How Knowledge is Perceived 

The amount of people that understand the importance of knowledge in today’s world and Socrates world are very different. The Apology is a book written by the philosopher, Plato, that describes why knowledge is important. In Allegory of the Cave, Plato speaks about a philosophical idea where prisoners in a cave whose reality is shadows on a wall. When they acquire knowledge that are able to leave the dark cave, they see the world for what it really is. The Truman Show by Andrew Nicol is a very similar modern-day version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave where a man’s whole life is actually a reality TV and the man is oblivious to this fact. Knowledge today is different from 2,400 years ago because knowledge is more accessible and it is not limited by those in power. During Plato’s time, knowledge was not easily accessible like it is today.

There was no organized schooling for people and the only education people received was what their parents taught them as a kid. Through every generation, the population as a whole did not gain knowledge because every generation told the same thing to the next. When Socrates is brought to face the Athenian legal system. Meletus, one of Socrates main accuser told the jury that, “ Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young and of not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual things (Plato 4). ” Socrates was a philosopher who free-of-charge taught young people his philosophies. One of his main teachings is to question everything to get a better understanding of the world we live on by questioning their everyday practices. Not many Philosophers were around because of it’s danger. If a philosopher had taught a child grew up to murder someone, the philosopher would be seen as guilty. Since there was almost no-one around to question, the amount of knowledge a community held stayed the same through every generation. One of Socrates charges was,” not believing in the gods in which the city believes in (Plato 4). ” Not believing in the same gods as the majority was seen almost worse than killing someone. You could be easily charged, and executed if found guilty if your belief system does not correlate with the majority. Stuff like this was a massive deterrent from people investigating other religions and ideas and questioning their own belief systems.

In today's world, the whole goal of young people is to finish High School and then go on to college so they can receive specific knowledge to a certain field or area. 2,400 years ago, your life would already be planned out and you would have very little choice over what you do in your life, very much like the Truman Show. The accessibility of knowledge has shifted from non-existent to the being the huge focus and the younger generations. Knowledge can be altered by the people in charge in order to change how the community as a whole views things. One example of this in The Truman Show is when Truman begins to realize that his world revolves around him, Christof the director takes large steps to deter Truman from ever finding the real truth. From a very young age, Christof begins to teach Truman to be afraid of the water. Christof introduces this fear of water by killing his actor father in a boat accident, and making Truman feel responsible for his father’s death. Near the end of the movie, Truman has almost become certain that his reality is fake and becomes determined to leave Seahaven to discover for himself. When Christof realizes where Truman has gone, he sends gigantic waves and terrible storms, almost killing him, so that Truman will be forced to go back. When all of this is going on you can hear Christof telling his weather operator, “ Hit him with lightning ,Again, HIT HIM AGAIN (Truman). ” Actions like this from Christof shows that he is willing to kill his star to guarantee that Truman will not find out the truth of his reality.

The Truman Show is a good example of a person in power, limiting the type of knowledge someone receives. This can be used in comparison to Hitler limiting the amount of information the people of Germany got, the Germans thought Hitler was doing a good thing. Knowledge can be easily altered by the people with power to change the minds of the general public. The Truman Show and The Apology together connect to prove how knowledge is very different today then it was during Plato’s time. Knowledge in 2018 is easily accessible and is not altered by our leaders, and this was not the case 2,400 years ago.