A Troll – or a Dangerous Menace?
Socrates questioned democracy, which pleased Athens’ snobby rich youth. He validated their view that privileged people like them had a natural right to rule. One of his students, Alcibiades, went on to betray Athens and turn it upside down and inside out in the disastrous Peloponnesian War. Socrates was not responsible for Alcibiades’ actions – the man was a dangerous live wire. However, Alcibiades exemplifies the kinds of privileged youth who liked Socrates because they thought he was “edgy”. Socrates’ street trolling annoyed Athenians, but not enough to want to kill him. Nor was the fact that he inspired and was liked by snobs make Athenians desire Socrates’ death. What tipped the scales was the rise of the Thirty Tyrants – rich Athenians who overthrew the democratic government. Their leader was Socrates’ student Critias, and their numbers included other Socrates pupils.
They installed a collaborationist regime supported by Sparta, Athens’ longtime enemy which had defeated it after a decades-long Peloponnesian War. The Thirty Tyrants’ government was a bloodthirsty oligarchy dominated by aristocrats. In its brief period of power, the regime conducted a lethal purge of democracy’s supporters, in which roughly 5% of Athenian citizens were murdered. Others had their property confiscated and were forced to flee into exile. Put in a modern context, picture if America’s 1%, led by radical devotees of Ayn Rand, carried a coup backed by China or Russia, and overthrew the US government. Then installed a radical libertarian government, and rolled rights back to the days when only the upper class got to vote. To cow the population into submission, they then sent out death squads that killed about sixteen million Americans – about 5% of the 2023 population.
