Comparing Chomsky And Plato s Time - 1686 Words

Chomsky and Plato both believe that the people in charge of the government during their times manipulate the public; they differ in what they think the replacement for the elites are. In the Republic Plato thinks the ruling class should be replaced with philosophers, in manufacturing consent Chomsky believes the rulering class should be replaced with the masses and democracy. Some of the reasons for this different mindset is the environment they were in at the time of righting their books. So first, I would like to compare and contrast people and their environments from Plato’s time with Chomsky’s. During Plato’s time Athens was a democracy, kind of like our times where we are a democratic republic. During Plato’s time most people could†¦show more content†¦In Plato’s cave like in current times all people know is the cave/media. Plato and Chomsky differ in how they view there influences on the masses. In Plato’s cave the masses are f orced outside of the cave they are not prepared for the removal of illusion in fact in their eyes, reality is the illusion. So, they would rather go back into their illusion, forcefully if they have to (Plato 260). Chomsky has a very different view of the masses; they are looking for a way out of the cave but can’t find one because of the propaganda model in its five filters. The first is media ownership since few people own the media they are in control of what the masses see so they would not criticize themselves or friends. Thus leads to the masses, not having power to make their own decisions since the decision is already made on a viewpoint. Another filter is advertising where what companies want to sell you see and nothing else; makes it where you can’t criticize you funders. The third is the reliance on official sources; this is analogous to the cave where a few puppeteers disseminate the information to the prisoner s. Another filter is flak, this is where you p ublish something and get punished for it. So the masses will never see the reality only the illusion. The last filter is anti-communism, this idea can be seen in how Muslims and ISIS are viewed, and as result of this you have Donald Trump, with his recent comments on banning Muslims (Chomsky 62). All of these