Of Platonic cave and Led Zeppelin

Listening to Led Zeppelin, contemplating Plato's cave

By Azly Rahman


The rock group Led Zeppelin once wrote of "The Song Remain (ing) the Same" and I do sense a philosophical dimension to their lyric when pondering upon the meaning of this Age of Information. The Platonic theme of the cave is still relevant to my understanding of the predicament of those living in this age wherein the postmodern question of the "human condition" prevails.


In this age of postindustrial tribalism wherein two World Wars and a third one (The Cold War) nearly devastated us to the point of total annihilation, media moguls roam like dinosaurs once did, arms conflict continue to be widespread, conventional, biological, and chemical weapons has become the core business of the military-industrial complex (particularly of the European Union and the United States)-- all these point out to the notion that all the world's a stage and we are merely (being played) by Machiavellians in three-piece suits. Bombs over bread.


High-speed deals at Wall Street over high speed deaths on the streets of Rwanda. Times Square fetishism over Moral economy of the peasant Society. The beauty of this tragic play lies in the idea that the liberal democratic notion of being and becoming in this Age of Mass Consumption offer us masks to hide our confusion of what version of reality we all are in. Perfect for the mass creation of, as Herbert Marcuse said, "the one dimensional man". As metaphored by Pink Floyd in "The Wall".




As lamented by Allen Ginsburg in his poems "The Velocity of Money" and "Howl". "I consume, therefore I think I exist". "I am what I think I ate". "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning... it smells of.. victory" said the Colonel in the movie Apocalypse Now. Indeed I believe that in one's lifetime the journey offers a view of the ages; from Dark Ages to (perhaps, for those who choose to be in) the Age of Enlightenment.


The story of the cave is not grounded in a particular historicity--- it never happened in Athens and the allegory neither for the followers of Socrates alone. Just like to story of Buddha, Jesus, Mohamad, Moses and of those crafted not for the purpose of remembering things past but to speak about liberation from the cave.


For I propose, there is not past... there is no future... but all that exist is an ever-changing present. It is here and now and within us, I think. It is not the media nor language nor systems we create, which caged us, but our inability to seek and find the road to freedom. What is it like to be free then? From what and from whom and from where? This, I think is the ultimate question as we continue to be in times of change, complexity, and chaos.


As Chairman Mao wished us: "May we live in interesting times!"