Kevin Ewald

The Socratic method of though made people seriously consider their thoughts
before sharing them. He believed that opinions are not equal if not thought out, and
that everything we do should be analyzed. He though that just because an opinion
is popular, it is not necessarily right, and that for this reason, democracy is not the
best form of government. In a democracy, everything is decided by politicians who
are voted into office. When these politicians are voted into office, they are
incentivized to make decisions that their voters would support in order to be
reelected and continue to hold power. They tend to make decisions for this reason
that they may not even agree with in order to appease their voters. Socrates
believed that opinions should be argued and that opinions can be wrong. He
thought that several ideas that people believed in at the time were incorrect, and he
used logic to prove it to them. If an opinion can be brought to its knees by another
argument, Socrates would consider it weak, no matter how many people believed in
it, while democracy would consider it strong. Although Socrates was one of the
smartest people in the history of the world, his idea would be difficult to implement.
The United States was founded upon the belief that too much power for one person
hurts a country. This would make it almost impossible to decide which person would
decide which argument was stronger. Socrates believed that only a well thought out
opinion was worth listening to, and that popular opinions may not be right.

Mini Reflection
Socrates is one of my favorite philosophers, which made this assignment interesting
and exciting for me. I found several of the points which they attributed to Socrates

in the movie as extremely thought-provoking. Socrates argument against

democracy particularly struck me, because as much as I enjoy the work of Socrates,
I also enjoy the principals of the United States, arguably the pinnacle of which is
democracy. Socrates was one of the smartest people of all time, and it is truly
amazing that his thoughts can still be applied to the world today.