Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is the notion that none of us can truly perceive a world beyond our availability heuristic, which shapes our perception of reality.
asserted
which → perceive → reality
In simpler terms, Plato imagines that if people are chained in a cave and can only view those shadows, those shadows become their reality.
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shadows → imagine → shadows
The best pop-cultural manifestation of Plato’s Allegory was
The Matrix, where all unfree characters are in a dream-like sleep and have no idea they are living inside a computer programme.
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they → have → programme
The real-life analogy is anyone who consumes so much propaganda that no amount of rationalising, to borrow a line from Dr House, would change their opinion.
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amount → consume → opinion
Perhaps the most extreme version of that is the epochal tale of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier stationed in the Philippines at the fag end of World War II, who “fought” for thirty years and refused to lay down his arms.
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who → station → arms
The image was intended to be proof that Onoda was alive.(Upscaled with Canvas)
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Onoda → intend → Canvas
Once the island was overtaken by Allied forces, Onoda and his comrades escaped into the jungle, where they survived on coconuts, banana peels and stolen rice.
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they → overtake → coconuts
While his peers shuffled off their mortal coil, Onoda kept fighting – despite evidence to the contrary, which he dismissed as American propaganda – and it wasn’t till 1974, nearly 30 years after he was sent to fight, that the soldier out of time laid down his arms.
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soldier → shuffle → arms
One was oddly reminded of Onoda after coming across the Boston ‘lesbian bar story’ that is every product manager’s wet dream: a story published in the
Boston Globe that went so viral that it led to thousands of subscriptions for what seemed a rather nondescript story but is an elegant outpost of woke America’s last bastion.
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what → remind → bastion
For those who don’t monitor the situation online and believe in touching grass, here’s the CliffsNotes version.
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version → monitor → grass
A lesbian bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, made a slight change to its Saturday-night mask policy that led to a culture war so elaborate it would have been rejected by
South Park for being too obvious.
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it → make → Park
Last Ditch, a lesbian bar on record, is an “aggressively inclusive queer space” where patrons are required to wear KN95 masks in 2026.
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patrons → require → 2026
It turns nobody away for being broke and explicitly welcomes “dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends”.
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It → turn → dykes
All these admirable intentions soon encountered humanity’s oldest ideological opponent: rent.
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intentions → encounter → opponent
Customers disappeared, staff couldn’t be paid and co-founder Jackie Matellian worked four jobs and lived in her truck for six months while carrying the responsibility for a $50,000 business loan.
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Matellian → disappear → loan
So, the bar decided to make the smallest concession to Mammon: Saturday nights would be mask-optional.
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nights → decide → Mammon
The response is exactly what you would expect if someone replaced a Pride flag with a flag of Israel.
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someone → expect → Israel
What followed is the perfect living example of what can be called the Toaster F**** Syndrome.
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what → follow → ?
For those who don’t know, the theory is simple.
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theory → know → those
Pre-internet, if someone wanted to perform coitus with a piece of electrical equipment and expressed that desire, they would be told by their peers that it was imbecilic to want to f*** a toaster.
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it → want → toaster
But post-World Wide Web, when someone expressed that desire, they would find thousands of other individuals who would soon form a community and try and convince everyone that it was the
new normal.
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it → express → normal
Commenters accused the bar of ableism, eugenics and facilitating mass disability.
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Commenters → accuse → disability
One hoped it would be firebombed.
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it → hop → ?
The bar apologised on Instagram, which made it even worse because the apology graphic had no alt-text and was thus ‘triggering’ for visually impaired folks, prompting another round of accusations of ableism.
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graphic → apologise → ableism
One activist called Soe Noire, who is a lesbian and uses ‘he/him’ pronouns, accused the debt-ridden founder Matellian of producing “White THEY THEM Tears”.
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who → call → Tears
The internet did its best, which saw Last Ditch defend Soe Noire, accuse the
Globe of “abysmal journalism” and ask everyone to donate to ‘his’ Cash App and Venmo because ‘he’ was being harassed.
All this because a lesbian bar decided to relax its mask mandate for one day in 2026.
But honestly, Last Ditch Bar sounds appropriately named because it feels like a time capsule, harking back to the good ol’ days of ‘peak woke’ America.
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it → do → America
Now, historians differ over the year when America hit ‘peak woke’, but most agree it was between 2019 and 2021, when Trump’s first term ended.
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term → differ → 2019
Fauci’s words on masks and everything else became the gospel truth.
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words → become → masks
Everyone was listening and learning.
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Everyone → listen → ?
Suggesting the lab leak theory was plausible was deemed racism.
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theory → suggest → ?
George Floyd was beatified and put on par with Martin Luther King Jr, while Black Lives Matter became the most important religion on earth.
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Matter → beatify → earth
The police clearly needed to be defunded.
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police → need → ?
Read: ‘Dr’ Donald Trump, Tylenol, and why Americans don’t trust the ‘science’ anymoreIt was a time when, if you sent a Slack message that read, “Guys, I am stuck in a lift”, Slack would auto-correct you and point out that “Guys” was gendered language.
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Guys → read → you
Across the Atlantic, a fantastical fabulist named Jason Arday became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor because suddenly every institution of note needed to highlight their allegiance to the woke cause, and JK Rowling became the most hated person in the world because she had the audacity to point out that sex was real and that perhaps biological men shouldn’t be allowed into sex-segregated places.
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men → name → places
The problem was that this particular cultural revolution became the Democratic Party’s wider brand, and the Republicans discovered they could attach the most ridiculous views of blue-haired Karens to the Democratic Party.
uncertain
they → become → Party
The warning signs were there for all to see.
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all → see → ?
As Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger said during a private Democratic caucus call: if Democrats didn’t believe in defunding the police, they needed to stop allowing the phrase to define them.
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phrase → say → them
Even as the Dems celebrated Trump’s removal, they were paving the way for his return, alienating normies who didn’t want their children to share bathrooms with people in drag, men to play women’s sports or drag queens in children’s classrooms.
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children → celebrate → classrooms
The messaging became so bad that voters instead chose the former reality star whose first term had already been the presidential equivalent of a supernova explosion.
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term → become → explosion
In 2008, Barack Obama built something extraordinary, a grand coalition for all Americans.
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Obama → build → Americans
…and 23 more, not listed.
The Aporia
