Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Today in Western Civilization we watched a video. We were supposed to watch the video yesterday but we did not have enough time. The video we watched is called "Plato's Allegory of the Cave." This video seems very odd at first but once I heard the symbolism of the story I understood it more. It is a parable that is about some people who are chained in a cave as prisoners. They have only seen shadows their whole life so that is the only thing they know. One of the men is released into the real world. He is shocked that everything he has known was only shadows of the real thing. He eventually went down to the cave to tell the others about what he has discovered. When he didn't see what he used to see and what they still see correctly, they made fun of him. I didn't understand what the symbolism was at first. At the end of class when we almost understood but not quite, Mr. Schick told us. It symbolizes how we are being told what to believe every time we watch news and commercials. We need to not reject the ideas we hear on TV, but make up our own opinions. We have to go out into the real world and have our own thoughts. I really enjoyed this class I found it interesting how Plato almost foreshadowed TV.