Plato’s Cave & Social Media

 In a not-so-recent post, I referenced Philosophy Now Issue 165 (Dec 2024/Jan 2025), which had the theme, The Return of God. However, it’s cover contained a graphic and headline on a completely separate topic: Social Media & Plato’s Cave, hence the title of this post. When you turn to page 34, you come across the essay, written by Sean Radcliffe, which won him “...the 2023 Irish Young Philosopher Awards Grand Prize and Philosopher of Our Time Award. He is now studying Mathematics and Economics at Trinity College, Dublin. Where he is an active member of the University Philosophical Society.” There is a photo of him holding up both awards (in school uniform), so one assumes that 2 years ago he was still at school.
 
I wrote a response to the essay, which was published in the next issue (166), which I post below, complete with edits, which were very minor. The editor added a couple of exclamation marks: at the end of the first and last paragraphs; both of which I’ve removed. Not my style.

They published it under the heading: The Problem is the Media.

I was pleasantly surprised (as I expect were many others) when I learned that the author of Issue 165’s cover article, ‘Plato’s Cave & Social Media’, Seán Radcliffe, won the 2023 Irish Young Philosopher Award Grand Prize and Philosopher of Our Time Award for the very essay you published. Through an analogy with Plato’s Cave, Seán rightfully points out the danger of being ‘chained’ to a specific viewpoint that aligns with a political ideology or conspiracy theory. Are any of us immune? Socrates, via the Socratic dialogue immortalised by his champion Plato, transformed philosophy into a discussion governed by argument, as opposed to prescriptive dogma. In fact, I see philosophy as an antidote to dogma because it demands argument. However, if all dialogue takes place in an echo-chamber, the argument never happens.

Social media allows alternative universes that are not only different but polar opposites. To give an example that arose out of the COVID pandemic: in one universe, the vaccines were saving lives, and in an alternative universe they were bioweapons causing deaths. The 2020 US presidential election created another example of parallel universes that were direct opposites. Climate change is another. In all these cases, which universe one inhabits depends on which source of information one trusts.

Authoritarian governments are well aware that the control of information allows emotional manipulation of the populace. In social media, the most emotive and often most extreme versions of events get the most traction. Plato’s response to tyranny and populist manipulation was to recommend ‘philosopher-kings’, but no one sees that as realistic. I spent a working lifetime in engineering, and I’ve learned that no single person has all the expertise, so we need to trust the people who have the expertise we lack. A good example is the weather forecast. We’ve learned to trust it as it delivers consistently accurate short-term forecasts. But it’s an exception, because news sources are rarely agenda-free.

I can’t see political biases disappearing – in fact, they seem to be becoming more extreme, and the people with the strongest opinions see themselves as the best-informed. Even science can be politicised, as with both the COVID pandemic and with climate change. The answer is not a philosopher-king, but the institutions we already have in place that study climate science and epidemiology. We actually have the expertise; but we don’t listen to it because its proponents are not famous social media influencers.