Survival

"I don't even really KNOW -- What You're TALKING About....!!

I mean, I KNOW, What You're Talking About -- but I don't REALLY know 

What You're Talking About...!"

Wally Shawn :

“Well, uh... do you want to know my actual response to all this? 

Do you want to hear my actual response?”

Andre :

Yes! 

Wally Shawn :

See, my actual response, I mean... 

I mean, I'm just trying to Survive, you know? 

I mean, I'm just trying to earn a Living... 

just trying to Pay My Rent and My Bills. 

I mean... Ah, I Live My Life. 

I enjoy staying home with Debby. 

I'm reading Charlton Heston's autobiography. 

And that's that. 

I mean, you know, I mean, occasionally, maybe... 

Debby and I will step outside, 

we'll go to a party or something. 

And if I can occasionally 

get my little Talent together 

and write a little play... 

well, then that's just wonderful. 

And I mean, I enjoy reading 

about other little plays people have written,

and reading the reviews of those plays 

and what people said about them... 

and what people said about 

what people said. 

And I mean, I have a list of errands and responsibilities

that I keep in a notebook. I enjoy going through the notebook... 

carrying out the responsibilities, doing the errands,

and crossing them off The List. 

And, I mean, I just don't know how anybody 

could enjoy anything more than I enjoy, 

reading Charlton Heston's autobiography,

or, you know, getting up in the morning... 

and having the cup of cold coffee 

that's been waiting for me all night,

still there for me to drink in the morning... 

and no cockroach or fly has died in it overnight. 

I mean, I'm just so thrilled when I get up... 

and I see that coffee there, 

just the way I wanted it. 

I mean, I just can't imagine.. 

How anybody could enjoy something else 

any more than that. 

I mean, obviously, if the cockroach, 

if there is a dead cockroach in it... 

well, then I just have a feeling 

of disappointment, and I'm sad. 

But I mean, I just don't think... 

I feel the need for anything more than all this. 

Whereas, you know, you seem to be saying... 

that, uh... it's inconceivable that anybody 

could be having a meaningful life today... 

and, you know, everyone is totally destroyed... 

and we all need to live in these outposts. 

But I mean, you know, I just can't believe, even for you... 

I mean, don't you find, isn't it pleasant just to get up in the morning... and there's Chiquita, there are the children.... and The Times is delivered, you can read it. I mean, maybe you'll direct a play, maybe you won't direct a play. 

But forget about the play that 

you may or may not direct. 

Why is it necessary to, why not lean back 

and just enjoy these details? 

I mean, and there'd be a delicious 

cup of coffee and a piece of coffeecake. 

I mean, why is it necessary 

to have more than this... 

or to even think about 

having more than this? 

I mean, I don't really know what you're talking about. 

I mean, I know what you're talking about... 

but I don't really know what you're talking about. 

And I mean, you know, even if 

I were to totally agree with you, you know,

and even if I were to accept the idea 

that there's just no way for anybody 

to have personal happiness now... 

well, you know, I still couldn't accept the idea... 

that the way to make life wonderful would be to just totally... 

you know, reject Western civilization... 

and fall back into some kind of belief 

in some kind of weird something. 

I mean, I don't even know 

how to begin talking about this...

 but you know, in the Middle Ages... 

before the arrival of scientific thinking as we know it today... 

well, people could believe anything. 

Anything could be True, 

The statue of the Virgin Mary

could speak or bleed or whatever it was. 

But the wonderful thing that happened

was that then in The Development 

of Science in The Western World

certain things did come slowly 

to be known and understood. 

I mean, you know... obviously, 

all ideas in Science are constantly 

being revised. 

I mean, that's The Whole Point. 

But we do at least know that 

The Universe has some shape and order... 

and that, you know, 

Trees do not turn into 

People or Goddesses... 

and there are very good 

reasons why they don't... 

and you can't just believe 

absolutely anything. 

Whereas, the things that you're talking about... 

I mean, I mean, You found the handprint in the book, 

and there were Three "André"s 

and one Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 

And to me, that is 

a coincidence. 

But, and, and then, you know, 

the people who put that book together... 

well, they had their own 

reasons for putting it together. 

