> Debased then to admire the beneficiaries of the
> slave-owning democracy of Athens, Socrates,
Aristotle
> and Plato, too, I guess. Or for that matter the
> peasant-exploiting champions of the USSR's New
> Economic Policy, Lenin, Trotsky and Preobrazhensky.
>
> Charles and Mary Beard's Economic Analysis of the
> Constitution sounds kind of Marxist for its
reduction
> of the colonist's new republic to its defence of the
> monopoly of private property. But was there a non-
> capitalist alternative that one could have
supported?
> I think not.
Why either admire or not? Why not rather respect *and use specific achievements* of these people, and leave "admiration" for those who need heroes?
Socrates may have attacked unquestioned acceptance of premises, but he was not a friend of the Athenian democracy. Plato libeled the Sophists, but stands at the beginning of our philsophical tradition. What's admirable about them? On the other hand, they provide us with much to be learned -- and criticized. -- Curtiss
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