Missing The Point
What a public nuisance he must’ve been.
https://greekreporter.com/2025/11/26/plato-imitative-art-modern-souls-shadows/
Plato’s Republic is not a manual for censorship but a mirror for the modern soul. It teaches that imitation, left unchecked, breeds alienation. To live surrounded by images is to forget being. To envy every hero is to lose one’s own. The cure lies in simplicity—in learning once more to love the form that lives within us.
Today, our cave glows with the light of screens instead of fire. Yet the shadows are the same, and the way out, as Plato said so very long ago, begins the moment we turn around—not toward more images but toward the light of our own truth.
It’s not that he’s entirely wrong and I do half-agree.
I hope btw, you followed my earlier advice on turning your screen onto permanent night-mode. It’ll calm your brain and save your eyes.
Where I disagree is the criticism of imitation and copying.
Imitation and copying is how we learn. And alot of great artists, craftsmen and other content creators, or anyone performing a skill really, begin this way. The point is to eventually let go of the guardrails and find your own expression within that. No one comes up with skill, talent, ideas in a void. They have to be fed in by what already exists. That includes both reality itself and the previous works of other people.
But beginning as an imitator isn’t a bad thing. At the very least you establish a point of reference for yourself and the people whose attention you want. If you go to the early work of your favourite artists and musicians you often see a style that is imitative of someone else.
And guess what Plato, making stuff is fun. We like doing it. It’s us being people. The physical act is a manifestation of the thought. And in turn spurs on the next thought. It allows us to practice existence without turning into an overly-neurotic basket case. And gives other people something to talk about. You ever heard of that item in someones house thats a conversation piece?
Plato was not a craftsman nor an artist, at least not as far as I’m aware. He was just a bloke who rambled in the street. If he was alive today he and his mate Aristotle would be on twitter constantly trolling other accounts, or god forbid, on tiktok or a political party meeting/uni campus activist club. These people are annoying as hell to those of us who went to art school and always have been. (That’s why we want a campus or faculty building as far away from you as possible. And still you find a way to jump in front of us with pamplets and stupid slogans or criticisms. Get out of the way loser!). Not coincidentally, alot of these idle useless whingers end up becoming politicians/journalists. Just talking heads. They’ll contend that they are performing the important work of oratory, article and speechmaking, legislation-crafting, leading and governing. All just craftsmen of another stripe. You might also think of them as actors. I think of them as gasbaggers. Whatever. The good ones are important, the bad ones, and most of them are bad, are just oxygen thieves and time-wasters.
So my perspective is a bit more like this:
We, the visual artists, are kind-of the sponge/wallpaper/mirror of everything we see. We craft things that hopefully look nice or other sensorally stimulating in some way, but maybe occassionally also insightful to help the viewer/consumer reflect on. Maybe it expresses the past, the present or an imagined future. Or is a response to the inane rambling of the philosopher. And remember that a picture can express a thousand words. A saying you’ve probably heard a thousand times, but it’s true.
Where Plato is effectively saying “get out of the cave and get some sunshine”. I agree, and I make sure I do this periodically enough for the sake of good health, “wellness”, and to be social and see what reality is currently looking like. Then I go back to the cave and continue my work, and hopefully with some additional reference material to use. I actually do a lot of mental studying when Im outside.
I try to do the “live in the moment” thing on occassion but eventually just get bored. I would go to the beach to enjoy the sun and all i see is other people enjoying sun or just bitching about one another or soiling the landscape or moment in some way. The people who seem to live in the moment all the time are a combination of boring and creepy/weird with gay and frankly uncanny smiles. I don’t think you want to spend too much time with these folk. The neurotic/anti-social types are at least interesting as a point of difference. The cave is nice, isolation is nice. Stand out in the sun too long and you’ll get burned or a melanoma. Everything in proportions.
One thing to remember is that we seem to live in a very literary-oriented civilization. This is true in the Anglosphere as England developed a strong literary bent. A lot of writers with a lot of books, and a lot of content produced indoors for the consumption of indoors, because the weather outside was so bad. It becomes abit of a misfit once you live in place where the weather outside is often better, like Greece or Australia (I write paradoxically as Melbourne is showered with yet another storm on this greyest of springs). If you’ve ever spent some time around some athlete with nothing to talk about other than sport, i think the issue often is that there hasnt been cultural products that could meet him halfway and provide him with intellectual stimulation. Thats why Australians love audio/radio/podcasting and the such. Because you can consume these while still being outside, driving around etc.
The screen thing? that’s the modern medium. It used to be paper but we all got told we were wasting paper and cutting down too many trees. SO we opted for planetary destruction by lithium fires and forever-chemicals instead. C’est La Vie as the frogs say.