Plato’s cave is, as I understand it a metaphor for our relationship with truth. While we’re in the cave we can only see shadows of the real world outside the cave, cast by the fire we have lit to keep warm. To reach the truth we must leave the warmth of the cave (or our illusions of the world) and face the cold hard truths of reality.

Except that we can’t can we? We can’t step into the same river twice. Well, arguably we can’t step into the same river once, for the water that passes as we decide to step into it is not the same water we actually do step into. And there is no practical point at which the water is still.  It seems that we still can’t be sure that we’ve not just moved into another cave where we can’t see the fire. So do we simply have to turn round and say at some point “Well, we must be satisfied with this reality”.  But surely this is a question of values. What is it about this reality that I value and you do not?  And where do values come from? Do they correspond to some external truth, or to my preferences for what I see and understand of the world.

Here’s a value story that made me think. Some weeks ago, I saw on the television an interview with a former concentration camp guard. His story (which I have no reason to doubt) was that he had not been involved in any of the murder and violence, but had mainly worked on processing the prisoners’ money and belongings. Indeed at first he had not realised what was going on and thought that this property would be returned to the prisoners in due course. When he did realise what was going on, he asked for a transfer to the front, which was refused so he continued to work in the camp, although still as a bureaucrat with no direct involvement in the mass murders that were going on. His interviewer asked him whether he felt guilty about his time in the camp, and he quite clearly said that he did not. The interviewer was shocked by this and pressed him to admit to feelings of guilt.

This raised several questions in my mind. Should the guard have felt guilty? What else could he have done? If his request for a transfer was refused should he have persisted. If he was refused again, what other options were open to him? Desertion? Suicide? What would his own death have achieved? I suppose he might have worked somehow to alleviate the lot of the prisoners, but what 19 year old is going to challenge a totalitarian state where life was quite obviously cheap? Was the interviewer right to press him to admit a guilt he claimed not to feel?  

But most of all if I or any modern person were to be sent back in time and placed in the same position, (and somehow returned to the same age as the guard was at the time) would I have behaved any differently? For myself, I  like to hope and believe that I would, but if I’m honest I can’t be absolutely sure of that. 

And that illustrates for me how hard it is to leave the cave. I’m pretty convinced that there is a reality external to us, and that it extends to intangible ideas of good and evil – which is why I used this example. Nobody would say that the guard “did good” surely. But I find it hard to condemn him as evil either. Although there are clearly mitigating circumstances in this case, the interviewer had no doubt whatsoever about the reality of his guilt, and by implication, his (the interviewer’s) own moral superiority.  And I’m always worried by that kind of certainty. 

For me the story does illustrate how  slippery reality, especially socially constructed reality really is.  So where do we go from here?