But to you it was significant, 

as if that book had been written 

40 years ago, so that you would see it, 

as if it was planned 

for you, in a way. 

I mean, really, I mean... 

I mean, all right, let's say, 

if I get a fortune cookie 

in a Chinese restaurant... 

I mean, of course, 

even I have a tendency. 

I mean, you know, I mean, of course, 

I would hardly throw it out. 

I mean, I read it. I read it, and, and... 

I just instinctively sort of, you know, 

if it says something like, uh... 

"A conversation 

with a dark-haired man 

will be very important for you" 

Well, I just instinctively think, you know, 

"Who do I know who has dark hair?" 

"Did we have a conversation?" 

"What did we talk about?" 

In other words, there's something 

in me that makes me read it 

and I instinctively interpret it 

as if it were an omen 

of The Future. 

But in my conscious opinion, 

which is so fundamental to 

my whole view of life... 

I mean, I would just have to change totally 

to not have this opinion. 

In my conscious opinion, 

this is simply something... that was 

written in the cookie factory

several years ago and 

in no way refers to me. 

I mean, you know, the, 

the fact that I got it. 

I mean, the man who wrote it 

did not know anything about me. 

I mean, he could not have known 

anything about me. 

There's no way that this cookie 

could actually have to do with me. 

And the fact that I've gotten it 

is just basically a joke. 

And I mean, if I were gonna go on a trip on an airplane... and I got a fortune cookie that said "Don't go!" I mean, of course, I admit I might feel a bit nervous for about one second. But in fact, I would go because, I mean... that trip is gonna be successful or unsuccessful... based on the state of the airplane and the state of the pilot. 

And the cookie is in no position to know about that. 

And I mean, you know, it's the same 

with any kind of, prophecy, 

or a sign, or an omen. 

Because if you believe in omens then 

that means that The Universe... I mean, I don't even know how to begin to describe this. That means that the future is somehow sending messages... backwards to the present. Which, which means that the future must exist in some sense already... in order to be able to send these messages. And it also means that things in the universe are there for a purpose... to give us messages. Whereas I think that things in the universe are just there. I mean, they don't mean anything. I mean, you know, if the turtle's egg falls out of the tree and splashes on the paving stones... it's just because that turtle was clumsy by accident. And, and to decide whether to send my ships off to war on the basis of that... seems a big mistake to me. Well, what information would you send your ships to war on? Because if it's all meaningless... what's the difference whether you accept the fortune cookie... or the statistics of the Ford Foundation? It doesn't seem to matter. Well, the meaningless fact of the fortune cookie or the turtles egg... can't possibly have any relevance to the subject you're analyzing. Whereas a group of meaningless facts that are collected and interpreted... in a scientific way may quite possibly be relevant. Because the wonderful thing about scientific theories about things... is that they're based on experiments that can be repeated. 

Well, it's True, Wally. 

I mean, you know, 

following omens and so on... 

İs probably just a way of letting ourselves off the hook so that 

we don't have to take individual responsibility for our own actions. 

But I mean, giving yourself over to The Unconscious can leave you vulnerable to all sorts of very frightening manipulation. 

And in all the work that I was involved in, 

there was always that danger. 

And there was always that question of tampering with people's lives,

because if I lead one of these workshops, 

then I do become partly a doctor

and partly a therapist, 

and partly a priest. 

And I'm not a doctor, 

or a therapist or a priest. 

And already some of these new monasteries, or communities 

or whatever we've been talking about are becoming institutionalized... 

and  I guess even in a way, 

at times, sort of fascistic. 

You know, there's a sort of self-satisfied elitist paranoia that grows up... a feeling of "Them" and "Us" that is very unsettling. 

But I mean, the thing is, Wally, 

I think it's the exaggerated worship of science that has led us into this situation. 

I mean, science has been held up to us as a magical force 

that would somehow solve everything. 

Well, quite the contrary. 

It's done quite the contrary. 

It's destroyed everything. 

So that is what has really led, I think to this very strong, deep reaction against Science that we're seeing now, just as the Nazi demons that were released in the '30s in Germany 

were probably a reaction against a certain oppressive kind of knowledge and culture and rational thinking. 

