That’s great Eric, and you are right I was totally personalizing you as the voice of the article, not Athenians of the time, which was your point. Sorry.
I won’t call myself an expert on Greek history of that period, but I know enough to be dangerous. I know that your using Aristophanes making fun of Socrates as a way of showing his reputation was bad is much more complicated and you probably do too. Aristophanes made fun of everybody, that’s what he did. To not be made fun of by him would say something, not the other way around.
But that’s a small point, just a quibble. I have thought a lot about his real life. About all the years of War with Sparta and the literal decimation of a great city. That is a real thing that happened and Socrates soldiered and lived through it. He knew that ‘democracy,’ like everything else was a matter of perspective, just like it is today. The more obvious it is to anyone that their implementation of democracy is the correct one, the more deluded they are. That’s pure Socrates there.
I don’t know what your motive was in writing this piece so I will not make one up. I will say that to me Socrates is a role model for all times because he always questioned authority and not in a self-seeking way, simply to break through knee-jerk speaking and mindlessness. When times feel dire, like now, there is a tendency to close ranks and not question because it could sink the ship. That is what sinks ships in my opinion. Once you think it’s too scary to question, psychopaths will create scariness to end questions and voila, the world we live in.
I do not believe that any authority or any State or any Institution, no matter how awesomely it is constituted or how perilous the times, should be beyond questioning. Neither did Socrates. He was Cancelled in a time when Cancel Culture was thriving. The three men who called him out are recognizable types today.
As people always say, Socrates didn’t have to die. To me, the really fun question is did he understand that drinking the hemlock would not bring him death but the closest thing to immortality there is for humans?
