In ancient Greece there was a group of pre Socratic philosophers called the Sophists. The Sophists taught people rhetoric, which is the art of speaking, to make any argument seem persuasive. But the Sophists also taught with Protagoras in particular that ,”Man is the measure of all things.” This means that there is no absolute truth so what may be right for you will be wrong for me, but what may be right for me may be wrong for you. But Socrates was opposed to this idea of relativism. Because if there are no absolute truths even the statement, “Man is the measure of all things” might be wrong for some people. So really that statement cancels itself out because even that is not an absolute truth. Socrates believed that there must be absolute truths such as murder is wrong for society to work.
In one of Plato’s most discussed diolog’s The Republic, Plato describes his ideal city state. In his ideal city state there would be the working class or artisans. These would be the people to grow crops and do all the regular work. Then there would be the auxiliarys. They would be the people to become soldiers to protect the city state and they would receive some education. The ruling class would be the Guardians. These people would have a high education being taught philosophy and Platos idea of the forms. The would be forbidden to read Homer because it portrayed the Gods in an immoral way. They would be censored from certain types of plays and music. They could only reproduce at certain times and then their children would be taken away to prevent favoritism and so they would view the entire city state as their family. Everybody would do their job and obey the guardians but for the most part would be left alone.