Sol agree that we're talking about something 

potentially very dangerous. 

But modern science has not been 

particularly less dangerous. 

Right. Well, I agree with you. I completely agree. No, you know, the truth is... I think I do know what really disturbs me about the work you've described... and I don't even know if I can express it. But somehow it seems that the whole point of the work that you did in those workshops... when you get right down to it and you ask what was it really about... The whole point, really, I think... was to enable the people in the workshops, including yourself... to somehow sort of strip away every scrap of purposefulness... from certain selected moments. And the point of it was so that you would then all be able to experience... somehow just pure being. In other words, you were trying to discover what it would be like to live for certain moments... without having any particular thing that you were supposed to be doing. And I think I just simply object to that. I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea that there should be moments... in which you're not trying to do anything. I think, it's our nature, to do things. I think we should do things. I think that, purposefulness... is part of our ineradicable basic human structure. And to say that we ought to be able to live without it... is like saying that, a tree ought to be able to live without branches or roots. 

But, but actually, without branches or roots, it wouldn't be a tree. I mean, it would just be a log. Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, in other words, if 

I'm sitting at home and I have nothing to do... well, I naturally reach for a book. I mean, what would be so great about just sitting there and, doing nothing? It just seems absurd. 

And if Debby is there? Well, that's just the same thing. I mean, is there really such a thing as, uh... two people doing nothing but just being together? I mean, would they simply then... be, "relating," to use the word we're always using? I mean, what would that mean? I mean, either we're gonna have a conversation... or we're going to, carry out the garbage... or we're going to do something, separately or together. I mean, do you see what I'm saying? I mean, what does it mean to just, simply, sit there? That makes you nervous. Well, why shouldn't it make me nervous? It just seems ridiculous to me. That's interesting, Wally. You know, when I went to Ladakh in western Tibet and stayed on a farm for a month... well, there, you know, when people come over in the evening for tea, nobody says anything. Unless there's something to say, but there almost never is. So they just sit there and drink their tea, and it doesn't seem to bother them. I mean, you see, the trouble, Wally, with always being active and doing things... is that I think it's quite possible to do all sorts of things... and at the same time be completely dead inside. I mean, you're doing all these things, but are you doing them... because you really feel an impulse to do them... or are you doing them mechanically, as we were saying before? Because I really do believe that if you're just living mechanically... then you have to change your life. I mean, you know, when you're young, you go out on dates all the time. You go dancing or something. You're floating free. And then one day suddenly you find yourself in a relationship... and suddenly everything freezes. And this can be true in your work as well. And I mean, of course, if you're really alive inside... then of course there's no problem. I mean, if you're living with somebody in one little room... and there's a life going on between you and the person you're living with... well, then a whole adventure can be going on right in that room. But there's always the danger that things can go dead. Then I really do think you have to kind of become a hobo or something, you know... like Kerouac, and go out on the road. I really believe that. You know, it's not that wonderful to spend your life on the road. My own overwhelming preference is to stay in that room if you can. But you know, if you live with somebody for a long time, people are constantly saying... "Well, of course it's not as great as it used to be, but that's only natural. The first blush of a romance goes, and that's the way it has to be." Now, I totally disagree with that. But I do think that you have to constantly ask yourself the question, with total frankness: "Is your marriage still a marriage?" "Is the sacramental element there?" Just as you have to ask about the sacramental element in your work... "Is it still there?" 

I mean, it's a very frightening thing, Wally, to have to suddenly realize

that, my God, I thought I was living my life, but in fact I haven't been a human being. 

I've been a performer. I haven't been living. I've been acting.

I've, I've acted the role of the father. 

I've acted the role of the husband. 

I've acted the role of the friend. 

I've acted the role of the writer, or director, or what have you.

 I've lived in the same room with this person, 

but I haven't really seen them. 

I haven't really heard them. 

I haven't really been with them. 

Yeah, I know some people are just sometimes... uh, existing just side by side. I mean, the other person's, face could just turn into a great wolf's face... and, it just wouldn't be noticed. 

And it wouldn't be noticed, no. 

It wouldn't be noticed. 

