is a rejection of the democratic belief that citizens

它反对的民主是公民
have sufficient knowledge to participate in the offices of government.

拥有完全的知识能力以参与政府服务职能
To be sure, Athenian democracy is not American democracy.

当然雅典政治不是美国式政治
Plato thought of democracy as a kind of rule

柏拉图认为民主是某种统治方式
by the many that he associated with

并多数连结到
the unrestricted freedom to do everything that one likes.

为所欲为式的不受约束的自由
This seems in many ways to be quite far from the American democracy

由此可见它与美国民主有很多不同
based on constitutional government, systems of checks and balances,

美国民主的根基是宪政政府制衡体系
protection of individual rights, and so on.

个体权利的保护等等
The differences between Athens and Washington seem to be very far.

雅典和华盛顿相去甚远
And yet, in many ways, Socrates diagnoses very powerfully

很多方面苏格拉底诊断出了一个强大
an important condition of modern democratic life

重要的现代民主生活的先决条件