There certainly is a part that has to do with justice in the Simile of the Cave when a man comes to free the prisoners. When the prisoners see the man for the first time in their life, they kill him. Why? The prisoners seemed scared and uncertain about whom the man was. Also, they were indubitably bringing punishment against the man because they were chained up from birth and they thought the man was the person who chained them up. They acted out of instinct because the first thing in their minds was: “ I’m scared. Attack.”
So what is justice in the story? Judgment. There was no justice. The law was: human instinct and intelligence. Justice was made to keep thing s under control. However, they didn’t have justice in the story, so the prisoners had to rely on their judgment of right and wrong. The prisoners were not limited to do certain things. They didn’t know the laws and they didn’t have laws like we have today which give them a right to know.
In the story justice is viewed in another way. Justice is viewed as common sense. The shadow puppets were the only thing s the prisoners saw when they first opened their eyes and they judged the shadow puppets as reality and the truth. They had been chained up and forced to see that reality is truly justice because everyone is alright with the world if there is no war. This type of justice might be a true path to peace. So in the end, justice exists because the prisoners find the truth and find reality. The prisoners had been fooled their entire lives and acted on inaccurate judgment and they found the reality of truth indubitably at the end. So what justice is in the story is that there is no justice. The law was: human instinct and intelligence.
1 comment:
In response to the comment you left on my blog:
I wanted to tell you this in class, but I forgots >.< Although you seemed to have meant it more as a metaphor, a lot of people (like me) seemed to have taken your ant analogy in a more literal sense. I think that, in turn raised a rather interesting question:
Is it right to kill animals other than humans (Especially when it is not for survival?) At what point does it stop being "Removing an annoyance" and starts becoming animal cruelty, or something of the sort?
It also sort of brings me back to the point I made during the seminar, my little connection to Dinotopia, and how they do not harm each other, ever. Even the species of dinosaur that are natural carnivores learn to become vegetarians. Even in The code of Dinotopia, the first rule is "Survival of all or none"
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