Ominous Ride - Allegory of the Echo Chamber

from SpinTunes 19 Round 2 by Spintunes

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I chose Plato's Allegory of the Cave. A general overview is below.

Let me preface this by saying that I mean no offense to any listeners who happen to watch Fox News, the target for this new telling of Plato's allegory. If I may explain, I have always tried to seek truth, for better or worse, and admit to my own faults and shortcomings. I do not feel or claim to have all the answers, but I am self aware enough to try. I find it increasingly more difficult to see how many others are incapable or unwilling to do the same. In my experience, Fox News viewers comprise a large chunk of this category.

Based on various studies, Fox News is one of the least reliable sources of information--Tucker Carlson even admitted it is more "entertainment" than news. And similar studies show that Fox News viewers tend to be the least informed and the least flexible in their thinking. Like Plato's Cave, they only know what they see on Fox...

SUMMARY (taken from Masterclass)
Plato uses the cave as a symbolic representation of how human beings live in the world, contrasting reality versus our interpretation of it. These two ideas reflect the two worlds in the story: the world inside the cave, and the world outside. For the prisoners in the cave, the shadows on the wall created by firelight are all they know to be real. If one of the prisoners breaks free and witnesses the outside world, they will come to understand that as the true reality. However, when the freed prisoner returns to the darkness of the cave, their eyes will have now been blinded by the light of the sun, and their fellow prisoners still inside the cave will believe that it is the outside world that is harmful; to them, that truth is not worth seeking.

lyrics

My first civic education
I got all my information
From a single TV station
It was all I ever knew
So I followed their directives
And adopted their perspectives
Then one day I waxed objective
And saw how much wasn’t true

When I left the screen behind me
And set out with an open mind
All the Truths I found were blinding
But I had a change of heart
Now that I’ve returned
I’d like to show you what I learned
But it seems you are determined
To reject me from the start

I know the echoes are compelling
What the talking heads are selling
Feels like betrayal to question the tales
They are telling

But I found a place out in the sun
Where facts are seldom ever spun
And the only cherry picking
Comes from underneath the tree
I know it can be harrowing
To doubt the shadows on the screen
You might think I’m blinded
Cuz now all that I can see

Is how the fabricated echoes mislead you
The fractured ideologies feed you
Everybody else at the screen
Shares ideas you accede to

CHORUS?:
All those years of watching
“Fair and Balanced” news I thought
That their messages were honest
And the other side was wrong
And all those years of righteous
Accusations of the bias
In the media were lies
And “entertainment” all along

Anti-maskers
Anti-vacc’ers
Hydroxychloroquine
Is the answer
Get sick and blame it all on China
How could it be your fault?

Kids in cages
Separated
Are you still waiting for the
Border invasions
It’s time to build a wall cuz immigrants
Are coming for your jobs

There’s no such thing as alternative facts
But when your house of cards falls down
It’s a good way to distract

Second Amendment
Don’t condemn it
Thank God we have our
Thoughts and prayers for the dead (amen)
It’s time to stockpile
Cuz the government is coming for your guns

The White House insurrection
And the claims of rigged elections
And the calls to hang Mike Pence
Because he wouldn’t break the law

You may think the lies are charming
But in fact they are alarming
When you see the people swarming
Like another Civil War

The echoes may just be relating
Hyperbole that others are stating
But would you rather adhere to a lie
Than negate it

There is a place out in the sun
Where facts are seldom ever spun
And the only cherry picking
Comes from underneath the tree
I’m not trying to obfuscate,
Diminish or indoctrinate
An open mind is an open gate
So prisoners can finally be free

credits

from SpinTunes 19 Round 2, released April 4, 2022

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Spintunes Union, South Carolina

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Each album on this site contains the responses to a single challenge.