 One can articulate the same worry even remaining with the Republic’s terms. Shadows and reflections belong in the category of near-ignorance. Imitation works an effect worse than ignorance, not merely teaching nothing but engendering a perverted preference for ignorance over knowledge. Plato often observes that the ignorant prefer to remain as they are (Symposium 204a), but this turn toward ignorance is different. Why would anyone choose to know less? The theoretical question is also a practical one. If mimêsis poisons the soul, why do so many people swallow it? Plato’s attack on poetry saddles him with an aesthetic problem of evil.