Allegory

Thought of the day: Has America become the existential model of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave?

We have smart phones and video games, restaurant and grocery delivery, broadband and Amazon, 24 hour sports and news, iPads and iPods, Satellite TV and Radio, the Biebs and Miley, Twitter and Facebook. What incentive does the average American have to get out of the house?

Why form your own opinions when Bill O’Reilly, Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough can tell you how to think?

Oh how the times have changed since the 60’s when people took to the streets to stop racism, to stop mountain-top removal and forest clear-cutting, to stop a war. We lament the loss of will when it comes to activism. Is there a correlation between the aforementioned distractions and this loss of will?

Indeed we do. One only needs to look at the Arab Spring and the developing world to see true change is possible (for better or worse). When people in the developing world get truly angry the hit the streets and don’t leave. Then American version of this is the one-hour protest and the letter to the editor. The we pick up the dry cleaning and head out to happy hour. Our motives may be pure, but our will is weak when it come to showing up and sticking it out for the long haul.

Until Americans put down the remote control, unplug the PC and turn off the smart phone. Until we get outside in the streets and in the halls of government. Until we see what’s going on. Until we ascertain the true meaning of things, we are all the very model of that prisoner in a cave that Plato was talking about, watching shadows on the wall, and drinking the Koolaid of partisan ideology.

Better duck, it’s time for Link to set off the EMP and wipe out the machine world. I’d fix it myself, but I’m not THE ONE. I’m just the 37th Most Interesting Ginger in the World.