Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Socrates' Interesting Point of View
Throughout The Clouds Aristophanes presents Socrates in a way that makes his life look like a large waste of time. During the story, Strepsiades learns that Socrates believes that the clouds are the real divine power, and not the gods. Strepsiades finally realizes that this is ridiculous, and that Socrates has just been wasting his time thinking into things way too much. In this way, Aristophanes makes Socrates look like a fool who is wasting his life searching for answers. Examples of this are also present in Aristophanes' questions. The questions that he asks Strepsiades are of no use to everyday life, and there is no reason that anyone would need to know these things to be successful in life. Socrates is presented to have wasted his life learning useless facts that aren't necessary to be considered intelligent. The fact that Socrates knows the names of the males and females of each species of many animals, and that he tries to create names for each when there is actually no difference in the given name, is one of the ways that Aristophanes criticizes the way that Socrates spends his time. Aristophanes believes that we should not admire what Socrates is doing, because it is almost comical, as presented in The Clouds, and his work consists of useless information that has been over-analyzed by him. He believes that we should not admire someone who has supposedly done nothing useful with their life. I believe that this point of view comes from Aristophanes' own religious beliefs. He is biased towards his own views and thinks that any view that differs greatly from his is simply ridiculous. This is somewhat understandable, considering that his belief in the gods in heaven was one of the most common beliefs of his time, and the thought of clouds being in control of everything that happened in the sky, and them overtaking the gods in heaven would seem completely outrageous in comparison with this view. I think that Aristophanes presents Socrates in this way because he disagreed with Socrates' views of the gods, and he believed that it was foolish to spend your time praising and talking to objects that exist in the sky and not in the heavens.
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While your approach in attempting to classify Arisophanes' Socrates as “a large waste of time” is novel in its severity in criticism of the character, I feel that you may be missing a major aspect of Aristophanes' dislike. Throughout the play, the playwright interjects the chorus; as the play proceeds, we come to understand that the chorus' role is to highlight and bring about just vengeance. When Strepsiades complains that the Clouds have caused his present misfortune, they reply:
ReplyDeleteCHORUS. We do this on each occasion to whomever
we recognize as being a lover of villainous affairs,
until we throw him into evil
so that he may know dread of the gods.
(1458-61)
Strepsiades' “villainous affairs” refer, of course, to his saddle of debt with no intention of honest bargaining; the Clouds manage to twist Socrates' teachings into a tool to punish Pheidippides' own father. Again, at the end of the play, Aristophanes voices his views in both the Clouds and the God of Commerce, Hermes. “Hit them because of many things, / but most of all since I know that they were doing injustice to the gods!” the deity voices as Strepsiades burns down Socrates' teachery (1508-09). The Clouds agree with this view, claiming they “have chorused in due measure today.” Could another facet of their vengeful attitudes be their anger at Socrates' willingness to teach Pheidippides despite the fact he knows that the young man's newfound intellect will be abused for trickery? It is possible, but I am currently unable to find textual support for the theory.
So, for the most part I agree with your categorization of Aristophanes' harrowing of Socrates' wasteful thoughts, I believe must understand that he is mainly angry for the man's utter lack of moral standing.