The HBS hosts consider the merits and demerits of the red pill/blue pill option.
The Allegory of the Cave (a section from Plato’s longer dialogue entitled Republic) is one of the most famous and widely referenced passages of any of Plato’s texts. Many, even those who are not “professional” philosophers, are at least noddingly familiar with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Yet, those who have never had the opportunity to read it may wonder: what does Plato actually say in the Allegory of the Cave? What are the details? Which ones of them matter? Is there a right or wrong way to understand this allegory?
This week, the HBS hosts are taking a long stroll through the text of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, parsing what is actually said within it, and taking time to entertain diversions into its contemporary reformulations (e.g., in films like The Matrix and They Live).
Should we all be motivated to exit the “cave,” despite the pain involved in doing so? Or, alternatively, is there a way to justify choosing to remain in the cave?
In this episode, we discuss the following thinkers/ideas/texts/etc.:
- Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips
- Our previous HBS episode discussing Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, Section 13 in Episode 51: Moral Subjectivity
- Full text of Plato’s Republic (from The Internet Classics Archive)
- Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (2002)
- The Matrix franchise (Films, 1999, 2003, 2003, 2021)
- Our previous HBS Episode 82: Materialism
- Urban dictionary definition of “red pilled”
- They Live (Film, 1988)
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