# Great Books Club #7 - Socrates on Democracy

*Sun, 9/17, 11amPT – featuring @tldr, @grace, @ted, @aaina, @timdaub, @seanhart and more*

By [@tldr](https://paragraph.com/@tldr) · 2023-09-17

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> Sunday 9/17, 11amPT / 2pmET –> [unlonely.app/channels/tldr](http://unlonely.app/channels/tldr)

Download reading
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> **Plato's Republic (Allan Bloom)**

[![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f3d759bb62e9c987b5818aafc5540c77.jpg)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/186tspsNvif4e2dryNofpncjmsQrUSeY7/view?usp=drive_link)

> [Text](https://drive.google.com/file/d/186tspsNvif4e2dryNofpncjmsQrUSeY7/view?usp=drive_link) (9 pages, excerpt)

Preview of Passage
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> _“Too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery, both for private men and the city." – Socrates, Plato's Republic_
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> Here we have Socrates' warning about democracy – "the most beautiful of regimes" which "contains all species of regimes, thanks to its license". But Socrates is not only talking about the democractic city, but also the democratic soul – ie, the way of life of a person who arranges their own self democratically.
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> Democracy has conquered the modern world, and if anything "internet values" and "crypto values" are even more purely democratic. What are the benefits of democracy, both as a way of arranging societies and as a way of arranging ourselves? And what are the possible dangers of complete commitment to freedom?

Learn more
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> To read about the Great Books Stream series as a whole, visit the [**introductory note**](https://paragraph.xyz/@tldr/intro-gbs).

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*Originally published on [@tldr](https://paragraph.com/@tldr/socrates-on-democracy)*