I mean, when I was in Israel a little while ago... 

I mean, I have this picture of Chiquita 

that was taken when she... 

I always carry it with me. 

It was taken when she was about 26 or something. 

And it's in summer, and she's stretched out on a terrace

in this sort of old-fashioned long skirt that's kind of pulled up. 

And she's slim and sensual and beautiful. 

And I've always looked at that picture 

and just thought about just how sexy she looks. 

And then last year in Israel, I looked at the picture... 

and I realized that that face in the picture 

was the saddest face in the world. 

That girl at that time was just lost... 

so sad and so alone. 

I've been carrying this picture for years 

and not ever really seeing what it is, you know. 

I just never really looked at the picture. 

And then, at a certain point, I realised 

I'd just gone for a good 18 years unable to feel

except in the most extreme situations. 

I mean, to some extent, 

I still had the ability to live in my work. 

That was why I was such a work junkie. 

That was why I felt that every play that I did 

was a matter of my life or my death. 

But in my real life, I was dead. 

I was a robot. 

I mean, I didn't even allow myself 

to get angry or annoyed. 

I mean, you know, today Chiquita, Nicolas, Marina... 

All day long, as people do, 

they do things that annoy me 

and they say things that annoy me. 

And today I get annoyed. 

And they say, 

"Why are you annoyed?" 

And I say, 

"Because you're annoying." you know. 

And when I allowed myself to consider the possibility

of not spending the rest of my life with Chiquita... 

I realized that what I wanted most in life 

was to always be with her. 

But at that time, I hadn't learned 

what it would be like to let yourself 

react to another human being. 

And if you can't react to Another Person,

then there's no possibility of action or interaction. 

And if there isn't, I don't really know what the word "Love" means

except Duty, Obligation, Sentimentality, Fear. 

I mean... I don't know about you, Wally, but I... 

I just had to put myself 

into 

a kind of training program 

to learn 

How to Be A Human Being. 

I mean, How Did I Feel 

About Anything? 

I Didn't Know. 

What kind of things did I like? 

What kind of people did I really want to be with? You know? 

And the only way that I could think of 

to find out was to just cut out all the noise 

and stop performing all the time 

and just listen to what was inside me. 

See, I think a time comes 

when you need to do that. 

Now, maybe in order to do it, you have to go to the Sahara... and maybe you can do it at home. But you need to cut out the noise. Yeah. Of course, personally, I, I just... I usually don't like those quiet moments, you know. I really don't. I mean, I don't know if it's that, Freudian thing or what... But, you know, the fear of unconscious impulses... or my own aggression or whatever, but... if things get too quiet, and I find myself just, sitting there... you know, as we were saying before... 

I mean, whether I'm by myself, or, or I'm, I'm with someone else... 

I just, I just have this feeling of... my God, I'm going to be revealed. In other words, I'm adequate to do any sort of a task... but I'm not adequate, just to, to be a human being. I mean, in other words, I'm not... If l'm just, trapped there and I'm not allowed to do things... but all I can do is just, be there... well, I'll just fail

The Reasons are Two

Q : 

Is there a principle reason why 

I should delete my Social Media -- and if so, What is it?

A :

There are Two -

One of them is for 

Your Own Good

And The Other is for 

Society's Good.

Jaron Lanier, the Silicone Valley ‘computer philosopher', thinks social media is ruining your life.

In this interview Jaron Lanier talks about Facebook, YouTube, Google and how the tech and social media giants are using algorithms to record data about their users - and how internet algorithms shape how we see The World and what we’re shown online.

Superman talks to Jor-El 

Superman (3 Hour TV Version)

Jor-El : [in the Fortress of Solitude]  

You... enjoyed it.

Superman : 

I don't know what to say, Father. 

I'm afraid I just got carried away.

Jor-El : 

I anticipated this, my son. I...

Superman : [surprised]  

You couldn't have! 

You couldn't have imagined...

Jor-El : 

...How good it felt.

[Clark nods] 

Jor-El : 

You are revealed to The World. Very well, so be it. 

But you must still keep your secret identity.

Superman : 

But why?

Jor-El : 

The Reasons are Two :

First, you cannot serve humanity twenty-eight hours a day.

