I am reading the speech made by Socrates when he was tried by the Athenians with charges of ‘corrupting the youths’ and for which he was condemned to death by drinking the poison hemlock and I find it amazing how words spoken over two thousand millennia ago could still ring true today. Here was a man put to death because he was a ‘gadfly’ to the state, an affront to the ‘polite’ society who were suspicious of teachings considered contrary to the norm and who was seen as a threat to mores and values of the day.
And what were those values? Socrates was a philosopher whose life was dedicated to asking question and challenging assumptions people took for granted. He was accused of godlessness and yet he was a great believer in the spirits and divine beings. He dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge and the improvement of the self and for this the young followed him as a man of wisdom and a teacher who taught them about the need to pursue a life of virtue.
‘Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens , care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.’