Assignment: During our class discussions on paradigms, we talked about not realizing some paradigms are held until the paradigm has been challenged, if we even realize it then. In addition, we also examined seeing ourselves through a biased viewpoint and considered that our perception of reality may not always be the same as others’. This assignment allows you to demonstrate your level of understanding of paradigms and reality by applying thse concepts to a character in a movie.
In class, we watched “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey. We were to relate our lesson on paradigms to the movie to understand the concepts of Plato’s cave and paradigms. We were to discuss the parallels between Truman’s world and Plato’s allegory. We were to give our opinion on whether Truman’s cave helped him or held him back. We also were to give examples of caves in our personal lives or in society.
Things to know…
Paradigm: the frame of reference we use to view our lives; the things we’ve been taught, the things we know, our traditions and routines that make up our lives; stereotypes we use to categorize things in our brains so they make sense. (more)
Plato’s allegory: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
In a way, Truman’s reality there was completely identical (literally) to Plato’s cave, with the actors and backdrops being his shadows and cave respectively. It doesn’t (or does, depending on your point of view) help that the world he lived in was completely manufactured and was, in fact, a cave. The captors as described in Plato’s theory would have been the television show creator and his team. The objects the captors held would be the power of the team and creator. The shadows, then, would be the actors that were around him at all times, the fake streets and buildings, the job he held, his wife, and everything he was interacting with on a regular basis. Something I did find interesting was what was brought up at some point in the movie: why did it take him so long to start questioning? Christof said, “We accept the reality of the world with which we were presented.” It’s not like he didn’t have the freedom to. The difference was that he didn’t know he could question things. At least as when I was growing up, I had other influences around me that questioned things, from the bands I listen to and the teachers I’ve had and the friends I’ve been around, I’ve seen things be questioned and saw that one can question things. In that world, Truman never saw anybody question anything, and didn’t feel the need to until that basic human instinct to learn kicked in and, when he was curious enough (after seeing his father), started to see things differently.
It’s an interesting question to try and answer, whether his cave helped him or held him back. If it had been done for reasons other than the creator’s yearn for money and fame, such as actually wanting to protect this individual, that’s something else. However, I believe that all humans instinctively want to learn or question. What they learn about or question is to each his own. Truman got to the point that he was noticing things, and wanted to learn more, and question them. Even though he was in a “perfect” environment, there was that human urge to learn and question. In a way, he was helped because he was protected from errs of this world; he was free of war and famine, unemployment and disease. However, it held him back because he was insatiable in what he wanted to question and learn. If Truman’s character had grown up in the real world, he would have done great things other than having been on a ridiculous television show, and in that respect he was held back. Another point is that all those imperfections in the world, those are what shape each person, and those trials are what help to build character and form personalities. He could have ended up an entirely different person.
One cave I know I live in is my idea of a city. I grew up in Kansas City, which isn’t necessarily a massive city but it’s pretty large. I grew up in the part of town where I could play outside and not be afraid if my mom turned her back for half a second to take a sip of her iced tea from the porch. I grew up with a single mother, my grandparents who lived a ten minute drive away, and my great grandmother that lived two blocks over, who’s house I could walk to without my mother following behind me at every step. Because of this, I’ve done some stupid things in my life. Some friends I’d met on the Internet drove to Camden, New Jersey, slept outside a venue, and got first place in line for a concert at the Tweeter Center who, around there, isn’t known for its safety. However, where I grew up, I wasn’t really taught to question strangers and their intentions. Luckily for me, the entire trip was one of the best times of my life, and I have no regrets, however I know it was stupid that I did it at all.
Also, in growing up in the Midwest, I didn’t travel a whole lot. I’d been to Chicago a couple of times, but mostly in and out of Kansas and Nebraska. I’ve been to Portland once. I think that’s another reason I took the trip; I wanted to see things. I wanted to see more than my mom’s backyard, the cramped studio apartment I was affording by myself by working a minimum wage job, the community college I started at and was too tired of my life to finish.
As far as society, one of the ‘caves’ people need to get out of is judging people based upon the stereotype. I hate going to Wal-Mart and getting stalked by the security because I’m a young adult that wears black on black on black, stalked all the way out to my car, in fact. I hate it that a young girl named Sophie Lancaster was beaten to death in front of her partner at a park in London because she was Goth. I hate it that kids in Mexico that are seen as “emo” are attacked for walking down the street. If people would quit judging by stereotype and get the blinders off their faces they could see they are hurting people, not just the local “emos” or “Goths”, but human beings that share the same hopes, dreams, and fears as they.
I hate it that a lot of adults don’t realize how many teenagers suffer from depression because, in their eyes, teenagers don’t feel things like that, and their lives aren’t bad enough for them to be suffering from something so serious, so that when 13-year-old Hannah Bond in the United Kingdom hangs herself, her parents and the media feel like they have to blame the so-called “suicide cult band” My Chemical Romance. If people would bother looking past the stereotype they feel they need to label things in, then perhaps we could start seeing each other as people, as humans, instead of just other faces on the planet.
Tags: My Chemical Romance, School
Not to sound vain, but the layout I made is so pretty and so simple I could just eat it. No, really. It’s a pale red/pink and green and it reminds me of candy, and it’s so cute I could eat it. Except that I’m sure Apple wouldn’t cover that in the warranty. “Customer eats computer”…? Not likely. 
The likelihood of me getting this fanlisting is pretty low, but I figured it was worth a shot. I feel kinda like an ice cube that got too close to the coffee pot…
She’s chillin’, stealin’ my neighbor’s internet, because hers at her boarding house (or, well, that’s what it looks like anyhow) really sucks. She can’t even check her email there. Luckily I have neighbors that don’t realize they need to put a password on their wireless internet. Ya know, since I’m hooked up to a cable since my mom (or perhaps I) lost the installation disk to set up the wireless router I have here.