1D)At the end of the Greco-Persian Wars, Athens assumed preeminence in Greece, becoming increasing imperialistic. While victory over Persia was due to the synergetic unity of Hellenic military forces, cooperation rapidly evaporated when Sparta, alarmed by domestic Helot rebellions, withdrew and became politically isolated. In doing so, it left Athens’ military unchecked to, by all necessary means, ruthlessly consolidate power. As Athens developed an expansionist foreign policy — displayed in atrocities against dissenting Melians — its escalating aggression triggered the debilitating Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BCE). Nonetheless, these legendary clashes were influenced by differences in political and social infrastructure, providing historians today with critical insights into the way each society operated.
Athens, for one, epitomized contradiction; while it made unparalleled advancements in the arts and humanities, below its gilded opulence existed ferocious slavery, misogyny, and imperialistic ambition. And while it was fascinated by issues of reality and morality, Athens was simultaneously dominated by the phallus, with “inferior” women seen as vessels of childbirth, and the family established “…for the supply of men’s everyday wants.” In the same manner in which Achilles had his heel, Athens’ vibrant democracy, unbounded artistic achievement, and celebrated naval prowess, were ultimately cut short by fatal weaknesses: severe social stratification, obsession with expansion, and elitism towards former allies. On the contrary, Sparta’s mixed political organization emphasized kingship, with oligarchical and democratic components as well. With two royal families, a system unlike almost any other, dual kingship was an ancient tradition in Sparta; and, unlike the democracy of Athens which ostracized those whose ambitions and popularity threatened the democratic process, these rulers were stationed at the pinnacle of Spartan society, expected to serve as priest, judge, jury, and executioner. But Sparta was also for its time politically progressive — with a distribution of authority amongst the council of elders, popular assembly, and overseers — much like the US electoral college that insulates critical decisions from the unpredictable masses, while simultaneously promoting democratic involvement. However, while Sparta’s political infrastructure was more flexible than that of Athens, its social organization was less remarkable, producing no great works of literature and philosophy. As Athenians delved into theater and art, Spartans instead lived by the sword, their survival from childhood predicated on warfare. As such, they were more engaged in the present and profoundly interconnected with one other, deeply valuing the communal good.They ate together, pledged themselves as state property; even their fighting style was an intricate consolidation of choreographed, individual movements.
It was precisely this obsession with the self preservation of the community, of being neither greedy nor excessively risk-taking, of being socially in tune with one another — their friendships forged in the brutality of battle — that made Sparta similar to Carthage (147) where there too existed social clubs, communal tables, and a mixed political system bridging the aristocracy and the commoner, with regard to both merit and wealth. (148)
2C) Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” was written between 380 and 360 BCE within The Republic, a masterful discourse on what it means to be a utopian society. In a tumultuous political climate, with Socrates recently executed for “corrupting the youth” with his philosophy, the story illustrates the arduous process through which humans are educated beyond their ignorance, becoming enlightened philosophers that grasp the true complexities of the surrounding world. In doing so, he compares humankind in its raw form to prisoners chained in a dark cave, whose only conceptions of reality are the shadows and echoes of objects passing behind them. Such prisoners, to Plato, confuse pretense for reality, accepting shadows as absolute but knowing nothing about the nuanced intricacies of their causes. It is precisely in this way that the cave becomes a symbolic representation of the physical world, where oftentimes there exists more than meets the eye. In this way, the text argues that sensory experiences detect the mere shadows of truth; while initially pointing one in the right direction, they are ultimately insufficient. Thus the process of leaving the cave is about gradually realizing that the physical world is but a single component of total reality, that humans by virtue of their cognitive faculties — reason, open mindedness, and inquisitiveness — can with some effort access the more accurate, intangible universe of thought and ideas.
Moreover, while fundamentally written for different purposes, the “Allegory of The Cave” is very much in conversation with Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, written hundreds of years later( ) towards the Christian community in Greece. While the former emphasized the Theory of Forms and the latter reminded dissenting Corinthians that they were “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God,” both texts portray knowledge as influence, information as enlightenment, and education as the very basis of liberation. Accordingly, both works discuss an external source of light and wisdom that bestows upon a select few, infinite truth about the way the world truly operates. In fact, both agree that much of the complexity of the world is unknown by most humans and may never fully be known, and that education and enlightenment — of philosophy and the Christian doctrine, respectively — confer duty, an implicit human obligation to inform and elevate the whole of humanity. Just as Plato’s escaped prisoner by his own volition returns to the darkness of the cave to tell others of his findings, Paul too expresses an obligation to teach, claiming that “god gave [him] the privilege of laying the foundations” of Christianity. In each text there runs a common thread, that even if no one listens, those with epistemic privilege have a responsibility to catalyze human progress.
Nevertheless, both texts unsurprisingly have stark points of contention; primarily, the source of truth and wisdom differs vastly. For Plato, reaching enlightenment is a difficult process that requires using empirical evidence, reason, and intellectual plasticity in the acquisition of knowledge: being skeptical, unassuming, and unorthodox. But Paul takes an arguably passive and defeatist stance, contending that “god has made the wisdom of this world look foolish,” and that humanity should be unquestioning and unified in their faith in Christianity — even at the expense of their own convictions. In this sense, Paul argues that all men, no matter how wise they claim to be, are perpetually bound in the cave, that enlightenment comes from God’s infinite wisdom, and the pursuit of knowledge is otherwise futile. That being said, he urges people to be more humble, to embrace their human limitations, and be less anthropocentric and open to the natural way of the world.