Plato's Allegory of the Cave Applies to Everyone

Plato wrote the allegory of the cave in The Republic. Many people have not heard of it, and many who have heard of it seemed to miss the moral of the story. It seems really difficult to find people who understand that the tale does not apply to stupid people, but rather that it applies to everyone.

As a reminder for those who have heard about it, and for those who haven't, here is a short synopsis of what happens in the story.

All of the people who dwell in the cave do so constrained such that they can only see a wall opposite the opening of the cave. During the day, they can see shadows on the wall; at night, they hear activity outside the cave. Since they cannot see what is causing these shadows, they can only speculate about the causes.

Customer Service: A Thing of the Past?

It doesn’t seem that long ago, even though it has truly been a couple of decades, that I stood in front of audiences explaining that one of the best sources for additional business was in resolving customer complaints to their satisfaction. Customer complaints are often resolved by cross selling a supplementary product or service, or by upgrading to a superior product or service. At the very least, a customer who is satisfied with the resolution to a complaint will likely serve as free advertising to friends, relatives, and co-workers who complain about substandard products or services with a competitor.

Some Exponential Benefits of Reparations

A lot of white people that I talk to about reparations contend that paying reparations to descendants of slaves would transfer wealth unfairly to people who have not earned it at the expense of the white people who pay it. Both of those contentions are based on flawed logic. The first flaw in the logic is that it is an unfair transfer of wealth. Black people have systemically had their wealth stolen from them through labor practices, business practices, and outright theft of property. The second flaw is that only white people would pay reparations. Reparations would be paid from the treasury which would collect the money from tax payments. Even Black people will be paying reparations.

I don't make my bias toward the payment of reparations any secret. What some people may not understand, though, is that I think paying reparations is not only the right thing to do, I also think it would help fix some other problems that plague society. Here are some of the exponential benefits for society in general that would follow the payment of reparations.