Aristophanes The Clouds, Death of Socrates, Georgia and the Capitol Riots

Today we will study and reflect on the Greek play The Clouds by the comic Athenian Aristophanes. The slanders in this comedy several millennia ago was one of the causes of a great injustice where a citizen jury in Athens brought up false charges against the now famous philosopher Socrates unjustly condemning Socrates to death. I was struck by the similarities between this historic execution and the recent deaths and serious injuries of the capital riots when I was listening to a lecture on Aristophanes and The Clouds and its role in the trial and execution of Socrates. Now you may ask how are these two events similar and more importantly what moral lessons can we learn from these two events? The main moral lesson we can learn from these events is that we are reminded that words can kill, that slander causes harm, and that slanders can lead to murder. The slanders in the comedy by Aristophanes ruined the reputation of Socrates who was unjustly condemned to death in his citizens trial and at his execution he was forced to drink from the fatal cup and he was forced to drink the fatal hemlock. Fortunately the capital insurrectionists were not successful in their quest to stage the citizens trial against Mike Pence for refusing to throw the election to Trump and we all heard them on the news we all heard them chant hang Mike Pence hang Mike Pence. There was even a production a month before this event by Georgia Republicans that the big lie that Trump was cheated out of the elections could result in killings and even deaths. We all remember the chilling warning that was voiced a month prior to the capital riot and insurrection. Stop inspiring people to commit acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed. It has all gone too far. It has to stop. Now how do we know that the slanders in the comedy by Aristophanes was a factor in the unjust trial and execution of Socrates? Because we learn in the platonic dialogues that in his trial before his execution Socrates unsuccessfully tries to convince the jury that he is not the same Socrates who was slandered by the comic Aristophanes in his comedy of the clowns. At a minimum this history should remind us of the spiritual danger of comedy how comedy can too easily slide into slander. At the end of our talk we will discuss the main sources used for this video and our videos on the deaths of Socrates. Please share this video with your friends. We welcome interesting questions in the comments and this is a new channel so we really want everyone to comment if possible. Sometimes these comments generate short videos of their own. Let us learn and reflect together. Socrates was brought to trial on two false charges that can be broadly summarized as this he was accused of corrupting the youth and of showing impiety to the gods and these were the same charges that Aristophanes made in his comedy play the clouds. Now there's one similarity between today's ugly politics and the misleading portrayal of Socrates in the cloud. Aristophanes went well beyond comedy and crossed the line not only did he say things about Socrates that were not true he was also gaslighting the audience and plus some of the things he said helped incite the later Athenians to condemn Socrates. Now for example Aristophanes was gaslighting in his play when he pictured Socrates as a self-serving sophist who only taught for money and the truth was Socrates taught for free. Aristophanes was also gaslighting when he said that Socrates instructed his students how to mislead and manipulate their peers and how to avoid their debts. The truth was Socrates instructed his students how to live a godly life and how to participate in the democracy as a good citizen. Aristophanes was also gaslighting when he ridiculed Socrates as only caring about teaching useless knowledge like how far do fleas jump and out of which end do the gnats buzz and you know how he wasted time gazing at and wondering about the nature of the moon and such things. The truth was although he pondered about the physical universe in his earlier years in his later years Socrates really only cared about teaching his students how to live a godly life and how to live the life of a good citizen. Aristophanes had composed the comedy several decades before the trial of Socrates. We must presume it was performed many times since then because it was so fresh in the mind of the Athenians. During his trial Socrates had to specifically defend himself against these slanders of Aristophanes that the Athenian citizens took as fact and after studying the clowns I realized how much the accusations in the play affected the writings of both his students Xenophon and Plato. Both Xenophon's memoirs and the early platonic dialogues were extended refutations of the charges made against Socrates in the clouds and in his trial. Xenophon emphasized the moral teachings of Socrates and that he showed piety towards the gods. Plato had several dialogues on the trial itself and emphasized both morals like what is love in the symposia and issues good citizens needed