> Socrates was killed for being a Sparta supporter in Athens I think Socrates' admiration for Sparta is questioned by some scholars. Since the man himself didn

> Socrates was killed for being a Sparta supporter in Athens I think Socrates' admiration for Sparta is questioned by some scholars. Since the man himself didn't leave behind any written work, all we know of him we know indirectly, mostly from Plato. Popper for example considers that a lot of the more authoritarian ideas ascribed to Socrates were actually Plato's views [1]. The general problem of figuring out what exactly Socrates thought, how he acted etc. is actually a significant sub-field of scholarship [2]. > His loving pupil Plato went on to start the whole "Western civilization" thing This is silliness. While the tremendous importance of Classical Greece can't be denied, the idea that there is a monolithic thing called 'Western Civilization' that has a clear start is extremely simplistic. Are the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Minoans, the Hittites etc. not part of 'Western Civilization'? How about the Christians that spent many centuries actually destroying and forgetting the works and achievements of the ancient world [3]? > The celebration of Sparta is not some decadent modern fad; it lies at the very root of our civilization! We are defined by being Sparta supporters. This is even more silliness. By the same token you could say that slavery or infanticide lie at the very root of 'our civilization'. We (who exactly is we in this case? Americans? Europeans? people of the Levant or North Africa?) are defined by our actions and beliefs, not by some supposedly sacred historical heritage that should never be questioned or relinquished lest that leads to the collapse of our current society. [1] 'Contrary to major Plato scholars of his day, Popper divorced Plato's ideas from those of Socrates, claiming that the former in his later years expressed none of the humanitarian and democratic tendencies of his teacher. In particular, Popper accuses Plato of betraying Socrates in the Republic, wherein Plato portrays Socrates sympathizing with totalitarianism' in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_problem [3] See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age