I have been on Instagram for a little less than a year now and at the time, it was a new world opening up to me. At first, I experienced Instagram as opening a little treasure chest with things of beauty inside of it, every picture a piece of eye candy ready to eat at the speed of your scrolling. And what fun to make some eye candy yourself, capturing those special moments with special filters for electric eternity. Those moments never to forget, like birthdays or Christmases or special travels or your finished art projects. Every moment transformed into a digital eternity. The finished piece of art made from future memories.
Soon enough, Frederik started complaining I was addicted to it. And honestly? It truly is addictive. Just a quick scroll while brushing your teeth, another one as a little break during work hours, a short one while waiting for the kids to put on their shoes (when are you not waiting for your kids?!), and of course an extensive one when finally snuggling down onto the couch. After a while, I pushed the Instagram button on my phone before I had even noticed I had picked up my phone. What Facebook is for my computer is Instagram for my phone: the default website/button I go to, forgetting why I picked up my computer/phone in the first place. Every moment of mental distraction or daydreaming nowadays seems to launch this automated set of impulses that ends with this staring at a screen, not even fully aware of what I am watching. The escape reality button, which makes me think of “the Return to the Cave”: It seems as if we are all very happy to go back into Plato’s cave and watch the vague shadows of reality after standing in and watching the sun for too long.
For those of you who were asleep in Philosophy Class 101, the Allegory of the Cave is a beautiful ‘story’ in which Plato describes how reality is for people who have been imprisoned in a cave from birth on. For these prisoners, reality is the shadows casted on the cave wall in front of them, not knowing these are just the shadows of the real objects behind them. In Plato’s story, one man is freed and is dragged, by force, out of the cave into the sunlight, seeing the ‘real’ things, not just the vague shadows of things. A painful process, which is repeated when the freed prisoner goes back into the cave again, having to adjust to the darkness again and leaving behind the real truth of the actual world.
Are you still awake? Well then. Philosophy Class 2.0. The Allegory of the Cave has been interpreted in roughly two different ways. Some scholars read it as Plato’s theory of knowledge, the cave representing the physical world while the world outside the cave represents the ‘ideal’ world of truth, the perfect world of ‘ideas’. Political philosophers like to add that the Allegory also lays the groundwork of Plato’s political philosophy, namely that philosophers, the people who have seen the ‘ideal’ world of the truth should rule society. But what if Plato had it all wrong? Introducing the Instagram-interpretation of the Allegory of the Cave.
What if this outside world under the beautiful sun is in fact the non-ideal world we call reality? Are we not all prisoners of the outside world, facing a lot of inconvenients truths and a never ending stream of suffering on a daily basis? Facing the truth seems harder than ever in times of globalization and climate change. Some see the solution in a political shift to the right, while for others, this shift is just another painful truth. And of course, social media has added to these problems, but it also came up with a beautiful escape button: Instagram. Just press a button and start staring at the perfect shadows of reality. No need to face the real thing for now. Just staring at the wall of the cave, far away from the harsh outside world. The wonderful bliss of beautiful representations. Just a little push and you are instantly back in your cave of shadows.
In case you are wondering, I did not remove the app from my phone. I did move the button however. Just to be more aware of my cave dwelling.
We bring this truth back into the cave with us, the phones with their information akin to candles in the dark. We just need to blow the candles out when we feel overwhelmed or just need to sleep!