this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
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[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

From the section in the link you cited:

Several of the Thirty had been students of Socrates, but there is also a record of their falling out.

The reference points to Xenophon's Memorobilia.

Husserl taught Heidegger, and Heidegger became a nazi, but that doesn't make Husserl a nazi. In fact, Husserl was Jewish and had to flee nazi Germany. So you see, a person isn't necessarily responsible for the things one's pupil does.

And from the "Socrates and the thirty" section on the thirty tyrants page:

In his Memorabilia (Bk 1, Ch 2), Xenophon reports a contentious confrontation between Socrates and the Thirty, Critias included. Socrates is summoned before the group and ordered not to instruct or speak to anyone, whereupon Socrates mocks the order by asking sarcastically whether he will be allowed to ask to buy food in the marketplace. Xenophon uses the episode to illustrate both Socrates' own critique of the slaughtering of Athenian citizens by the Thirty, as well as make the case that the relationship between Critias and Socrates had significantly deteriorated by the time Critias obtained power.

The only quotes suggesting he was responsible for the thirty tyrants on either page were from a contemporary writer, and it seems more like speculation than anything else.

There's really no compelling evidence suggesting that Socrates was responsible for the thirty tyrants or their slaughter of Athenian citizens.

"Corrupting the youth" simply meant teaching them to think for themselves. The "pious" aristocrats didn't like that sort of thing back then, any more than their ilk like that sort of thing today.