Plato Was a Backpacker
Travel Books: Frank Bures looks a long way back to fellow traveler Plato and the seeds of wisdom
12.15.08 | 12:10 AM ET
Photo by Not far into Will Durant’s book The Story of Philosophy, I came across a startling fact. In his chapter on the Greek thinker Plato, after discussing the politics, history and geography of ancient Athens, he mentions that, due to political unrest, the philosopher was forced to leave the city-state in 399 B.C.
“Where he went, we cannot for certain say,” Durant writes. “Twelve years he wandered, imbibing wisdom from every source, sitting at every shrine, tasting every creed. Some would have it that he went to Judea and was moulded there for a while by the tradition of the almost socialistic prophets; and even that he found his way to the banks of the Ganges and learned the mystic meditation of the Hindus. We do not know.”
I had no idea Plato spent so much time on the road. Like most students, I was assigned to read The Republic in college—several times. As I recall, it seemed like an interesting set of mental exercises, a decent bunch of questions, with maybe even some worthwhile ideas about how society should be run. (Don’t all college students think they’re philosopher-king material?) But Plato the traveler?
One thing did make a huge impression on me: Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, in which Socrates and Glaucon are having a chat about—what else?—the plight of humanity. Imagine, Socrates says, some people in a cave, chained so they can only see the shadows of things on the wall, not the things as they really are: “They are in it from childhood with their legs and necks in bonds so that they are fixed, seeing only in front of them.”
Glaucon is taken aback. “It is a strange image,” he says, “and strange prisoners you’re telling of.”
“They’re like us,” Socrates replies. “For in the first place, do you suppose such men would have seen anything of themselves and one another other than the shadows cast by the fire on the side of the cave facing them?”
“How could they,” Glaucon asks, “if they had been compelled to keep their heads motionless throughout life?”
Indeed. I remember reading this and feeling a sharp pang of recognition, then reading about the guy who is dragged out of the cave to see things as they are for the first time: Not absolute, solid things at all. Just shadows on the wall!
This was heady stuff, and it resonated. Of all “The Republic,” this seemed like the most brilliant and telling critique—just as relevant to our society as it was to Plato’s. At the time I didn’t really understand why this was so powerful for me. Now I think I do.
Oceans of ink have been spilled about what Plato meant when he wrote this story. Was it about the ascent of the soul? Was it about true perceptions of the forms? Was it about proper education?
Or was it, I wonder, about travel?
After a little more research, I found that indeed Plato had traveled quite a bit. Yet he didn’t document his voyages like Herodotus. He didn’t keep a diary, or draw any sketches. In fact, he didn’t seem to write much about these travels at all.
But scholars have pieced them together. According to Jeno Platthy in Plato: A Critical Biography, the philosopher made at least five separate journeys for periods of years to Italy, Sicily, Egypt and “the East.” The later journeys are better known, some of which were made for political reasons. The earlier ones, less so. For example, in his second trip abroad, he supposedly lived in a rented house in Heliopolis (now in Egypt) and helped pay for his time abroad by selling oil.
Yet it’s Plato’s first trip abroad that holds the most mystery and promise. Pletthy writes that Plato scarcely mentions this adventure, because, “even to himself, such a journey could have appeared ... as a youthful fling abroad, not worthy of recollection which could not be tied to later meaningful historical events.”
A youthful fling, indeed. Plato was 27-years-old and a student of Socrates when he set off for Italy to try to learn the secrets of the Pythagoreans in Acragas. Once there he was “plunged into banqueting,” and there is a cryptic (and disputed) reference to him “never sleeping alone at night” while in the city. Later, he wrote that the residents “build as if they would live forever, and stuff themselves as if they’re eating their last meal before they die.”
To me, this sounded a lot like Plato’s gap year, his study abroad. And I knew the effect that kind of thing can have on a person, because when I first read the allegory of the cave, I had only been back from my own year in Italy (where I slept alone plenty of times) for a few months. I was in the midst of possibly one of the worst cases of reverse culture shock on record.
I was questioning everything. Not just the big things. Everything. What I ate. How I dressed. What I believed. Which sports I watched. I thought about how the world worked and how I thought it should work. In Italy, it had all been done differently and worked just fine. Maybe better in some ways. Yet I found myself back among my compatriots who had no real interest in the fact that so many aspects of our lives were arbitrary. Shadows on the wall! It was like they’d been compelled to keep their heads motionless throughout their lives.
This reckless questioning is not the same as wisdom. But I can easily imagine a young Plato coming home from Italy and wanting to scream from the rooftops: “You lemmings! Must we all eat olives and figs?”
It is a powerful experience to see that things don’t have to be the way they are, that our societies and our lives can be arranged otherwise. This is one of the great gifts of seeing the world.
It can be like coming out of our cave, blinking and looking. It feels like the first time you’ve seen everything. And while that may not be wisdom, it may well be the beginning of wisdom—mine or yours or Plato’s—which is what we hope to find when we have left our caves behind.
