Socrates Myth Of The Metals Analysis

Socrates proposes a “myth of the metals” the ideal city’s citizens must acknowledge. These citizens accept their respective positions so as to maintain the social and political order, or, as Socrates articulates, to prevent revolution (422a). The “myth of the metals”, or the “noble lie”, emphasizes the importance of each individual fulfilling a specific function, which allows them to practice what Socrates and his peers have defined as justice (346d). Socrates propositions this “necessary falsehood” and “single, grand lie which will be believed by everybody” (414b-c) to promote a sense of unity among the ideal city’s citizens. This unity serves to advance Socrates’s other aims. The primary purposes of the “myth of the metals” are to preserve
We should evaluate the “myth of the metals” in terms of this purpose. Socrates, hesitant to share the tale (414c), begins with the admission that he and his peers must engage in a significant attempt to apply the lie: he needs to “persuade… the rulers… and the soldiers, and then the rest of the city, that the entire upbringing and education we gave them, their whole experience of it happening to them, was after all merely a dream…” (414d). If the myth is to be successful, every citizen must believe the myth and deny his conscious knowledge of the past. The attempt to convince every citizen, particularly the rulers and the soldiers, is crucial in adherence to the myth; without belief in the myth, no individual can fulfill the myth’s purpose. Socrates elaborates on the myth, stating “that in reality they [all people]… [were] formed and raised deep within the earth…. When the process of making them was complete, the earth their mother released them” (414d-e). The citizens’ shared origin forms a common beginning. The unifying force will then prompt each man to regard his peer as
Socrates will tell the men they are brothers, “[b]ut when god made [them], he used a mixture of gold in the creation of those… who were fit to be rulers, which is why they are the most valuable” (415a). He uses gold’s presence to establish the guardian’s greater inherent worth compared to the other citizens. Socrates then describes the silver used in the auxiliaries’ creation and the iron and bronze for the farmers and skilled workers (415a). Socrates uses this explanation to place the myth’s listeners in a position of belief. The men participating in this dialogue expect the conceptualized city’s citizens to accept nature, not to argue against its decrees. Socrates’s tale continues with the following assertion: “Most of the time you will father children of the same type as yourselves, but because you are all related, occasionally a silver child may be born from a golden parent… and likewise any type from any other type” (415a-b). In such deviant cases where an individual’s abilities exceed or prove inferior to his parents’, nature serves as an explanatory method for the anomaly. No one should challenge nature, which Socrates portrays as a preordained placement. Socrates elaborates further on nature’s finality: “If [a ruler’s] own child is born with a mixture of bronze or iron in him, they must feel no kind of pity for him, but give him the position in society his nature