Superman : 

Er, twenty-four.

Jor-El : 

Or, twenty-four, as it is in Earth time. 

Your help would be called for endlessly, 

even for those problems which human beings could solve themselves. 

It is their habit to abuse their resources in such a way.

Superman : 

And, secondly?

Jor-El :

 Secondly, 

Your Enemies will discover their only way to Hurt You : 

By Hurting The People You Care For.

Superman : 

Thank you, Father.

Jor-El : 

Lastly... 

Do not punish yourself for your feelings of Vanity. 

Simply learn to control them. 

It is an affliction common to all, even on Krypton. 

Our Destruction could have been avoided 

had it not been for the Vanity of some who considered us indestructible. 

Were it not for Vanity, why... at this very moment...

[sadly] 

I could embrace you in my arms. My Son.

Plato’s Caveman

IAN: 

It's an •illusion•. 

It MUST be.

Old Grandfather : 

What is he talking about now?

SUSAN: 

What are you doing here?

Old Grandfather : 

You don't understand, so you find excuses. 

Illusions, indeed? 

You say you can't fit an enormous building into one of your smaller sitting rooms.

IAN: 

No.

Old Grandfather : 

But you've discovered Television, haven't you?

IAN:

Yes.

Old Grandfather : 

Then, by showing an enormous building on your television screen, you can do what •seemed• impossible, couldn't you?

IAN: 

Well, yes, but I still don't know —

Old Grandfather : 

Not quite clear, is it. 

I can see by your face that you're not certain, you don't understand —

And I knew you wouldn't. 

Never mind. 

Now then, which switch was it? No. No, no. 

Ah yes, that is it. The point is not whether you understand. What is going to happen to you, hmm? 

They'll tell everybody about The Ship now.

IAN: 

Ship?

Old Grandfather : 

Yes, yes, Ship. 

This doesn't roll along on •wheels•, you know....

Oh, you think Darkness is your ally. 

But you merely adopted The Dark, I was born in it. 

Molded by it. 

I didn’t see the light until I was already A Man.

By then it was nothing to me but blinding!

The Shadows betray you, 

because they belong to me!

“Next,” said I, “compare our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern 1 with a long entrance open 2 to the light on its entire width. Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered3 from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, [514b] able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. 

Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows4 have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.” 

“All that I see,” he said. 

“See also, then, men carrying 5 past the wall [514c] implements of all kinds that rise above the wall, and human images

1 The image of the cave illustrates by another proportion the contrast between the world of sense-perception and the world of thought. 

Instead of going above the plane of ordinary experience for the other two members of the proportion, Plato here goes below and invents a fire and shadows cast from it on the walls of a cave to correspond to the sun and the “real” objects of sense. 

In such a proportion our “real” world becomes the symbol of Plato's ideal world. Modern fancy may read what meanings it pleases into the Platonic antithesis of the “real” and the “ideal.” It has even been treated as an anticipation of the fourth dimension. 

But Plato never leaves an attentive and critical reader in doubt as to his own intended meaning. there may be at the most a little uncertainty as to which are merely indispensable parts of the picture. 

The source and first suggestion of Plato's imagery is an interesting speculation, but it is of no significance for the interpretation of the thought. Cf. John Henry Wright, “The Origin of Plato's Cave” in Harvard Studies in Class. Phil. xvii. (1906) pp. 130-142. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 89-90, thinks the allegory Orphic. Cf. also Wright, loc. cit. pp. 134-135. Empedocles likens our world to a cave, Diels i.3 269. Cf. Wright, loc. cit. Wright refers it to the Cave of Vari in Attica, pp. 140-142. Others have supposed that Plato had in mind rather the puppet and marionette shows to which he refers. Cf. Diès in Bulletin Budé,No. 14 (1927) pp. 8 f. The suggestiveness of the image has been endless. The most eloquent and frequently quoted passage of Aristotle's early writings is derived from it, Cic.De nat.deor. ii. 37. It is the source of Bacon's “idols of the den.” Sir Thomas Browne writes in Urne-Buriall: “We yet discourse in Plato's den and are but embryo philosophers.” Huxley's allegory of “Jack and the Beanstalk” in Evolution and Ethics, pp. 47 ff. is a variation on it. Berkeley recurs to it, Siris, 263. The Freudians would have still more fantastic interpretations. Cf. Jung, Analytic Psych. p. 232. Eddington perhaps glances at it when he attributes to the new physics the frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows

