What is the view of Socrates that Aristophanes presents in The Clouds? Is Socrates a good person, a bad person, or what? Is Socrates doing something useful with his life? Are we to admire what he is doing? Finally, why do you think Aristophanes presents Socrates in the way he does?
Socrates: The Sophomore, According to Aristophanes
ReplyDeleteIn this grippingly hilarious and disturbingly raunchy tale of conniving, foolishness, wisdom, and impiety, there is a sense of absurdity that “clouds” the entire story. Aristophanes presents Socrates as an esoteric fool who “[treads] the air, as [he] contemplates the sun.” The Socrates of Aristophanes’ Clouds is nothing short of a babbling buffoon as he spouts nonsense such as “bassinettes” and “fowlettes” and how men with feminine names are not really men at all. Of course as the entire story is a comedy, the babblings are deemed worthy and significant and Socrates is marked as ingenious and noteworthy, for a time.
There is no conclusive evidence that points that Socrates is necessarily a bad person. What he does is out of his desire to learn and rethink old ideas. He wishes to “mix [his] thoughts with the [celestial phenomena]” and think on “lofty things” but shows no real interest in those who wish to learn from him. His lack of patience with Strepsiades, characterizes him as a man that does not genuinely care for his pupils. None of his pupils “has ever shaved, or oiled his skin, or visited the baths…” Their lack of hygiene is another stab at the manner in which Socrates teaches his students. Once again, his character may be neither good nor bad, but his influence is definitely characterized negatively. Strepsiades believes that it is because of Socrates that he is in the pitiful state he is in. Even though it was Strepsiades’ idea to weasel out of paying his debts, everyone needs a scapegoat and Socrates and his students provided an excellent example.
Aristophanes portrays Socrates as a man who is doing nothing of real value with his life. He runs a school where the students are supposed to be learning esoterically but are really just engaging their intellects in the petty discourses of the day or upon any random thought that strays into their minds. Strepsiades is encouraged to just let his mind wander and dwell upon whatever concepts he came across, which is counterintuitive to the Greek method of teaching in that day, and he finds some very absurd solutions to real problems. The usefulness of Socrates is to encourage the nonsensical and trivial, according to Aristophanes. Another fine example is the mention of the two arguments: the Better Argument and the Worse Argument. The Worse Argument turns out to be a better argument than the Better Argument, thus proving the absurdity once more of Socrates and his teaching methods. In the way the two arguments are portrayed, the sensible one is cast aside for the one that allows hedonistic pursuits. This of course just helps prove Aristophanes’ point concerning Socrates and his teachings. We are not supposed to admire what Socrates is doing because in the way he is being portrayed, it is against everything that is sensible to the Greeks at that time. While some of his concepts seem to make sense, such as with the Clouds and thunderbolts, the notion of deities other than the gods and male and female names for objects are outlandish and absurd.
Lastly, I believe Aristophanes presents Socrates in the way that he does because it is a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd). The strongest case he presents against Socrates is to show what would happen to a person if they would follow the advice of Socrates. This is where the absurdity comes in. Strepsiades needed a way to get out of paying his debts, he tries to learn from Socrates about better and worse arguments, sends his son to learn, his son ends up beating him using the same logic Socrates uses, Strepsiades realizes his mistake and how absurd he was for listening to absurdity in the first place. Reductio ad absurdum is a highly effective form of argument that allows the audience or readers (in this case) to see how foolish the solution is in order to point out the flaw in the argument. In this case, it works very well.