Hermann Hesse said in his novel Siddhartha, “The opposite of every truth is just as true.” Hesse believes that every story, dogma, truth, has an opposite, which is just as true and steadfast as the first. Hermann Hesse’s book The Glass Bead Game also has a revealing and interesting quote. Similar to Hesse’s quote from Siddhartha, he wrote, “everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense.” These quotes both address the idea that truth cannot be defined by one story. Hesse’s quote from The Glass Bead Game gives a negative and less hopeful tone, presenting us with a different truth, or perspective on his existential dilemma. It is clear that one side of the story is not the complete truth. Truth …show more content…
He gets up and walks out, he is temporarily blinded but the light, then he is able to see a whole world full of new and exciting information. Being excited by this, he goes back to tell the other people in the cave. The change in light blinds the man again, which alarms the cave people. Still he attempts to enlighten them, but their ignorance and fear of this knowledge blinds them, just as the difference in light between the cave and the outside world blinded the man. They both have truths that are similar, but prevent each other from seeing both sides of the same story. The free man from the cave went further than the others, he saw things that the cave people could not even dream of because of his willingness to move forward away from the dark protective cave, where everything was familiar, and pushed himself into the unknown, educating himself. When he goes to tell the truth to the cave people, their truth gets in the way of their own education. We can see some parallels from this allegory to our world today. For instance, there are many people afraid of the Muslim people because they are uneducated on what Islam stands for, and thus react horribly to those of Islam. With all of the recent horrors happening to our friends in France, America hasn’t been seeing the truth. The fear that gripped the nation in 2001 held us tight when Paris was attacked; it opened old wounds and the fear crept back. America is the cave people, afraid that if we allow Syrian refugees we might be harmed. We will not let the “other” into our country out of this fear. When we block others from us we prohibit ourselves from a rich and diverse future and prevent ourselves from seeing other