Socrates, Patriot or Traitor? Socrates was a great thinker and debater dedicated to truth. He spent his golden years walking the streets of Athens in pursuit of wisdom. Socrates lived the destiny that was revealed to him in the Oracle. He created and perfected his own cross-examination technique; we today know it as the Socratic Method. He was thorough and unrelenting. His subjects were often humiliated. Socrates would methodically disprove anyone he thought was wrong. In his eyes, most of the people he interviewed were blind. It did not matter if one was wealthy and influential or if they were young and impressionable. Socrates could question anyone and turn him or her inside out. Unfortunately, he did so without regard to the individuals feelings. Because of this unabashed honesty, Socrates ended up being brought to trial. Finally, he angered the people at the top, and he would pay for it. Since he could not be prosecuted solely based on his method, charges of corrupting the youth and of blasphemy were fabricated against him. The humiliation he inflicted was never intentional, but it angered everyone nonetheless. Plato, Socrates greatest student, witnessed the trial and narrated it the Apology; the aftermath is noted in the Crito. Socrates seemingly takes on a different stance in each of these stories in regards to obligation to the state. This paper will try to prove just the opposite; Socrates upholds justice in all events. You could in fact call him a patriot.Socrates believes that when a man perceives the government as acting wrong, he is entitled to peaceful dissent. However, if the man protests and still is not exonerated, then the man had better be prepared to take the punishment, even it means certain death. Socrates believes that the government is like a parent to us; through marriage it allows for our births, provides for us, protects us from outside enemies, gives us rules we live by, and so forth. This was especially t...
