Shouldn’t this be in “Breaking News”?
The Socratic teaching method, works very well and fosters critical thinking in students. It really should be revitalized and used, to some extent today, but isn’t; sadly.
The worst form of government, he said, was a tyranny, which is exactly what the Spartans imposed after their victory. (This was letting them off easy, the Thebans wanted Athens utterly destroyed. The Spartans, knowing that would make the Thebans an unchallenged hegemon if they did, demurred.)
Thence the Thirty. Of whom, as the author points out, were some unpopular characters: Critias, perhaps the most ruthless, was one of Socrates' students, although Socrates repudiated him during the brief reign of the Thirty. Xenophon was also a student and one of the two chroniclers of Socrates' death. (He may even have been an enforcer for the Thirty but this is highly controversial). The other, Plato, wasn't there - he was quite a young man at the time, was also close to the families of the Thirty, and was in hiding for the most part. The death he describes in The Apology was pure fiction - dying of hemlock poisoning is anything but gentle and peaceful.
So the democrats overthrew the Thirty and returned to power in Athens, knowing that Socrates was a well-known critic and accusing him of being sympathetic to the reign of the Thirty (he was not). The charge of impiety was a ruse. They wanted rid of him and were expecting him to accept ostracism from Athens for ten years instead of drinking the hemlock. As he was in his 70's, tired and beat up from the tumultuous last couple of years, he preferred death in his city to death as a lonely traveler. It was, in fact, a political murder even if it wasn't quite what the accusers had in mind.
Great article.
There is a high price to pay when not being compliant and thinking for oneself.
Anyone that denies that, ask someone that refused the Covid vaccine, or didn’t want to play the social distancing and mask games.
“I drank what?”
Nobody told him he lock was poison.
ping
That was a great article! Thanks for posting it!
If folks enjoyed reading about Socrates, I recommend looking next into the life of Sir Thomas More. Or you can cut to the chase and learn about his final days in the 1966 Academy Award Best Picture film “A Man for All Seasons.”
Because, as he stated during his trial: I would rather speak after my manners and die than speak in the manners of this court and live.
Thank you for sharing this. I really enjoyed reading it.
🙏🙏🙏
So when chi.drne ask “why” for the umpteenth time, don’t lose patience, they are bring Socratic
Why don’t high school and college 101 philosophy classes ever teach Thomas Reid and the Scottish school of common sense, wouldn’t that make sense in traditional America and be better for kids than Nietzsche?
He was taken back in time to San Bernadinas?
Chang was intolerable
It was a time when most of the world looked like cover of the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy
Victor Davis Hanson uses the trial of Socrates as a teaching moment. It is an example of the problems with Athens’s style of “pure democracy.” The “jury” wasn’t necessarily a cross section of peers, but rather a semi- self selected group of Athenians with time and interest enough to show up and be entertained. Given a different day, the result could Ave been different.
I assume VDH is generally close to the truth.
He also liked billiards.