Platos example of the cave was probably the first inquiry ever into the possible effects of television, the illusion of reality, on the minds of man.

Plato among the Greeks was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from
the substance of truth. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs
of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based
upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato.

Could there be a more clear sign of genius than the ability to create what has timeless value? To create timeless knowledge, a philosopher has to reach
out to the absolute truth, for only truth does never change, and thus never looses its value. Thats what constitutes the main difference between a
philosopher and a mere ideologist, the truths of the ideologist have constantly to be re-adjusted whenever they come in contact with reality, the
unchanging object of knowledge, or whenever time went by and changed the external appearances, the ever changing object of opinion and the ideologist,
mere shadows of reality changing with the light.