2 Cf. Phaedo 111 Cἀναπεπταμένους

3 Cf. Phaedo 67 E.

4 H. Rackham, CIass. Rev. xxix. pp. 77-78, suggests that the τοῖς θαυματοποιοῖς should be translated “at the marionettes” and be classed with καινοῖς τραγῳδοῖς(Pseph.ap.Dem. xviii. 116). For the dative he refers to Kuehner-Gerth, II. i. p. 445.

5 The men are merely a part of the necessary machinery of the image. Their shadows are not cast on the wall. The artificial objects correspond to the things of sense and opinion in the divided line, and the shadows to the world of reflections,εἰκόνες.

[515a] and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled [515b] to hold their heads unmoved through life?” “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” “Surely.” “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw1 they were naming the passing objects?” “Necessarily.” “And if their prison had an echo2 from the wall opposite them, when one of the passersby uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker?” “By Zeus, I do not,” said he. “Then in every way [515c] such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release3 and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature4 something of this sort should happen to them: When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw, [515d] what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss5 and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?” “Far more real,” he said.

“And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, [515e] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” “It is so,” he said. “And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent6 which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when

1 Cf. Parmen. 130 c, Tim. 51 B, 52 A, and my De Platonis Idearum doctrina, pp. 24-25; also E. Hoffmann in Wochenschrift f. klass. Phil. xxxvi. (1919) pp. 196-197. As we use the word tree of the trees we see, though the reality (αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστι) is the idea of a tree, so they would speak of the shadows as the world, though the real reference unknown to them would be to the objects that cause the shadows, and back of the objects to the things of the “real” world of which they are copies. The general meaning, which is quite certain, is that they wold suppose the shadows to be the realities. The text and the precise turn of expression are doubtful. See crit. note.παριόντα is intentionally ambiguous in its application to the shadows or to the objects which cast them. They suppose that the names refer to the passing shadows, but (as we know) they really apply to the objects. Ideas and particulars are homonymous. Assuming a slight illogicality we can get somewhat the same meaning from the text ταὐτά. “Do you not think that they would identify the passing objects (which strictly speaking they do not know) with what they saw?” Cf. also P. Corssen, Philologische Wochenschrift, 1913, p. 286. He prefers οὐκ αὐτά and renders: “Sie würden in dem, was sie sähen, das Vorübergehende selbst zu benennen glauben.”

2 The echo and the voices (515 A) merely complete the picture.

3 Phaedo 67 Dλύειν, and 82 Dλύσει τε καὶ καθαρμῷ. λύσις became technical in Neoplatonism.

4 Lit. “by nature.” φύσις in Plato often suggests reality and truth.

5 The entire passage is an obvious allegory of the painful experience of one whose false conceit of knowledge is tested by the Socratic elenchus. Cf. Soph. 230 B-D, and for ἀπορεῖνMeno 80 A, 84 B-C, Theaet. 149 A, Apol. 23 D. Cf. also What Plato Said, p. 5123 on Meno 80 A, Eurip.Hippol. 247τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν ὀδυνᾷ, “it is painful to have one's opinions set right,” and 517 A, 494 D.

6 Cf. Theaet. 175 B, Boethius, Cons. iii. 12 “quicunque in superum diem mentem ducere quaeritis”; 529 A, 521 C, and the Neoplatonists' use of ἀνάγειν and their “anagogical” virtue and interpretation. Cf. Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, vii. 270.

[515a] and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent.” “A strange image you speak of,” he said, “and strange prisoners.” “Like to us,” I said; “for, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?” “How could they,” he said, “if they were compelled [515b] to hold their heads unmoved through life?” “And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them?” “Surely.” “If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw1 they were naming the passing objects?” “Necessarily.” “And if their prison had an echo2 from the wall opposite them, when one of the passersby uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker?” “By Zeus, I do not,” said he. “Then in every way [515c] such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects.” “Quite inevitably,” he said. “Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release3 and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature4 something of this sort should happen to them: When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw, [515d] what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss5 and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?” “Far more real,” he said.

