Socrates would be hated on social media today—Special Lecture: 'The Apology of Socrates'

I think Socrates would probably be someone who is hated on social media today.

He would jump into people's conversations and ask, "Is that really true?" And he wouldn't stop after just once.

"Well, what about this?" "What about in that case?" "Isn't that a contradiction?"

He would keep questioning endlessly. Reading it, I thought he was quite an annoying person. But at the same time, I also felt that "maybe this kind of person is necessary in today's society."

What left an impression on me while reading the Bessatsu NHK 100 Minutes on Classics: School of Reading, Ken Nishi Special Lecture "The Apology of Socrates" was that Socrates "does not think of himself as wise."

Even when told by an oracle that he was the "wisest of all," he himself was not convinced. That is why he began dialogues with people, in order to find someone wiser than himself.

However, when he actually spoke with them, many people were just "pretending to know." Socrates would expose that fact. And then he would be hated.

Reading this far, he starts to look less like a "philosopher" and more like someone who "stops the flow of conversation."

Japanese society today is incredibly fast-paced. Social media timelines, news, and AI all pressure us to "give an answer quickly." Moreover, "what everyone is saying" easily becomes the standard for what is correct.

But Socrates stops that flow.

"Is that really your own thought?"

He asks.

While reading, I was reminded of the movie "Inception".

Descartes thought, "This world might be a long dream." The idea that what we think is reality might not actually be reality is interesting as a movie premise, but reading it now, it carries a slightly different kind of fear.

The information we see on social media, the words generated by AI, and the "recommendations" chosen by algorithms—we might think we are choosing them ourselves, but we might actually just be being made to choose them.

That is precisely why the phrase "awareness of ignorance" stuck with me so strangely.

To know that you do not know. To stop for a moment, while still not knowing.

That is inefficient. But perhaps it is only within that inefficiency that the sense of thinking for oneself remains. Going to a store before reading reviews. Trying to think for yourself before reading an AI's answer.

Socrates was not a person who provided answers.

I believe he has been questioning us for over two thousand years about the "attitude of not leaving the act of thinking to others."