Plato hadn’t thought of everything.
The philosopher skipped toward the cave in spirits chipper
and spirits over-brimming, as he had encountered a wide world fresh with
tendrils and saplings, lush with the industry of socioeconomic paradigms. Owing
to his status as philosopher, he recognized the somber duty to educate his
countrywomen and men, who he’d left behind, in chains. They faced a blank wall,
upon which played but shadows of the greater creation. “Ho!” he howled, still
at a distance, but there came no reply. ‘Perhaps they slumber’, he thought. He
paused at the mouth of the cave, his hand on the crag, so he might steady his
anticipatory breathing. “Ho!” he echoed, when there came a single bestial
grunt. “Oh, Horatius,” he laughed, referring to a friend. “Having visions of single-handed
corporeal pleasure, are you?” The philosopher entered the cave only to confront
a low, estimable beast, its powerful jaws snapping off a lethargic reptilian
grunt, before it took a run at the man, waddling with growing menace until the
philosopher sprinted into the brilliant light of midday. Even as the
confrontation lasted mere seconds, the philosopher entertained horrific images
of partially devoured screams. He had recognized the bodily outlines of his
unenlightened countrypersons in the reptile’s belly, and out of this terror, didn’t
brake his sprint until he stood thirty yards from the cave. The beast had not
pursued him beyond the darkness of its lair. All about the philosopher there
played the attentive wisdom of the elements, the great quietude of a cool
breeze. ‘I had conceived of The Allegory of the Cave’, he thought, ‘but
instead, I must now contend with The Alligator of the Cave.’ A very poor morale
descended upon the philosopher. He could not enlighten his kinfolk, as they had
suffered a mass devouring. He could not enlighten the reptile. Returning to the
cave—even if the alligator ever abandoned the premises—made little sense.
Eventually, the alligator would return to eat him, too, and would swallow up
(if not digest) the philosopher’s enlightenment. The philosopher sought refuge
in the arguments of his teachers, but their proofs did not guide him in his
inquiries about this newfangled predicament—the sudden appearance of a powerful,
armored beast. ‘One can never truly return home’, he concluded, ‘unless, of
course, one doesn’t have to square off with an alligator upon arrival.’ He
tried again: ‘People chained to their short-sighted belief systems may wind up
devoured by their ignorance. The alligator, therefore, represents ignorance
come to exact a penalty.’ This sounded better to the man, but of course, he
remembered, ‘The fault rests with me for not freeing a single person before I
left: a capable wrestler, perhaps, a shot-putter, special policeman, muckraker,
or manipulator of media.’ A single plaintive grunt sounded in the middle
distance of the cave. The alligator, however, did not emerge into daylight to
chase the philosopher, but instead, through its grunt, tipped forward the
philosopher’s decision to leave. A powerful, fearsome energy then inhabited the
cave. What the alligator knew of the cave’s unenlightened dwellers—it had
devoured; it had begun to digest their short-sightedness. ‘While the
philosopher ponders, the dumb animal acts upon its hierarchy of needs.’ Or so
thought the philosopher, as he tripped outward and away, he himself capable of
estimating the predatory forays of the dumb animal, in his quest to convince
nation-states of his suffering and sorrows.
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