We often think of Ancient Athens as the proud home of democracy, a place where citizens gathered to decide their future. But what is surprising is that Athens also gave birth to some of democracy’s most powerful critics: the philosophers Socrates and Plato. Both men admired reason and wisdom above all else and they feared what could happen when decisions were driven by emotion instead of knowledge.

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A Democracy That Killed Its Philosopher

Socrates spent his life asking uncomfortable questions i.e., What is justice? What is truth? Why do people follow tradition blindly? His constant questioning made Athenian leaders angry.

Socrates’ fears about democracy were not theoretical, he lived them. In 399 BCE, he was put on trial for “corrupting the youth” and disrespecting the gods. A jury of 500 Athenian citizens, ordinary voters, decided by a narrow margin that he was guilty. The result: Socrates was executed by drinking poison hemlock. It was democracy in action but it revealed the danger of uninformed passion ruling over wisdom.

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Plato’s Warning: The Ship of State

In Book Six of The Republic, Plato tells a story where Socrates talks with his friend Adeimantus. To show the problems with democracy, Socrates asks Adeimantus to imagine a ship where everyone wants to steer but no one knows how to sail. He then asks who should be in charge i.e., anyone who wants to, or only those who have learned the skill.

Adeimantus replies that, of course, only trained sailors should steer the ship. Socrates then points out that running a country is no different. If steering a ship requires knowledge and experience, choosing who governs should also depend on understanding and wisdom. Letting anyone vote without learning how to think carefully about leadership, he warns, is like letting untrained passengers take control of a ship during a storm.

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The Core Idea

Voting, he said, is not a natural right. It is a skill. Like medicine or navigation, it requires training and understanding. Giving everyone a vote without first teaching them how to think critically, Socrates warned, would steer society into chaos. Socrates was not arguing that only the rich or powerful should rule. He simply believed that wisdom, not birthright, should decide who participates in politics. A democracy without educated citizens, he said, turns into something the Greeks feared most: demagoguery, rule by charming liars who tell people what they want to hear.

Athens had already seen it happen. Leaders like Alcibiades, rich and persuasive, promised glory and pleasure but led the city into disastrous wars. Socrates compared such politicians to a sweet shop owner competing against a doctor in an election. The sweet shop owner offers sweets and comfort, while the doctor prescribes bitter medicine. Who will the people choose? The one who flatters them, not the one who helps them. That, Socrates believed, was democracy’s fatal weakness: it rewards popularity over truth.

His lesson still matters. Democracy is not automatically good; it is only as strong as the education and reason that guide it. When citizens stop thinking critically, we end up electing “sweet shop owners,” leaders who please us today but poison us tomorrow.

The Modern Echo

Fast-forward 2,000 years and Plato’s warning feels eerily familiar.
Today, we still see “sweet shop” politics in many forms: catchy slogans, emotional promises, and oversimplified solutions to complex problems. Modern democracies are shaped not only by social media but also by mass advertising, television debates, opinion polls, and party marketing that often reward performance over policy.

Public opinion can shift overnight, not always because of new facts but because of how stories are told and repeated. The emotional crowd that once filled the Athenian marketplace now exists in newsrooms, comment sections, and campaign rallies.

Yet democracy has also evolved. Education, journalism, and civic institutions work to keep the conversation honest and informed. The question is whether citizens still value depth over drama.

Are we thinking citizens, or just reacting ones?