The Unexamined Government is Not Worth Serving.

In the 2008 presidential election for the United States, democratic candidate Barrack Obama used the slogan, “Change we can believe in.” But the age-old call for change is not something new to just Senator Obama. In fact, the message has been one that has been declared in the streets since the time of such famous Greek Philosophers as Plato and Socrates. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates plays the central figure as the advocate for change in the Athenian society. Following Plato’s Socratic model and Obama’s message the position of the Socratic faction in the last week of the PHIL 1102 RPG assemble will be the advancement of change in the Athenian society. We will be pushing the principles of an Academic System that provides education of an intellectual elite. These schools will in turn produce a series of philosopher-kings, or guardians, who will lead Athenians away from the anarchy of a pure democracy to a more organized form of government that serves the people as well as guides them with wisdom. If it is possible to advance the Socratic schools then the next step will be to pass legislation that will allow for only those graduates of the schools to be able to vote in assemble. The great lie will be that anyone can be a part of these schools, including woman, and that this is a way of giving people the right to vote. In truth it will simply be a way of legislating the government so that the people of Athenians will not foolishly govern themselves via the drunken madness of the incompetent masses. The plan is to use a mixture of historical context from the Peloponnesian wars along side a mythological analogy using the story of Bellerophon and the Chimera to argue the need for the Socratic/Platonic Academy. This will be in stark contrast with the Democratic position of the advance of democracy but what good Socratic ever believed in democracy? We need change and we need to change to a society ruled by the just and the wise... not the masses.