Why Socrates hated democracy?

Socrates’s point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random

intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to
people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible
as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm.

Socrates was to have first hand, catastrophic experience of the

foolishness of voters. In 399 BC, the philosopher was put on trial on
trumped up charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. A jury of 500
Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided by a narrow
margin that the philosopher was guilty. He was put to death by hemlock
in a process which is, for thinking people, every bit as tragic as Jesus’s
condemnation has been for Christians.
We have forgotten this distinction between an intellectual democracy
and a democracy by birthright. We have given the vote to all without
connecting it to that of wisdom. And Socrates knew exactly where that
would lead: to a system the Greeks feared above all, demagoguery.

dēmos ‘the people’ + agōgos ‘leading

Ancient Athens had painful experience of demagogues, for example, the

louche figure of Alcibiades, a rich, charismatic, smooth-talking wealthy
man who eroded basic freedoms and helped to push Athens to its
disastrous military adventures in Sicily. Socrates knew how easily people
seeking election could exploit our desire for easy answers. He asked us to
imagine an election debate between two candidates, one who was like a
doctor and the other who was like a sweet shop owner. The sweet shop
owner would say of his rival:
Look, this person here has worked many evils on you. He hurts you,
gives you bitter potions and tells you not to eat and drink whatever you
like. He’ll never serve you feasts of many and varied pleasant things
like I will.

Socrates asks us to consider the audience response:

Do you think the doctor would be able to reply effectively? The true
answer – ‘I cause you trouble, and go against you desires in order to
help you’ would cause an uproar among the voters, don’t you think?

We have forgotten all about Socrates’s salient warnings against

democracy. We have preferred to think of democracy as an unambiguous
good – rather than a process that is only ever as effective as the
education system that surrounds it. As a result, we have elected many
sweet shop owners, and very few doctors.

Why Socrates did not consider himself as a philosopher

While we know many of the historical details of Socrates' life and the circumstances surrounding
his trial, Socrates' identity as a philosopher is much more difficult to establish. Because he
wrote nothing, what we know of his ideas and methods comes to us mainly from his
contemporaries and disciples.

Socrates also refers to himself as a gadfly because he bites, and buzzes at the self-satisfied,
which, indebted them to consider matters of virtue.

a gadfly

an annoying person, especially one who provokes others into action by criticism.
Sophist vs socrates

The difference between Socrates and the Sophists is that Socrates believed that universal
standards existed to guide individuals in matters such as justice and beauty, while the
Sophists believed that it was powerful people's job to determine these points of knowledge
themselves.

Socrates and the Sophists are two major philosophers who have many
different beliefs and teachings, but are similar in some of their interests. The
Sophists are known to believe and teach that there is no absolute truth, that
man is the ultimate measure of things. Socrates is said to have sought after
absolute truth and he believed there can be only one true justice in the
world.

Absolute truth is something that is true at all times and in all places. It is something that is
always true no matter what the circumstances. It is a fact that cannot be changed. For example,
there are no round squares. ... One way or another, these are all truths because they are
logically true.

Why Socrates hated sophist

Both the Sophists and Socrates belong to the same line of profession which is teaching but the
main difference is that the Sophists charge a good fee for the learning they provide. The
sophists have a vanity that they turn people wiser. But Socrates does not take money for his
efforts.