Andy Howe
Stasis: Is the cave a noble lie?
11/2/03
Is ‘the cave’ a noble lie? Well that depends on many different factors. In the polis the cave is a noble lie, but in present reality, the cave is a scam. The determining factors defining the line between being something noble and a nasty scam depend on the ruling class of the society.
The people in the Polis are being taught to value publicity, moderation, courage, equality, and personal greatness wielded for the gain of the city as a whole. In the interpretive essay, Allen Bloom points out, “friends in the city have all things in common-including women and children-for this total lack of privacy means that man cannot have a life of his own. Therefore a man’s soul must be satisfied by the community or not be satisfied at all… Socrates proceeds to try to make public or common everything that remains private… abolition of private property but also the sharing of women and children…” (Interpretive essay, 379, 380) It is evident here that in the Polis, Socrates is planning to make all things public to the point where people share women and children. This eliminates jealousy and having people feel their duty more towards their family than towards the city. By having everyone’s focus on the city, making them dependent on it, love it, putting their duty towards the city. Once everything in city becomes public less shame is produced through things that are usually private, such as nakedness.
The people in the Polis are also taught to believe in equality, quoting Socrates “one nature must practice one thing and a different nature must practice a different thing, and that women and men are different. But at present we are asserting that different natures must practice the same things.” (453 e) Meaning that even though men and women are not entirely equal in reality, the population must be taught in their education that they are because then women would serve as a weakness in the men’s efforts to protect them. The people must work together and the differences of men and women should not be acknowledged, also being achieved by making everything public. On the public note, moderation is also dealt out by lowering the sexual desires by making it common to witness the nakedness of the opposite sex.
With respect to the Polis; the cave is a noble lie. This can be rationalized through the rule of philosophers in the ideal aristocracy. By creating the cave, which is entirely unnatural, forces humans to function together in harmony and their beliefs and values support this success of the city as a whole.
A lie in this fashion and extent is collectively believed and proven through history that this does not happen. The Polis is the ideal, but as we all know; the ideal cannot be met, although one can get close. Somewhere on the spectrum falls the reality of our society, where people instead of valuing the good of the city as a whole, we value self-achievements and personal gain. Instead of working together as a team to produce necessities and pleasures for each other and to love the city instead of privacy which eliminates competition or converts those energies into positive efforts, we compete with each other for many things; largely dealing with material goods.
Instead of leading the life of harmony and lucidity, people live the life privacy and ignorance. People will commit countless injustices in order to accumulate wealth or to achieve the upper hand on almost everything. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd can be quoted, “You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed…
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking.
And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye, and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You'll get the chance to put the knife in.
You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older
And in the end you'll pack up, fly down south
Hide your head in the sand
Just another sad old man
All alone and dying of cancer.
And when you loose control, you'll reap the harvest that you've sown
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it's too late to loose the weight you used to need to throw around
So have a good drown, as you go down, alone…
I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused
Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used
Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?
Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending…
And you believe at heart, everyone's a killer.
Who was born in a house full of pain
Who was trained not to spit in the fan
Who was told what to do by the man
Who was broken by trained personnel
Who was fitted with collar and chain
Who was given a pat on the back
Who was breaking away from the pack” (Pink Floyd, “Dogs”)

Roger Waters (songwriter and bassist for Pink Floyd) has philosophized about what cave we are born into and how it is evil in the ways of injustices. Waters describes our society as a battlefield where the strategy is taking advantage and deceiving. “You gotta sleep on your toes… You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed… You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking…” saying that in order to succeed in our cave of society, one must do these injustices without being caught. This is followed by “…you can work on points for style… like the club tie, and the firm handshake…” alluding to after having mastered the earlier, more necessary/dirty work, skills; one can work on the trust and nobility of his or hers reputation, “You have to be trusted by the people who you lie to.”
Practicing the “seemingly” skill of casting the illusion of being something without actually being it, by backstabbing them when they turn on you. The song goes on to explain how lives are lead by always looking out for what you have and protecting it from intruders, and how to win in this battle you have to play the ‘game.’ Where you lie and deceive, and then once you have succeeded; you go south and rot like every other old person and no one will care about you anymore because you cannot help them accumulate more wealth anymore. While you’re in this time, you begin to realize that all your old friends were not actual friends and that you could have possibly just been another resource for them, which can be backed up by Waters, “I gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused. Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used. Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise. If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze? Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending…” where he also adds in the part of denial about one’s life of falsehood and that they need to keep on pretending to escape the pains of their realization.
Achieved through this realization, of which the last part of “Dogs,” is about says that one who is going through these realizations will reflect how they were born into this world of chaos and how they were brought up to believe, do, and be rewarded for doing injustices which produce profits only for money-loving individuals. His or hers nature for anything else has been molded towards personal gain by the propaganda army and all of the evils of our society today. These things are evident when Waters says, “who was told by the man, who was broken by trained personnel, who was fitted with collar and chain, who was given a pat on the back, who was breaking away from the pack.”
All of this competition for personal gain and selfishness has been created by the capitalistic views of the American government. Which was created as a lie, which is and has never been ‘noble.’ This life style has been chosen by the ruling class, who in fact are not philosophers unlike those who rule in the Polis, because it distracts the attention of the population away from the injustices and scams of the government, to things like competition for money and social views on topics such as fashion; which in reality should not have very much significance at all.
Thus, its is very evident that in the Polis, the cave is created as a noble lie, whereas in the reality of our current day society, it is created in the efforts of a scam. The rulers of the Polis are philosophers and are always thinking for the good of the population as a whole and never of just themselves, contrary to the selfish rulers of or current government and reality.






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