ANN ARBOR, Mich. - TelAve -- Jose Franco, owner of Stoop Juice in Park Slope Brooklyn has written a book titled' "The Stories I Tell Myself", detailing the authors self reflections in today's political environment. Most of us are used to thinking very highly of democracy  – and by extension, of Ancient Athens, the civilization that gave rise to it. It's therefore very striking to discover that one of Ancient Greece's great achievements and tool used for self reflection, Philosophy, was highly suspicious of its other achievement, Democracy. In the dialogues of Plato, the founding father of Greek Philosophy – Socrates – is portrayed as hugely pessimistic about the whole business of democracy. In Book Six of The Republic, Plato describes Socrates falling into conversation with a character called Adeimantus and trying to get him to see the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship. If you were heading out on a journey by sea, asks Socrates, who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel? Just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring? The latter of course, says Adeimantus, so why then, responds Socrates, do we keep thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country? Socrates's point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm. Socrates was to have first hand, catastrophic experience of the foolishness of voters. In 399 BC, the philosopher was put on trial on trumped up charges of corrupt- ing the youth of Athens. A jury of 500 Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided by a narrow margin that the philosopher was guilty. He was put to death by hemlock in a process which is, for thinking people, every bit as tragic as Jesus's condemnation has been for Christians. Crucially, Socrates was not elitist in the normal sense. He didn't believe that a narrow few should only ever vote. He did, however, insist that only those who had thought about issues rationally and deeply should be let near a vote. Download book for free here http://stoopjuice.com/the-stories-i-tell-myself.pdf

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