{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/82",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
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  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 82,
    "subject": "Background: Plato's Cave",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-07T19:52:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-07T19:52:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0002-0125@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-07T19:52:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Background: Plato's Cave",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Reply:  Item #2740464 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#\n\nPlato's Allegory of the Cave (beginning of Book VII in the REPUBLIC)\nimagines humankind as living in an underground cave which has a wide\nentrance open to the light.  Deep within are human beings facing the\nback wall, chained at neck and leg so they cannot move.  They have\nnever seen sunlight or the sun.\n\nOutside the cave there is a fire burning continuously, casting\nfirelight into the cave.  Between the fire and the cave is a raised\npath and a wall, together forming a puppet theater.\n\n XXXXXXX\n |\n |\n |  >           |        \\|/\n XXXXXXX========XX===========\n cave          path      fire\n\nAlong this path stroll mysterious non-human beings (we might call\nthem outsiders or puppetmasters) who carry all sorts of objects so\nthat they project over the pathwall.  Firelight upon these objects\ncasts a shadow upon the back wall of the cave, and these\nshadows-of-real-things are the only things which the prisoners\n(humanity) can see.  To them, this is reality.\n\nSo one prisoner is unchained and turned around to see the world of\nfirelight (the cave, the path, the fire), then the prisoner is\ndragged out to see the world of sunlight that lies beyond the world\nof firelight, and the prisoner sees the sun itself, at which point\nthe prisoner becomes the heroic philosopher.  End of allegory, more\nor less.\n\n=Interpretation of the Allegory [insert hedgewords to suit taste]=\n\nTo the pre-Christian Socratic philosophers, the four worlds (cave,\npuppet stage, fire, sunlight) represent our world (cave), the world\nof Absolute Truth (sunlight), and the intermediate stages.  Socrates\nis the heroic philosopher.\n\nThe Christian reading sees Jesus Christ as the heroic philosopher,\nshowing the way for all prisoners to escape the cave.\n\nThe Kabbalah reading immediately recognizes the four worlds and sees\nstages of God at points along the way.  So firelight is a lesser\nmanifestation of God the sunlight.  Old Testament prophets would be\nexamples of heroic philosophers.\n\nThe Gnostic reading, when stripped of reflexive anti-Judaism, is\nsimilar to the Kabbalistic reading except there is a tendency to\ndemonize lesser manifestations of God.  So fire is seen as the\nPretender to the throne of Sunlight.  And the sun doesn't know,\ndoesn't give a damn about the prisoners.  Each gnostic has the\npotential to find his/her own path to becoming a unique and\nuntranslatable heroic philosopher.\n\nNow then, what does all this have to do with THE BOOK OF THE LONG\nSUN, you might ask?\n\n=mantis=\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}