it is true that where they do not pre-exist, they are afterwards created by habit 1 and practice. But the excellence of thought, 2 it seems, is certainly of a more divine quality, a thing that never loses its potency, but, according to the direction of its conversion, becomes useful and beneficent,
[519a] or, again, useless and harmful. Have you never observed in those who are popularly spoken of as bad, but smart men, 1 how keen is the vision of the little soul, 2 how quick it is to discern the things that interest it, 3 a proof that it is not a poor vision which it has, but one forcibly enlisted in the service of evil, so that the sharper its sight the more mischief it accomplishes?” “I certainly have,” he said. “Observe then,” said I, “that this part of such a soul, if it had been hammered from childhood, and had thus been struck free 4 of the leaden weights, so to speak, of our birth
[519b] and becoming, which attaching themselves to it by food and similar pleasures and gluttonies turn downwards the vision of the soul 1—If, I say, freed from these, it had suffered a conversion towards the things that are real and true, that same faculty of the same men would have been most keen in its vision of the higher things, just as it is for the things toward which it is now turned.” “It is likely,” he said. “Well, then,” said I, “is not this also likely 2 and a necessary consequence of what has been said, that neither could men who are uneducated and inexperienced in truth ever adequately ( The Republic)
[B]
Confucius (c. 551 – c. 479 BCE)
But “I have no brothers”
Si Ma Niu, full of anxiety, said, "Other men all have their brothers, I only have not." Zi Xia said to him, "There is the following saying which I have heard - 'Death and life have their determined appointment; riches and honors depend upon Heaven.' Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety - then all within the four seas will be his brothers. What has the superior man to do with being distressed because he has no brothers?" ( Analects 12:5)
[C]
Jesus
Sin no more
John 8: 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
[D]
Gautama Buddha (c. 563 BCE or 480 BCE)
The mustard seed
During Buddha’s time, there lived a woman named Kisa Gotami. She married young and gave birth to a son. One day, the baby fell sick and died soon after. Kisa Gotami loved her son greatly and refused to believe that her son was dead. She carried the body of her son around her village, asking if there was anyone who can bring her son back to life.
The villagers all saw that the son was already dead and there was nothing that could be done. They advised her to accept his death and make arrangements for the funeral.
In great grief, she fell upon her knees and clutched her son’s body close to her body. She kept uttering for her son to wake up.
A village elder took pity on her and suggested to her to consult the Buddha.
“Kisa Gotami. We cannot help you. But you should go to the Buddha. Maybe he can bring your son back to life!”
She immediately went to the Buddha’s residence and pleaded for him to bring her son back to life.
“Kisa Gotami, I have a way to bring your son back to life.”
“My Lord, I will do anything to bring my son back”
“If that is the case, then I need you to find me something. Bring me a mustard seed but it must be taken from a house where no one residing in the house has ever lost a family member. Bring this seed back to me and your son will come back to life.”
Kisa Gotami went from house to house, trying to find the mustard seed.
At the first house, a young woman offered to give her some mustard seeds. But when Kisa Gotami asked if she had ever lost a family member to death, the young women said her grandmother died a few months ago.
She moved on to the 2nd house. A husband died a few years. The 3rd house lost an uncle and the 4th house lost an aunt. She kept moving from house to house but the answer was all the same – every house had lost a family member to death.
Kisa Gotami finally came to realise that there is no one in the world who had never lost a family member to death. She now understood that death is inevitable and a natural part of life.
Putting aside her grief, she buried her son in the forest. Shen then returned to the Buddha and became his follower.
[E]
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965)
Watch the film “The Lottery” (based on the short story, “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson) at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIm93Xuij7k (Part I)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMhV3fwx5Sg (Part II)
[F]
What is lacking in the existing education systems? Let’s see what a grandfather from Richmond, Canada had to say.
Dear Editor,
I try very hard not to walk this particular dark path, but there are times when I am overcome by a deep despair when I assess the kind of social, economic, and environmental legacies we will be leaving for my two grandsons.
They have come into a world which is rapidly becoming dangerously overcrowded, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening, rather than diminishing, where the health of the natural environment continues to be compromised and unchecked growth and industrialization is depleting our natural resources at a frightening rate, and where ideological, religious, political and cultural divisiveness and conflict continues unabated.
