Life and activity of Plato /part 2/
What was the management of this Critique is seen, among other things, by the inscription of his tombstone: "This monument is erected for the masculine people who, even for a short time, curtailed the daring whims of the damned Athenian people. " And, in his speech, 60 years after Socrates' death, Eschil turned to the Athenians: "You Athenians have killed Socrates because this is because he knew that he had educated Crete, one of those 30 who had destroyed democracy ". In other words, besides external wars, Plato's time is still the time for the most acute internal political and economic turmoil. For a short time, democracy and the aristocracy are in power, and bloody persecutions and killings of political opponents are taking place.
Economic contradictions are at their peak. It is precisely these internal struggles that Socrates suffered. But only because he was against the many demands of the Democrats and was the educator of the aristocratic leaders, and his accuser Anit was one of the leaders of democracy, but also because in such times of honor and coup, the personal opponents can easily be slandered public, folk enemies. And Socrates had personal opponents because, as Jonas Kon-says, "When you pointed out to others that you did not know and revealed the falsity of their wisdom, you naturally created enemies in their faces." Plato himself in the struggle of this struggle, due to the interests and traditions of his family, and because of the influence of Socrates is on the side of the aristocracy. At the same time, however, he very well sees his shortcomings, so his views, as he puts them in his writings, have nothing to do with the views of the historically formed and at that time already politically worn-out aristocracy.
On the contrary, its social ideal is a distant communist republic governed by the wisest, so its criticism of democracy makes it not from the viewpoint of the reactionary aristocracy but from the more distant future forms of society. In the seventh of his letters, he even writes that he was disturbed by the government and by the internal bloodshed of the 30s with their political opponents. In any case, he is critical enough to one side and the fate of Socrates tells him clearly how easily a person can become a victim of public struggle, so he is deliberately kept away from political intercourse and lends himself to his scientific and philosophical a case, beginning to write its philosophical dialogues in order to influence the re-education of the people, showing cruel political mores. This is due to the invaluable from the cultural point of view fact that his philosophy from the street and the market and the political a meeting enters the scientific cabinet and a lean system is launched. Here, she undoubtedly loses a lot of her immediate freshness, life and practical handyness in everyday life, but it nevertheless achieves a unique depth and space flight, leaving it for centuries.