“And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, [515e] would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out?” “It is so,” he said. “And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent6 which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when

1 Cf. Parmen. 130 c, Tim. 51 B, 52 A, and my De Platonis Idearum doctrina, pp. 24-25; also E. Hoffmann in Wochenschrift f. klass. Phil. xxxvi. (1919) pp. 196-197. As we use the word tree of the trees we see, though the reality (αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστι) is the idea of a tree, so they would speak of the shadows as the world, though the real reference unknown to them would be to the objects that cause the shadows, and back of the objects to the things of the “real” world of which they are copies. The general meaning, which is quite certain, is that they wold suppose the shadows to be the realities. The text and the precise turn of expression are doubtful. See crit. note.παριόντα is intentionally ambiguous in its application to the shadows or to the objects which cast them. They suppose that the names refer to the passing shadows, but (as we know) they really apply to the objects. Ideas and particulars are homonymous. Assuming a slight illogicality we can get somewhat the same meaning from the text ταὐτά. “Do you not think that they would identify the passing objects (which strictly speaking they do not know) with what they saw?” Cf. also P. Corssen, Philologische Wochenschrift, 1913, p. 286. He prefers οὐκ αὐτά and renders: “Sie würden in dem, was sie sähen, das Vorübergehende selbst zu benennen glauben.”

2 The echo and the voices (515 A) merely complete the picture.

3 Phaedo 67 Dλύειν, and 82 Dλύσει τε καὶ καθαρμῷ. λύσις became technical in Neoplatonism.

4 Lit. “by nature.” φύσις in Plato often suggests reality and truth.

5 The entire passage is an obvious allegory of the painful experience of one whose false conceit of knowledge is tested by the Socratic elenchus. Cf. Soph. 230 B-D, and for ἀπορεῖνMeno 80 A, 84 B-C, Theaet. 149 A, Apol. 23 D. Cf. also What Plato Said, p. 5123 on Meno 80 A, Eurip.Hippol. 247τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν ὀδυνᾷ, “it is painful to have one's opinions set right,” and 517 A, 494 D.

6 Cf. Theaet. 175 B, Boethius, Cons. iii. 12 “quicunque in superum diem mentem ducere quaeritis”; 529 A, 521 C, and the Neoplatonists' use of ἀνάγειν and their “anagogical” virtue and interpretation. Cf. Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, vii. 270.

6a] he came out into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see1 even one of the things that we call real?” “Why, no, not immediately,” he said. “Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water2 of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light [516b] of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun's light.3” “Of course.” “And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting,4 but in and by itself in its own place.” “Necessarily,” he said. “And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, [516c] and is in some sort the cause5 of all these things that they had seen.” “Obviously,” he said, “that would be the next step.” “Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them6?” “He would indeed.” “And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences, [516d] sequences and co-existences,7 and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer8 and “‘greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man,’” Hom. Od. 11.489 and endure anything rather than opine with them [516e] and live that life?” “Yes,” he said, “I think that he would choose to endure anything rather than such a life.” “And consider this also,” said I, “if such a one should go down again and take his old place would he not get his eyes full9 of darkness, thus suddenly coming out of the sunlight?” “He would indeed.” “Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners

1 Cf. Laws 897 D, Phaedo 99 D.

2 Cf. Phaedo 99 D. Stallbaum says this was imitated by Themistius, Orat. iv. p. 51 B.

3 It is probably a mistake to look for a definite symbolism in all the details of this description. There are more stages of progress than the proportion of four things calls for. all that Plato's thought requires is the general contrast between an unreal and a real world, and the goal of the rise from one to the other in the contemplation of the sun, or the idea of good, Cf. 517 B-C.

4 i.e. a foreign medium.

