Every Philosopher Who Was Against His Own Country Explained

What happens when philosophers turn their sharpest critiques not just on the world—but on their own countries?

This video explores some of history’s most daring thinkers who openly challenged, mocked, or defied their homelands. From Socrates embarrassing Athens until it silenced him, to Diogenes rejecting all civic loyalty as a “citizen of the world,” to Seneca serving (and condemning) imperial Rome under Nero, we follow the uneasy line where philosophy meets betrayal.

We look at Thomas More refusing Henry VIII’s supremacy and dying for it, Voltaire and Rousseau blasting France’s monarchy and church, Marx and Bakunin exiled for calling for revolution, Nietzsche sneering at German culture, and Russian titans like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy being branded traitors for their convictions. In the modern era, Heidegger tangled himself with Nazism and then rejected Germany’s fate, while Bertrand Russell denounced Britain’s wars, Sartre condemned French colonialism, and Noam Chomsky made a career out of exposing America’s foreign policy and power structures.

Were these philosophers traitors undermining their own nations—or courageous patriots who proved loyalty means accountability, not blind obedience? Their legacies remain controversial, but together they show how philosophy often thrives on defiance, even at the cost of home.

Join us for the stories of the world’s great intellectual rebels: thinkers who dared to turn their back on their own countries—sometimes to save them, sometimes to destroy them.