PINGOL, SHEILLYN MAE Q.

2012122119

HUM14/A24

1. The philosophical issue started with one of the members, identified as Kenneth, had escaped the

aforementioned house and visited the places they had long watched as real life documentaries and

discovered at all they‟ve been taught all their lives had been staged; a televised work of fiction that

his fellow disciples had been led to believe as a film depicting the real world that they have not

experienced themselves. The tragedy, for Plato, was what happened after his escape, his return to the

house. The other disciples ostracized him into the outside world and deemed him a lunatic for seeing

what was contradictory of the beliefs of the people around him. We see this everyday, in present

society, how the majority, not society, shun the different, concerning different issues like

homosexuality, atheism, racism. The majority decides how the present society should view the

individual, how we should judge others. In a world where the majority knows that real life is concerned

with different places, we will ostracize the one who has lived his life inside a house living through soap

operas. On the other hand, an outsider from the Weatherfield sect will banish whoever it is from the

outside that will try to change their views from the norm. Moreover, the story present a clear

preference of the society to ignore all beliefs but customary dogma. The reality for those left inside

the house if different from the reality that is present to Kenneth, what is lacking here is ignorance; if

one knows what good is, one will be subjected to do good.

2. The philosophical issue in this scenario can be compared to “The Allegory of the Cave” presented by

Plato and narrated by Socrates which tells us a story concerning certain beings that have lived chained

to the wall of a cave and faced a blank wall construed to represent how the members of the said

Weatherfield sect have been forbidden to have any form of contact from outside their St. Hilda Hogden

House. The shadows which the said beings have relied on as the image of what the world is can be

represented through the soap operas that the members of the sect used as basis on what the world

looked like outside their house. Plato, as Socrates had described him in the „Allegory of the Cave‟, will

answer this philosophical issue with the same issues that I have voiced in identifying the philosophical

issues in this scenario. Ignorance, as a philosophical issue, is what makes the opinions of those who

know a certain piece of information different from the actual fact, same with what happened to

Copernicus‟ theory of heliocentrism which countered Ptolemy‟s celebrated theory that the Earth was

the center of our system. The whole world was accustomed to Ptolemy‟s theory and with Copernicus‟

theory defying it, the conflict resulted in Copernicus‟ execution in the 16th century; the confirmation of

his principles however following shortly afterward, furthermore proving the human beings‟ dislike

towards change or ideas contradicting their beliefs, that “we are looking for that one element that is

not subject to change”.Same with the proposed difference with the world of forms and the sensible

world, the sensible world for the Weatherfield disciples has a sensible world in which the soap operas

had always provided with images and scenarios both present in their world and reality, Kenneth‟s

escape disrupted that particular world, causing them to cast him aside. The house is a metaphor for

the limits that the human body is accustomed to. Plato, as somewhat of a cynic in terms of the human

body, views the human skills or body as the obstructions that prevent us from the potential because

we are subject to the physical maladies of the world, it keeps us from obtaining knowledge and

glorifies the soul in the concept that it has the capacity to know real knowledge in contrast with the

body, a curse to humans as Plato puts it, which obscures knowledge.