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Eva 12.15.08 | 2:42 AM ET
‘But I can easily imagine a young Plato coming home from Italy and wanting to scream from the rooftops: “You lemmings! Must we all eat olives and figs?”’
Thanks, Frank! Made me laugh out loud, and really nailed that frustration of some homecomings.
D. R. Khashaba 12.24.08 | 10:17 AM ET
I have been reading Plato for more than six decades and have so far published four books and many essays, all of which from a Platonic angle. Still I have found in this delightful article an original perspective. Perhaps Mr Bures and anyone who has been drawn to read this article would find something of interest in my weblog: http://khashaba.blogspot.com
Brendan 12.26.08 | 1:12 AM ET
No offense (well, a little offense), but this piece was really bad.
1) Italy is not that different.
2) One year is not *that* long.
3) Lots of things are totally arbitrary. This is a revelation how?
4) You feel superior to your friends because you spent a year in Italy? Seriously?
5) Perhaps most importantly, stop trying to shoehorn Plato into your travel experiences. The revelations that Plato’s talking about are way more fundamental than just “hey, they do things differently here!” Plato’s talking about coming to realizations about the nature of reality, not about the difference between burgers and pasta.
Frank 12.26.08 | 11:28 AM ET
Brendan,
Thanks for the comment. I respect your opinion, and some of your points are valid. Italy isn’t that different. A year isn’t that long. My main point in the piece is that to think critically about your society, you need the perspective of an outsider. As Schopenhauer says, “The more a man belongs to posterity—in other words, to humanity in general—so much the more is he an alien to his contemporaries.” Becoming part of Italian society helped me question my own society’s assumptions. This has nothing to do with feeling superior, or comparing burgers and pasta. It has to do with knowing yourself, and knowing the place that made you yourself.
Frank
Jeff 12.28.08 | 4:17 PM ET
I must side with Brendan on this one. The premise of the article is a bit thin. People traveled all the time in the ancient world (ever read The Iliad?), that’s why it was no big deal that Plato went to Italy. The differences between Greece and Italy were not very great. Lots of olives and figs in both countries.
Eva Holland 12.28.08 | 4:39 PM ET
Jeff,
I don’t think The Iliad is the greatest example of the sort of cross-cultural learning and acquisition of new perspectives that Frank is discussing here. Travel for the sole purpose of waging war and destroying an entire civilization isn’t exactly the sort of travel he had in mind, I don’t think.
I thought the idea of Plato as a traveler was an interesting one. He’s just so closely associated with one particular city-state—I got most of the way through a Classics degree without ever hearing his name associated with anywhere but Athens—that the notion he might have traveled had never crossed my mind.
As for the “Italy is not that different” idea (whether in Plato’s day or Frank’s), well, I’ve always figured that anyone who can travel abroad and see no real differences with their home isn’t looking very closely. Canada, the US, the UK and Australia, for example, might be written off by some as all “pretty much the same”—but they’re plenty different. Greece and Italy 2500 years ago, without today’s unifying forces of TV, language, global brands, etc, etc? I’d say the differences would have been substantial.
Kostas Sarantidis 12.28.08 | 10:36 PM ET
I agree with Eva. I’m Greek, born in Greece, and I visited Italy in the 70’s and 80’s. There are similarities, but many differences all around. Yes, Jeff, there are plenty figs and olives in both countries, but it’s hard to confuse Greek olives with Italian, etc. I think the objections raised by Brendan and Jeff are “thin”, to use Jeff’s own word to describe Frank’s premise. And having lived most of my life in Canada and the US I can also wholeheartedly agree with Eva on the real differences that exist among the major English-speaking countries even in this age of globalization.
Frank 12.29.08 | 9:43 AM ET
Eva and Kostas: Thanks for your comments too. You’re right. I didn’t mean to be cavalier about the differences from between Italy and the US. While they share assumptions about the individual rights and freedoms, there are also large differences on everything from the ideas of beauty, art, family, time and so on. And as with all cultures, the deeper differences are often hidden in language and stories that are not readily available to outsiders.
michael freeman 12.31.08 | 12:52 PM ET
C.S. Lewis used the cave allegory to entreat people to go, “further up and further in”. In order to escape the shadow world, you must leave the cave by going, further up, as in travel, or, further in, as in spirituality. Both of these involve going somewhere that will help you grow.
Russell Johnston 01.01.09 | 3:44 PM ET
You’re right, Italy is not so different, you can watch American TV shows there just like in Greece. What was Plato on about?
Keep your eyes fastened on those shadows, dude.
Joe Thorpe 01.01.09 | 3:46 PM ET
You’re right, Italy is not so different, you can watch American TV shows there just like in Greece, and everything. What was Plato on about?
Keep your eyes fastened on those shadows, dude.