In the Allegory of the cave, Plato talks about theses prisoners that have been living in a cave all of their lives. I don't understand how anyone can live in a cave all of their life, this just show how much the world has changed from time to time. The people living in the caves have little knowledge of the world they just know what they see in the cave. Just imagine living in a cave all of your life and you don't know anything. You wouldn't know what music is, internet, and many other things. This is something that I can't see myself doing. I wouldn't be able to play football, which I have been playing all of my life. Being in the cave is not the only bad part about this situation. The prisoners were also tied to chains and could barely move. In today's world, if they did this to prisoners this would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Humans have their rights no matter what they did. No one should be punished in a way that will cause them to suffer. Later Plato goes on to talk about one of the prisoners being freed and let out into the world.  At first he didn't know what was going on it was all new to him, which I can understand because he has been in a cave for the majority of his life. If you relate this to rhetorical situation, this would be considered the exigence. The prisoner went out into the world and seen things he didn't recognize and everything was new to him. When the prisoner was freed he got more knowledge about what was going on, he became smarter and felt as if he doesn't deserve to go back into the cave. The people in the cave are not stupid they just know what they can see, and what they can see is the shadow. Once the prisoner was let out of the cave into the new world, he became aware of his surroundings and this was the first time he had to think about what he sees around him. So in this case the prisoner became more intelligent just because he was able to go out into the world and see the world from a new perspective. This is why the prisoner didn't feel he should be put back into the cave with the other prisoners. The prisoner felt with his knowledge and his new intelligence, he shouldn't be put in the same place as the other prisoners because he is more intelligent and has a better understand of things. So now the prisoner that was freed looks down on the other prisoners just because he has a better understanding about everything. This represents the lower education people in today's world. It's not their fault they have little knowledge about the world it's just what they know, so if you refer to today's worlds people come into the world knowing little about anything, but as they grow up they learn new things. I feel Plato's idea about this is a good interpretation of the people today. People that are higher educated feel they should be around people with the same intelligence, not around people who are less educated. 

Plato goes on to relate this to the government, he say that the government or the higher educated people can't connect to the middle class people, because they don't feel the need to just because they are smarter. Plato feels the leaders of the world should be like the prisoner in the cave, because with their higher knowledge about things, they should go back into society so they can connect with the middle class people. If they go back and give people knowledge about things they probably don't know, this would better the community.  In a rhetorical situation the people that are in the lower and middle class would be considered the audience. They can be persuaded into believe what the people in the higher class say.  So if you were a leader trying to lead a country, how can you run a country if you can't connect with everyone in your country. So should the middle class people be the ones who are the leaders in a country? They can connect with everyone because they are considered middle class people, so in this case they would know what to do to meet the expectations everyone. Plato feels philosophers would be the best people to choose to run a country. He feels this way because philosophers understand both sides of this, they have good sense of the world and they understand that in order to run a country they would have to connect with people in their country. 

Plato goes on to talk about the material world is an illusion. He is saying that what people see or what people can touch is not the only thing that is considered reality. For example, if you are sitting in a room with no windows you can't see what's outside of that room. So if you can't see it, are you going to automatically assume that everything around you is not real? I agree with what Plato was saying, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. In the world today people know this is true because people are more educated and more intelligent. 

People would rather reel comfortable and safe in their own environment. So most people wouldn't be the prisoner to go out into the world to find and discover new things, just because they would feel displaced or out of their comfort zone. The ones that go out to learn new things have a better understanding about life itself.  Personally I would go out and try to learn as much as I can, because your mind is a terrible thing to waste so why not go and try to educate yourself even more.  

This story can show you how being educated can change a person whole perspective on life. Many people do think education seriously enough. If the prisoner was never freed he would of never knew anything about the outside world, his mind would just been focused on the cave.
