Why Socrates Hated Democracy

we're used to thinking very highly of democracy and by extension of ancient Athens the civilization that gave rise to it the parnon has become almost a byword for Democratic Values which is why so many leaders of democracies like to be photographed there it's therefore very striking to discover that one of ancient gree's greatest achievements

philos opy was highly suspicious of its other achievement democracy the founding father of Greek philosophy Socrates is portrayed in the dialogues of Plato as hugely pessimistic about the whole business of democracy in book six of the Republic Plato describes Socrates falling into conversation with a character called adim mantis and trying to get him to see the flaws of democracy

by comparing a society to a ship if you were heading out on a journey by sea ask Socrates who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring the latter of course says adim mantis so why then respond Socrates do we keep

thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be the ruler of a country socrates's point is that voting in an election is a skill not a random intuition and like any skill it needs to be taught systematically to people letting the citizenry vote without an ed education is as

irresponsible as putting them in charge of a tri sailing to Samos in a storm Socrates was to have firsthand catastrophic experience of the foolishness of Voters in 399 BC the philosopher was put on trial on trumpt charges of corrupting the Youth of Athens a jury of 500 Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided