It's a bit different for Socrates. Mainly because he was the first ethicist in Western history, and philosophy was still such a young concept that humans were working with. That being said, Socrates was eternally committed to developing himself in the pursuit of the good. He was always the philosopher, even in death. — Garrett Travers
I always enjoy hearing about the 'beginnings' of our attempts at founding a 'civilisation' or the earliest city-states etc. The case of Socrates is very interesting considering the fact that we have no actual writings from him. Everything we know about him is sourced from others writing bout him. So we are dependent on the accuracy of their reports. I think there were probably many people before Socrates and even contemporary to him who could be described as 'ethicist' or 'wise man/woman.' That's another issue I feel we don't give enough airtime to. Wise women such as Hypatia.
I think it's probably unfortunate that classical Greece and Rome had such a massive impact on our modern civilisations in the West. I think a much more nuanced approach would have been better.
Most of the very early indigenous groups from the aboriginals to the Aztec, Minoan and Shang cultures had a much better respect for the Earth's resources than the Romans and Greeks.
I think early city-state-type settlements from The Akkadians, the Phonecians, Earliest Persians etc had many pearls of wisdom to offer, which were probably destroyed by early morons such as Alexander the great(dickhead).
We should teach that our first and biggest mistake was the idea that progress and uniting peoples could only ever be achieved by conquering them, enslaving them and stealing everything they had.
I think that we should stop admiring early Greece and Rome.
I think it was mimicry of these moronic cultures that started us on the incredibly bloody path to the destructive cultures we have today. I might be being a bit harsh on the Romans and Greeks. It may well be that such behavior was inevitable due to our Darwinian experiences in the wild but it is such a real shame that we valued and respected our greatest warriors rather than our greatest thinkers.
The braun can always kill brain approach proved to be such a costly way to progress.
How much better would it have been if early civilisations could have grown together and eventually have united in peace instead of through violence. I think we would be a far more harmonious species today and would not always be on the brink of our own destruction.
Ten thousand years of slaughtering anything different from what some local. tribal, tough guy, F***wit leader considered 'the only way to do things' is why we are in the state we are in now.
If only we could all see that it was these dimwitted, totally wrong f***** up early decisions that we must stop emulating and repeating. We based our civilisation on some of the worse elements of those early ones. Rich, poor, money, divine right of kings, rule of the strongest, conquest as a means of expansion, etc, etc
wrong! wrong! wrong!