Their young minds are bombarded by media and cultural messages telling them that the obsessive accumulation of wealth and one’s capacity for conspicuous consumption are more important measuring sticks of a person’s character and worth to society than their capacities for empathy, sympathy, generosity, or compassion, and they are learning far too early that there might not be logical or justifiable reasons to believe that our political, business, or religious leaders are either trustworthy or altruistic, or are interested in attending to anything other than their own ambitions and needs.
My grandsons are experiencing a culture that is working hard at trying to convince itself that happiness and fulfillment can only be achieved through the use of miniature technological devices, binary-code applications, and/or the consumption of particular products.
And they are passing through narrowly focused education systems that have less to do with the promotion of learning than they do with social engineering and the actualization of the goals of particular political/social/religious ideologies.
It is impossible to imagine what skills my grandsons will need to develop in order to eventually secure a decent life for themselves or even survive in the world they will be living in — I only know that given the evidence of our refusal to dramatically alter our priorities and behaviours they will have to have a lot more adaptability, flexibility, perspicacity, and resilience than was and is the case for those generations that have come before them.
We obviously continue to evolve technologically, but I see the question of whether or not our moral and ethical evolutions have kept pace with our technological growth as being the more important issue. This is the legacy I think about as I watch my grandsons learn about the world around them.
It has everything to do with how they grow and behave as human beings and very little to do with how quickly they can type a message with their thumbs or accumulate wealth.
Ray Arnold
Richmond
Drug dealer ethics
One of my enlightened students:
“4 years ago I was making money from illegal activities. When I started I didn't have much money and thought that if I had money I would be happy. When I got money, I wasn't happy. Nothing made me happy at that time. I knew the consequences of my action, I have wrecked many people's lives and understand it now, more clearly. I was a selfish human being, with nothing to look forward to except more money. After I got arrested, I was still ignorant. They put me in a concrete cell with nothing but a bench, a toilet and toilet paper. It was far different from what I was used to. At night when I went to sleep, I had to use the toilet paper bundle as a pillow. It was very nerve wracking with no freedom. My life flashed past me, I wondered to myself... Where did I go wrong? I had a normal childhood, I had everything. Why did I do what I did? Then I came to the conclusion 'What did I do?' and felt shame. I was looking at myself as just an individual. I was only out there for myself. I did not know of the consequences and pain it would cause to others around me. I didn't care if I died back then. But if I died it would affect all the others around me... my mother, my father, my brother, and all those people who I called 'friends'. After that episode in my life I lost everything. My car, money, and people who I thought were 'friends' . I realized how vulnerable I was. I thought to myself compared to what I was then, I am nothing (now)... I now realize that I have myself, what I had before... without all of the materialistic stuff. At first I felt shame because I didn't have anything, but all that is beginning to change. [underlining added] I am looking for a new chapter in my life now. I feel as though I needed philosophy when I was younger. Then perhaps my life would have been different?”
Your student xxx.
Hello xxx,
..….deep in our heart we want to love and to be loved. If we can extend this heart into the ones around us (but no our family members) then, we can make a bit change in the environment we live. When one is loved, one sees his or her value. He or she builds up his/her confidence. He or she will more likely to love others. A French novelist once wrote (to the effect): To build one more school, then you can build one fewer prison. I appreciate your thoughts. They are really philosophical, and I can see they are from the depth of your heart. Good thinking. Puqun
A Contrast between a Drug Dealer’s ‘Ethic’ and a Law-abiding Taxpayer’s Ethic (from the above enlightened student; a title is added here for clarity)
This is their [tax payers’] case if they live and earn a living legitimately:
I work or operate my own business to make money.
I make money legitimately.
People have to pay a portion of their hard earned money in a form of taxes to the government.
The chance of getting rich legitimately is slim to nothing.
The majority of the people are not rich. Therefore, I will not be rich.
For criminals, this is their premise[s]:
I work or operate my own business to make money.
I make money illegally.
I don’t have to pay a portion of my hard earned money to the government.
The chance of getting rich illegally can be done.
I am not obeying the rules of authority which restrict me from getting rich. Therefore, I can get rich.
