The Cave

Philosophy just wouldn’t be philosophy without Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.  Plato asks that we imagine a cave where people are trapped in seats, unable to turn from side to side, and only able to see the wall in front of them.  Behind them is a fire and between the fire and the people are puppets, that cast a parade of shadows on the wall.  All that can be seen, all that has ever been seen, by these people are the shadows and the shadows become their reality.

Lo and behold, someone escapes from the cave and finds their way into the light of outdoors, discovering the world as it really is.  That same person returns to share with the others the truth that lies outside the cave.  However, that person’s message is unwelcome.  Not only don’t the others want to hear the news, they’re ready to kill the messenger.

The first half-dozen times I heard this story, I didn’t get it.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how frighteningly important the allegory really is.  In this era of modern media, we are constantly bombarded by shadows on the wall and we are quick to make those shadows our reality.

As someone who occasionally teaches Intro to Philosophy, I have tried to figure out how best to teach this allegory in a meaningful way.  Having recently read Salem’s Lot, It, and 11/22/1963, I have decided that the next time I teach Plato’s allegory, I will teach it as a horror story, ala Stephen King.

Imagine a group of people trapped in a dark chamber, strapped to their chairs, and unable to look left or right. They must look forward, compelled to watch a giant T.V. screen. Twenty-four-hours-a-day, day in and day out, all that they see is an endless stream of Hallmark Christmas movies.  For them, this is their reality. They believe in a world where everyone has straight white teeth and perfect hair, a world where every love story has a happy ending, and a world where it always snows on Christmas Eve.

Behind these people sit the puppeteers, conspirators who write a thousand variations of the same plot.  They scheme day and night to profit from the mind-numbing, feel-good world that they peddle.

Lo and behold, our protagonist escapes from the room, and ventures into the world seeing it for what it really is.  Freed from the illusions of a perfect world and white Christmases, our protagonist feels a duty to tell the others, and so returns to the chamber.

“Listen, not everyone has straight white teeth and a beautiful head of hair. Not every love story has a happy ending.  Not all Christmases are white and some people don’t even celebrate Christmas. Come, see for yourselves.”

The room fills with a collective gasp.  Hearing their plot exposed, the puppeteers gape in horror. Not wanting their movie interrupted, those strapped to their chairs react with vengeful rage.

Then someone realizes that they are not really trapped in their seats.  They can get up and move about whenever they choose.  One by one they do so. Together in common purpose they surround our well-intentioned, but now helpless, protagonist. They proceed to bludgeon this messenger of ill tidings with Christmas ornaments . . . and then they return to their seats to continue watching the movie.

Thank you, Stephen King.

Fossils

Approximately 45-minutes outside of Colorado Springs, on the opposite side of Pikes Peak, is the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.  There, imbedded in layers of shale are the fossil remnants of over 1700 species of plants and animals that lived 35-million years ago.

Sue and I visited Florissant during a recent trip to Colorado.  We wandered through the remains of a petrified forest and then went to a local fossil quarry, where for a small fee we were provided tools and allowed to rummage through piles of rock in search of hidden fossils. Some of the ones we found, now sit on my desk.

I became interested in fossils, not from my trips to Colorado, but during the years when I lived in Manhattan, Kansas. About ½-mile from my home was a roadcut, exposing layers of limestone. My kids and I would ride our bikes to that part of the road and search through the debris on the ground looking for fossils.  We had to be careful to avoid shards of glass, fragments of broken bottles tossed from passing cars and trucks, a reminder of human thoughtlessness. Usually, we would ride home, our pockets stuffed with prehistoric treasures.

The fossils we found had fallen from a layer of limestone located about 6-feet above the road.  That one layer was composed of mostly clams and brachiopods.  It was formed at a time when waters receded, and calcified shells became permanently imbedded within the drying mud.

Manhattan is located in the northern portion of the Flint Hills. There, the rocks are not shale, but limestone and chert.  The rocks are not 35-million years old, but 250-million years old.  The Eocene epoch, 35-million years ago, was well after the time of the dinosaurs, when mammals were beginning to dominate the land.  The Permian period, 250-million years ago, was long before the dinosaurs, a time when large portions of Kansas were under water.

Cumulatively, the earth’s fossil record tells the story of great cycles of life.  First, there is a blossoming of diverse species, followed by a mass extinction, followed by a new blossoming of life.  Five times there have been mass extinctions.  The best known one heralded the end of the age of dinosaurs.  But the most complete of the great extinctions, the Permian extinction, occurred 150-million years earlier.  The Permian period was characterized by an abundant and diverse sea life.  It ended, for reasons that are unknown, when 90 percent of all existing species ceased to be.

Most naturalists and ecologists agree that we are living during the time of a sixth mass extinction.  The cause of this one is well known, and it is us. But our fossil history tells us that life on earth, as it has before, will continue and after this extinction will come a new flowering of life.  Maybe it will happen, 250-million years hence, there will be a creature, as unimaginable to me as I to the dinosaur, that will uncover my fossilized bones and wonder, “What manner of beast was this?”

Fossils put the world into a perspective measured in millions of years, whereas our lives are but a brief moment.  And yet, now matters to me for my children and my grandchildren. If there is still time to change, I hope they will not be party to a great dying, but part of a great flowering.

Trump's Presidential Library

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” (Donald J. Trump, 45^th president of the United States)

Now that midterm elections are over, it would be a good time for Trump to retire from politics and begin planning for the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library. Unlike most libraries, it will contain very few books, but there will need to be room for lots of papers scattered about, some marked ‘TOP SECRET’, some marked ‘golf scorecard’.

One wing of the library should be dedicated to all things News. There should be a ‘really beautiful news’ exhibit, brought to you by FOX News, featuring informative rants from Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. There should be an exhibit of ‘fake news’, showing all the news clips trying to convince us of the seriousness of Covid and of the impending disaster fake scientists call global warming.  The news wing of the library will also need a link to current news, specifically the Courtroom Channel, to keep visitors apprised of the latest charges and suits that continue to plague this most unjustly persecuted ex-president.

Like the Lincoln library in Springfield, Illinois there should be a holographic display of President Trump, perhaps sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. There, we could watch a parade of Trump hirings file in to see the president: Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Anthony Scaramucci, John Bolten.  We could watch and listen as President Trump informs them with the words that made him a legend, “You're Fired!”

The library should have a gallery honoring all of the brave and heroic public servants that made President Trump a possibility.  It must include busts of Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and so many more.  At the end of the hall should be a life-size tribute to President Trump’s second-in-command, his right-hand man, Mike “hang-‘em-high” Pence.

The library should include activities for kids. I suggest encouraging them to play the Nickname Game.  President Trump was very good at creating inventive nicknames.  Who can forget “Little Marco”, “Crooked Hillary”, “Crazy Bernie”, “Sleepy Joe”, and of course “Pocahontas”?  Personally, my favorite is the recent “Ron DeSanctimonious”.  Yes kids, here’s your chance to be presidential.  See what creative nicknames you can invent.

Restrooms will need to be designed carefully and include spaces for Men, Women, and Documents.  Signs will be posted, “Remember to flush”.

Of course, any visit to a presidential library must include a visit to the gift shop.  Shop for all your MAGA apparel. For your next party you might want a game of pin-the-tail on the RINOs.  You could add a Marjorie Taylor Green or Lauren Boebert bobble head doll to your collection.  What young white boy wouldn’t love to own a Proud Boy’s action figure doll, complete with body armor and assault rifle.  And for those grown-ups worn out from their long day at the library, they can purchase their own My Pillow.

On your way out, don’t forget to grab a complimentary cup of Kool-Aid.  Just be careful what you drink.