Allegory
...society and will continue to be well into the future. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is still important to anyone trying to understand the human condition. It was written more than 2,400 years ago, yet we still look to it as a philosophical work of art. It can be interpreted in many different ways, and in the business world it is still very relevant in its teachings. In my opinion, it illustrates the process of illumination in our lives. Taking that one step further, I believe that illumination can be looked at as education and how we use that education. This paper will analyze the many different aspects of the Allegory, and how they can still have relevance not only the business world, but in our lives in general.
Relevance in the Workplace
The basis of the “Allegory of the Cave” is that when a person becomes enlightened, they change their view of the entire world and realize how much they did not know before. The cave, as Plato refers to it, is the prison they keep themselves in by not gaining the necessary knowledge to succeed. When they leave this cave, and gain a substantial amount of knowledge, it is their duty to take what they have learned and teach it to the others remaining in the cave. But sometimes the others that are still blind, still stuck in the cave, are hard to teach. They want to believe that what they have known all along is the absolute truth. It is up to the enlightened, or educated, to convince others of what they have learned and help them become enlightened. This could lead to conflict, but it is necessary to achieve the enlightened state required to be successful. The philosophy can sound very confusing, but it is very simple when one thinks about it in terms of the business world today.
Working today in the business world, I can still see the relevance in the writings of Plato. Teams are built of many unique individuals that arrive at...
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