The crowning achievements of Greek classical culture occurred in the aftermath of Athens’ ruin at the hands of Sparta. Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all sought to identify the systemic flaws that ruined Athens, and failed. Plato’s dystopic vision of a polis governed by philosopher kings repels us, whether we read The Republic as prescription or (as some suggest) a reduction to absurdity. Socrates ridiculed Athenian fecklessness, but offered no cure. As Soren Kierkegaard put it, he was an ironist, not a prophet: he looked backward but not forward, and offered a diagnosis but not a
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