Deep inside Plato’s cave, Kansas Republicans close eyes to the possibility of an outside world

The Kansas Statehouse glows against the dark gloom of night on Nov. 22, 2021 (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Few stories explain our current circumstances better than Plato’s allegory of the cave.

Plato’s theory of forms would be, in today’s vernacular: “As above, so below.” In his allegory, the people live in a cave. They all circle a central fire. The fire provides warmth and sustains daily living, a hub for them all.

One day, however, one person glimpses a small, different spark outside the circle. Curious, he moves toward it. He finds an opening and works his way out. Struggling laboriously, stumbling, blocked, discouraged, he remains intrigued. Gradually larger and brighter grows the light. Steeled with determination, at long last he finds its source.

The man stumbles out of the cave’s mouth into a world of dazzling beauty. All manner of creatures — fish gliding through water; finned, feathered, and furred creatures — dance their lives across green grass, through a rainbow of flowers across and under blue water, over plains and into snow-capped mountains. He sits there for days into nights, stunned, taking it all in.

After further exploration, the man cannot contain himself. Overjoyed, he returns down the long passages, back to the fire circle, where he is warmly welcomed. After the initial party subsides, he tells his story. All listen, incredulously.

As they listen, a truth gradually dawns. This is impossible. Such a vision cannot be real. Further, it would cause great harm, disrupting their continued prosperity. The prodigal son, it turns out, is a threat to society.

So, they kill him.

Our human tribal history reflects this pattern. A desire to belong, reinforced by fear and an instinct for survival, shapes our perceptions. Examples are legion.

Nomadic tribes post night watchmen. Settlers circle their wagons. Forts protect cavalries. Now, our high-tech civilization pours billions into bombs, for use (hopefully) outside our borders. War profiteers make out like gangbusters, while those of us within the gates are impoverished.

Mass media shapes, and misshapes, our perceptions. A campaign by oligarchs spreads distrust. Not coincidentally, many media moguls are also military moguls. These suck-ups to the administration suck up your tax dollars.

Larry Ellison’s Oracle provides Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s war machine with cloud infrastructure and enterprise software. The second-richest person in America, Ellison is an administration loyalist and will soon control CBS, CNN, TikTok, Comedy Central, and HBO.

Elon Musk, still the owner of X (formerly Twitter), is the richest person in the world and spent $250 billion dollars to reelect President Donald Trump. His SpaceX sucks up billions in government contracts for satellites and space surveillance, while his xAI sucks in a Pentagon contract of up to $200 million for AI tools.

Peter Thiel, another billionaire (he donated $2.25 million to Trump in 2016 plus $10 million to J.D. Vance for U.S. Senate in 2022), owns Palantir Technologies. Palantir, recently revealed as a tool for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s violations of human rights, has multibillion-dollar defense contracts, including $10 billion for Army AI-driven data analytics and software for surveillance and battlefield management systems.

I have long held out hope that Kansas legislators might display more independent thought. Those hopes were serendipitously raised by an opportunity for one-on-one conversations. For the record, Rep. Steve Howe of Salina and Sen. Scott Hill of Abilene.

I was pleased with our reasonable and friendly conversations. We agreed on some points and amicably disagreed about others. But I left with a good feeling about our common humanity, and their dedication to the public’s general good.

Then, in quick succession, came two problematic votes. First, to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto and legalize the most despicably inhuman and punitive treatment in the nation against transgender people, even depriving them of certificates of their humanity. Senate Bill 244 will no doubt require huge amounts of my tax dollars to defend the indefensible in court.

Second, House Bill 2004, which requires Kansas Department for Children and Families officials to bend the knee to a corrupt federal government that demands personal information for people already in need, putting them at the whim of feds whose first purpose is denying them aid.

The overwhelming daily question for the session is no longer: “What will they do for us?” It is: “What will they do to us?”

Take these headlines from the past week:

Kansas bill would make it a crime to approach within 25 feet of first responders. This bill ensures journalists could not cover law enforcement, including ICE officers, who might violate your rights.

Students raise concerns over bill that limits First Amendment right to protest. School districts would pay heavy fines if they didn’t punish students for First Amendment-protected speech. Lawmakers also put forth a bill to teach about the dangers of communism or socialism, whatever that means.

Kansas bill to expand free breast cancer screening likely killed by lawmakers. That’s because proponent and Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt is running against Senate President Ty Masterson for governor in the GOP primary.

Democrats exit election committee meeting after accusing chair of antisemitism. Rep. Pat Proctor, candidate for secretary of state and chairman of the House Elections Committee, trots out tired tropes about “the left” and George Soros, who is Jewish.

It is not so much that our Republican legislators have no shame. They have no clue.

Plato is turning over in his cave.

David Norlin is a retired Cloud County Community College teacher, where he was department chairman of communications/English, specializing in media. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.