Socrates on democracy
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
From my perspective, the biggest criticism against Socrates is his opposition to democracy. He believed that philosophers should lead the state. It’s easy to be harsh on him for such a blunder. But I think the guy actually had a point. My personal view is that people should be free to choose whomever they want. But they should be instructed to choose a group of people among the “elite” as their leaders. And what I mean by the “elite” is a minority in the society who have proven that they have leadership qualities. They are the “transcenders”, those who have by far transcended their origins and background. This notion of elitism has nothing to do with money, power, class, gender or any other meaningless differences. By this token, Barack Obama, belongs to this elite and George Bush doesn’t.


