I believe there is a great parallel between the cave and spectators in a cinema. However, some are less meaningful than others. For example, we sit in a theater with our eyes trained forward on the screen, just like how the prisoners are sitting facing forward watching shadows. The only difference in this situation is that most cinema goers are not heavily restrained and being held against their will. Physical parallels aside, there are many connections between a person in a cinema and the prisoners in the cave. Both parties are watching an artificial image. Almost everything we watch nowadays is dramaticized indefinitely. Nothing is really what it is, which is exactly what gives media it’s entertainment quality. We like to think that we can keep media separate from reality, but as technolgy becomes more and more integrated in our everyday lives, our line between fiction and reality can be altered. Plato’s cave prisioners are in a slightly different situation. They have lost any idea of reality. They have lost the ability to differentiate between what is real and what isn’t. All they know is the wall they’ve been staring at for who knows how long. I believe this can be seen in our society today. We are constantly subjected to what people want us to think reality is, but how are we to know for certain if our own eyes are decieving us? We have become so accustomed to things being the way they are in our heads that we dismiss anything even remotely out of the ordinary. This is exactly what has happened in the cave.
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