Respect Goes A Long Way

I’d like to start off by disagreeing with Socrates regarding some of his beliefs about democracy. I think a variable in his thoughts regarding democracy that he neglected to consider heavily, a game changer, in my opinion, is respect. Respect is a deep admiration. It is a display of a sort of affection toward someone that you will treat them in a way that displays them as important to you. That you see them as an individual worthy of being listened to and regarded as one higher than the average individual. With freedom will always come boundaries to maintain that freedom, and if people are willing to respect those boundaries, freedom can exist for a long time.

The following statement really just got me thinking: “see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.” (Socrates, book 8). But why? Why do the citizens act so immature and if they are in some way superior? Why do they think they should be fully in charge of what right and wrong mean. Does Socrates assume that the hole in democracy is the selfish ambitions of people? Life hasn’t been too terrible with the rulers they currently have. Is he assuming the majority of people will have a change of heart when a democracy is instated into a society? Socrates was a very intelligent man, but I feel like his argument omits a few very important variables.

I commented on Cade and Isaac's posts.