Why was Socrates brought to trial and condemned to death?

Officially, he was accused of failing to honor the official deities and of corrupting the youth. However, it is commonly known throughout history that people of power seek to discredit and dehumanize people of virtue, and those who stand up for truth and justice are always persecuted.

Socrates was a man of character. He had come to realize early on in his life how detrimental the vice of ignorance is to a person's self-development. When one believes that he or she has come to fully understand something, all questioning stops, and with it self-development ceases. In contrast, Socrates knew that by helping people to question themselves, enabled them to develop further as a human being. He recognized that self-awareness is the key to unlocking the heavy doors of ignorance that affect us all. Thus, he dedicated decades of his life towards sincerely engaging in dialogue with the citizens of Athens, seeking to foster in them self-knowledge and an understanding of their own ignorance.

People without virtue or principle can easily hide behind their power, wealth, or fame, in order to conceal their weaknesses and limitations. To these people, self-worth and pride are based on outward status, or an appearance of greatness. However, next to a person of true character, their lies, hypocrisy, and ignorance are easily exposed. These people seek to dehumanize persons of greatness in order to maintain their false sense of superiority. It is in this situation that jealous and insecure people begin spreading lies and rumors that have no substance or ground. As a result, these rumors find their way into people's hearts and minds, thus establishing prejudice. Once people accept a lie as truth without question, they will easily disregard the facts, as their mind has already been made. Thus, persecution committed by those in power encounter very little opposition from the public.

This phenomenon, where those who stand up for truth and justice are persecuted is the hallmark of people of impeccable character. Gandhi encountered violent opposition on his path toward nonviolence. Martin Luther King experienced great persecution while struggling to create peace amidst overwhelming hatred. In current times, Daisaku Ikeda, the leader of the Buddhist organization, the Soka Gakkai International, has also encountered extreme slander and abuse by the media in Japan for the same reason, because he is a person of character. Internationally, he has received somewhere near 300 honorary doctorates from universities around the globe, but surprisingly none from his home country, Japan.