How Did Socrates Corrupt Youth

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To understand the background of why Socrates is saying this we need to understand what is going on. Socrates at the time was being accused of corrupting the youth with his teachings. Socrates considers himself an honest man and only wishes to discover the truth to a situation or a question, he doesn’t care if you are wrong about the question and he doesn’t care if you win the situation, he only wishes to know what is true. When Socrates was accused of this he went to court to defend himself against the main accuser Meletus who said he was corrupting the youth. Through the time in court Socrates believed that Meletus had no knowledge of what he was doing, also that Meletus wasn’t wise, and he would prove it to the jury, and he would also prove …show more content…
92). As the court session goes on Socrates is provided with a few things he could do to avoid a death penalty, one of them is that he could stop his teachings but Socrates refuses, another is to be exiled but he also refuses this as it would be against his divine mission to teach the people. Eventually Socrates lost the case and was sentenced to death. Now to the question at hand, what does he believes is harder to avoid than death, wickedness. Wickedness in Socrates eyes was a lot faster than death so it was harder to avoid, he also believed that everyone that accused Socrates of his “crimes” was influenced by wickedness. Do I believe this? Yes I do. It is clear as day during the case that when Socrates was questioning Meletus on his views on him Meletus wasn’t consistent with his answers as a good example of that is when Socrates says Meletus is contradicting himself and Socrates says "Socrates is guilty of not believing in god but believing in gods” (pg. 92). Meletus wasn’t wise nor did he care about this situation, I believe Meletus had some sort of influence beforehand that drove him to this