Psychic Prisons

I’m in no way a student of The Classics. I regret to report that my formal, “classical,” general education has been woefully inadequate. So, when I now (presume to) speak about Plato’s Republic, and “The Allegory of the Cave,” well, you’re going to need to take what I have to say with not only a grain of salt, but maybe an entire wheelbarrow full!

I was browsing Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization (1986, my copy of the first edition) today, still (always!) trying to make some sense of my world. (You know me: I can’t seem to shut off my mind!) In the chapter that examines the metaphor of “organizations as psychic prisons,” the discussion begins with a description of Plato’s cave allegory.

The Wikipedia summary of the allegory (copied, pasted, edited) goes thusly:

From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.

Imagine prisoners who have been chained since childhood deep inside a cave. Their limbs are immobilized, and their heads are fixed as well, so that the only thing they can see is the cave wall. Behind them is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walkway, along which men carry From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.shapes of various animals, plants, and other things. The shapes cast shadows on the wall, which occupy the prisoners’ attention. Also, when one of the shape-carriers speaks, an echo against the wall causes the prisoners to believe that the words come from the shadows. The prisoners engage in what appears to us to be a game — naming the shapes as they come by. This is sum total of their life: the only reality they know.

Now, suppose a prisoner is released and is able to stand up and turn around. At first, his eyes will be blinded by the firelight, and the shapes passing will appear less real than their shadows. Then, if he is dragged up out of the cave into the sunlight, his eyes will be so blinded that he will not be able to see anything. Gradually he will be able to see darker shapes such as shadows, and only later brighter and brighter objects. The last object he would be able to see is the sun, which, in time, he would learn to see as that object which provides the seasons and the courses of the year, presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all these things that he has seen.

I’m wondering if this allegory may be the source of the term “thinking outside the box” – for certainly the freed prisoner is absolutely forced to “think outside the cave” when confronted with a world so dramatically removed from his prior experience. What a total shock to the system to be freed, leave the cave, and discover what’s there to be found!

Is there a modern-day equivalent to the cave? Could our families, workplaces, and/or significant relationships ever be considered versions of the cave? Is it possible we are (or can become) so myopic in terms of how we view the world that we think the shadows on the wall are “reality”?

And, what if we removed ourselves, even for a little while, from the warm cocoon that is our family, job, or relationship, and took a look around at the rest of the world? What would be our experience? Would it be similar to the freed prisoner, who, if he ever went back to the cave, would undoubtedly have significant problems trying to communicate his experience “outside” to the others still imprisoned there? How would it be possible for “the enlightened one” to share his knowledge? What resistance would be met? What ridicule and contempt would he experience for, saying out loud, his newly-acquired version of reality? How could he ever function in the “old way” (seeing and naming the shadows), when he knows “truth”? And, how could the prisoners ever accept an entirely new perspective without the external experience themselves? Wouldn’t this type of new information, so different from their own, be viewed as a tremendous threat?

Aren’t we, everyday of our lives, trapped in the illusion that our experience is “real” – and the only thing? Aren’t we convinced that this is “the way the world works?” Aren’t we, more often than not, content to remain in the dark – neither risking exposure to alternate ways of thinking nor seeking new experiences? In what ways do we all have the tendency to be(come) psychic prisoners, trapped in a reality that gives us a totally skewed understanding of the universe?

[See Morgan, 1986, p. 200, for the discussion that was my inspiration for these questions.]

Soundtrack Suggestion

Chains, my baby’s got me locked up in chains.
And they ain’t the kind that you can see.
Whoa, oh, these chains of love got a hold on me, yeah.

Chains, well I can’t break away from these chains.
Can’t run around, ‘cause I’m not free.
Whoa, oh, these chains of love won’t let me be, yeah.

I wanna tell you, pretty baby,
I think you’re fine.
I’d like to love you,
But, darlin’, I’m imprisoned by these...

Chains, my baby’s got me locked up in chains,
And they ain’t the kind that you can see,
Oh, oh, these chains of love got a hold on me.

(“Chains” - Carole King)