ically rulers should represent the best of its citizens, according to Socrates, the rulers should be chosen from the guardians. Only the guardians who demonstrate love of the State and an unshakable sense of duty qualify as rulers. These elite are considered "true" guardians, retaining the name and at the same time receiving much more responsibility. There are a few problems with this system. The most obvious is: who distinguishes is a true guardian from just a regular one? In this society someone must put everyone in classes (by metals) and choose who is a true guardian. Therefore, there must be a single figure higher than everyone else. But who is this figure? Is it Socrates? This utopian society is looking more and more like a dictatorship. Also, what happens to the guardians who worked for the State and were loyal their entire lives and then didn't become rulers? There is no possible way that at least some of these men wouldn't react negatively towards this decision based on that fact that they would feel as though they wasted their entire lives. As stated before, who places citizens in the different classes of metals? There must be someone at the top of the hierarchy, therefore making null the idea of this being a Republic. Citizens who are seen as inferior or even those who are disabled are treated like animals. What kind of society is this? It is not perfect that's for sure. Also, everyone in this society is expected to see every other citizen as their brother or sister and every parent as their parent. This type of idea for a family is inhuman. It is as though Socrates is trying to create an entirely different culture. Say someone dies, whose funeral do you go to? There is no sense of an immediate family, which is unlike any other human civilization. That is wrong in itself. Socrates' myth about the metals is a plain lie to every citizen in the city. If everyone grows up and ...