cultural trauma we now face requires an act of freedom on our part, that is, an ability to assert our autonomy over this crisis’ debilitating political, ideological, and socioeconomic effects.
Plato’s myth of Gyges demonstrates how the subversion of a solid moral discourse becomes the main mechanism for restoring and the health and strength of that moral discourse. Plato relies on the myth to strengthen his own argument for justice by giving his opponents the means to subvert it. Indeed on the one hand the myth becomes an internal means by which Plato’s text overturn its established order, and on the other hand it serves as the foundation for convincing all that if moral ideals are to hold, they must remain ideals that transcend Gyges’ excesses. Plato introduces the myth in The Republic when Socrates rises up to the challenge of proving that acting justly is good in-itself no matter how its consequences affect us. According to the tale, introduced by Glaucon, one of Socrates’ interlocutors eager to demonstrate that most people take the right course of actions just because they realize that they cannot get away with doing the wrong thing, Gyges, an until then honest and law-abiding shepherd from the kingdom of Lydia in ancient Asia Minor found by accident, during a violently stormy day, a golden ring that gives him the power to become invisible by simply turning it around his finger. Being a courageous but also ambitious individual, who did not hesitate from climbing down into a cave momentarily opened by an earthquake accompanying the storm, to recover the ring from the giant hand of a seemingly non-human creature, Gyges promptly manage to trespass into the royal palace, sleep with and conspire with the queen, murder the king, and