5 Cf. 508 B, and for the idea of good as the cause of all things cf. on 509 B, and Introd. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. P. Corssen, Philol. Wochenschrift, 1913, pp. 287-299, unnecessarily proposes to emend ὧν σφεῖς ἑώρων to ὧν σκιὰς ἑ. or ὧν σφεῖς σκιὰς ἑ., “ne sol umbrarum, quas videbant, auctor fuisse dicatur, cum potius earum rerum, quarum umbras videbant, fuerit auctor.”

6 Cf. on 486 a, p. 10, note a.

7 Another of Plato's anticipations of modern thought. This is precisely the Humian, Comtian, positivist, pragmatist view of causation. Cf. Gorg. 501 Aτριβῇ καὶ ἐμπειρίᾳ μνήμην μόνον σωζομένη τοῦ εἰθότος γίγνεσθαι“relying on routine and habitude for merely preserving a memory of what is wont to result.” (Loeb tr.)

8 The quotation is almost as apt as that at the beginning of the Crito.

9 On the metaphor of darkness and light cf. also Soph. 254 A.

Uruk-Hai : People That Came Out of The Earth

To Serve in Heaven 

Or Rule in Hell..?

I don't know if you're familiar with Wagner's Ring das Nibelungen...?

Now, We - We are The Supermen, but You -

You are The Giants. 

They are wonderful creatures. 

Herr Weyland, your day is over. 

I'm afraid you fail to understand history in addition to Wagner. 

Unfortunately, Wagner must be rewritten. 

The Supermen must control The Giants. 

David, Killer of Giants

"Do you know how the Orcs first came to be? They were Elves once, taken by the Dark Lord, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life. And now, perfected. My fighting Uruk-hai."

—Saruman

"This is no rabble of mindless Orcs. These are the Uruk-hai, their armor thick and their shields broad..."

—Gimli

The Kurgans were an ancient people from the steppes of Russia.

For amusement, they tossed children into pits with hungry dogs to fight for meat.

The Kurgan.

He is the strongest of The Immortals.

He is the Perfect Warrior.

If he wins The Prize, mortal Man would suffer an Eternity of Darkness.

How do you fight such a savage?

Hmm. With Heart, Faith, and Steel.

In the End, There Can Be Only One.

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: 

They think they are bears... they want us to think they are bears... 

Hey, how do you hunt a bear? 

Weath the Musician: 

Chase it down with dogs. What...? 

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: 

How do you hunt a bear in Winter? 

Herger the Joyous: 

Go in its cave with spears. 

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: 

Where is a cave? 

Weath the Musician: [realizing] 

It's in The Earth. 

Edgtho the Silent: [Returns from scouting] 

The next glen, many fires. 

Buliwyf: 

IS THERE A CAVE?

There's always a Cave...

North amid their noisome pits lay the first of the great heaps and hills of slag and broken rock and blasted earth, the vomit of the maggot-folk of Mordor; but south and now near loomed the great rampart of Cirith Gorgor, and the Black Gate amidmost, and the two Towers of the Teeth tall and dark upon either side.

 I don’t take order from Orc-maggots.

  The White Man has waited all His life to be Greater than God.

There actually, is a Law invoked with alla' this, which is higher  than Man Law.

" For the people that are in this Core of Negativity,

We have accepted responsibility to put pressure on Them. 

that maybe They perceive themselves to be Goliath, but 

We are always reminding Them that David is within their reach -

We don't ever want Them to think that what They regard as so absolute, so evil, so grand, so royal, that can never be defeated contradicts The Law of what goes on.

And if We can accept the principle of

" You Reap What You Sow "

and if "Reap What You Sow" is True;

And one compiles years of ugly sowing...

Then, somewhere, The Seed is gonna come due -

Now, 

" Through Whom? " and " When? " will it manifest..?

And if you believe that it will never happen, then What You Believe has a crack in it.

Do you have faith, that when people fail in their opportunity to rule fairly and equitably that They will be robbed of that opportunity, when others who seek to be  - 

It's a dangerous word 

- Responsible -

arise to accept this responsibilty, to replace Those Who Lost Their Right to Rule..?

The Muslims say 

" An Eye for an Eye "

And the principle is sound.

Even an atheist say,

" What Go Around, Come Around "

Every Spoke on The Wheel has it's Day at The Top.