Socrates attempted to substitute the authority of reason in place of the authority of tradition, myth, and majority opinion and to quicken the torpid intellectual life of the community by his probing questions. The argument against the development of intellectual independence claims that it will result in anarchy, destroying law and order. Socrates, on the contrary, contended that a society where reason is sovereign will be more stable and just than any other because such a rational collective life will rest on knowledge, not on ignorance, fear, fraud, and force. Socrates further seemed to hold that truth is consistent and unchanging. Therefore, to the extent that men know the truth, they will agree.
Men disagree through ignorance.
Hence, the ideal of 'real' community, being based on full knowledge of all truth, would be free of internal dissension and perfectly stable, having taken on the characteristics of truth. The hegemony of reason will produce the only enduring social unity and harmony, the only 'real' law and order. Appeal to authorities other than reason produces only a temporary and therefore illusory simulacrum of social order and harmony. Socrates was tried and condemned to death for introducing strange gods and corrupting the youth. Reason is a strange god and corrupts provincial ignorance and complacency.