How Do you View the World and Why Do you See it That Way?
Prompt: At the level of humanness, we see right and wrong as guide markers. At what point or level do we no longer see right and wrong?
Thanks for the interesting prompt Joseph Lieungh, it brings to mind the myth of the cave an allegory mentioned by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a).
Our view of the world
As shown in the below image, there are a group of people who have lived all of their life in a cave chained as prisoners, cut off from the world and only facing a blank wall in front of them. From time to time they see shadows projected on the wall. This in a way defines their whole world and the shadows are the objects in their world. One of the prisoners gets out of the cave to realise there is more to the world than he knew before.
I think this is what is happening to each one of us as individuals. It can’t be viewed as right or wrong in that sense, we are always getting to know the world and ourselves better one way or the other.
I say there is no right or wrong in this context because everyone we know is reacting and responding as per their view of the world. They are in a way being true to themselves with their understanding. If I thought, for example, the world is upside down, my reactions and responses will be as per that understanding even though it is a confused one.
Feedback from the world
While most of us start out by seeing the world as one or zero (binary) or dual, if we are sensitive enough to review the feedback we receive from others, we begin to move out of the binary zone. And if there is curiosity to understand ourselves and others better, then we do get over labelling people, events, situations as right or wrong in the conventional sense.
We are becoming more of the prisoner who has escaped the cave and has a whole new perspective of the world he inhabits. Once we go out of the binary zone we are truly living.
We make real progress because there is a humane quality to our lives, connections, relationships with the idea of the whole. We can see the whole picture better, unlike the times we were just facing a wall and seeing the shadows go by.
Inserting reference to few of my past articles here that are relevant to this prompt might be of interest. Thank you for reading!