Socrates now turns his attention to the question as to whether such a class as the Guardians would be possible. His answer is yes; we agree that the Guardians must defend the state, and we agree that the men and women and children of this class are to attain equality through nurture and education. Therefore, should violence between two given Greek city-states occur, the men and women Guardians of the ideal state would make war together, stirrup to stirrup, against any enemy of the state. And as part of their children's training as Guardians, they should be taken to war when possible and permitted to witness battles and battle tactics and to witness exhibition of courage and cowardice in the field. And, since they are all so dear to one another (since they are all members of one large family), they will fight valiantly for one another because theirs is a dear cause. But at the same time, after their victories, they must not defile the corpses of their adversaries, must not lay waste to what their adversaries have built up, must not spread rapine and woe throughout the land. If they are involved with another Greek city-state in violently trying to settle some internal discord, all participants are to remember that they are fellow-Greeks. After all, fellow-Greeks are not to be treated as barbarians.
At this point, Glaucon and the auditors for the debate again say that the ideas Socrates has presented are probably impracticable. Socrates replies that the intent of the conversation remains, still, to search for a definition of justice as an ideal; he argues that a real state, if it could be realized, might very well closely resemble the state he has been theorizing about, but it probably would not be identical to it. And when Socrates is asked what is "wrong" with the real state as we know it, as opposed to the realization of the ideal state, Socrates replies that states nowadays (at the time of the dialogue) have the wrong kinds of rulers.