to be Also in many of the early platonic dialogues Plato criticized many of the sophists like Protagoras and Georgius. Perhaps he was extreme in his criticisms of the sophists. He probably just wanted to emphasize that Socrates was not a sophist. The sophists were philosophers who charged the aristocrats who enrolled their sons in their classes for a tidy sum for teaching their art of rhetoric. Often political and business success in both ancient Greece and Rome depended on knowing the art of rhetoric the ability to eloquently and adequately defend your positions both in the political assemblies and to the large public juries in the ancient world. Many of the sophists concentrated on teaching only the manipulative techniques of public speaking with little emphasis on moral principles just like today in high school many of the debating clubs really teach you debate and they assign you the positions to debate selected at random regardless of your beliefs. Another little bit of background who are the gods? The greek pagan gods are not like the god that we know of in the monotheistic tradition. The greek pagan gods are somewhat like a cross between the marvel hero superhero Thor and the x-men character like the storm who represents the force of nature except that the gods since they're immortal are also larger than life. Many in the ancient world saw natural phenomena such as earthquakes floods and thunderstorms as being caused by the gods or even identified with the god. Many were suspicious of the pre-socratic philosophers who sought scientific explanations for the weather in the natural world and we might want to lump into that category Aristotle as well so there was always tension between the open-minded and curious philosophers many of whom would be called scientists today and the suspicious and superstitious believers of the gods and i'd like to point out this this tension never went away i mean it still exists today between many evangelical believers and many more secular scientists. Like many Greek comedies the clouds have both the raucous surface meaning and a deeper meaning detected by a careful listening of the dialogue and the outrageous dialogue was often involved a lot of bathroom humor a lot of fart jokes but the sophisticated underlying meaning also offers us some good moral advice you know how to live a godly life but much of the sophisticated message is lost in the bathroom humor in the symposium a later platonic dialogue Plato paints a positive picture of Aristophanes as one the guests. Maybe what Plato is trying to tell us is Socrates is kind to all and and even is kind to his enemies if Aristophanes indeed was seen as his enemy and at the play by Aristophanes possibly is a warning to his friend Socrates on how his arrogance could cause him problems in the future. We always like to provide a sampling of direct quotes from the works we discuss so we will sure to quote directly from Aristophanes play including some lines that may have encouraged the citizens of Athens to find Socrates guilty in his later trial and also some positive quotes from from his play and there are some of those. The comedy opens with Strepsiades an old farmer whose son Pheidippides has been ruining him financially with his expensive hobby of horse racing. The father has heard that there is a sophist named Socrates who can teach his son the skill of rhetoric of fancy talking so he can talk himself out of having to pay off his substantial debts to his creditors. He has no luck trying to talk his son into attending the school of Socrates so Strepsiades decides he's going to join the school instead to learn the art of fancy talking. When Strepsiades first joined the school of Socrates one of his fellow students told him some funny anecdotes about the teachings of Socrates like he said Socrates would teach him how far a flea could jump and he revealed how Socrates once wisely determined based on natural science whether a gnat buzzed through his prediscus and through his anus and so our gentle reader can easily guess through which end the gnat sounds his buzzing trumpet. Socrates is ridiculed in his first entrance in the comedy where suspended in a basket he is gazing up through the clouds. Now the picture here that you see is a 16th century woodcut from Wikipedia of Socrates hoisted in a basket as in the comedy with his father Strepsiades and his son Pheidippides on horseback and in this scene in the play in the beginning part of the play Strepsiades what are you doing up there Socrates tell me I beseech you Socrates I am traversing the air and contemplating the sun that's not on solid ground but from the height of this basket that you slight the gods if indeed Socrates I have to suspend my brain and mingle the subtle substance of my mind with this air which is of like nature in order clearly to penetrate the things of heaven I should have discovered nothing and had remained on the ground to consider from below the things that are above for the earth by its force attracts the sap of the mind to itself later in the play when Strepsiades asks who are the chorus of the clouds Aristophanes has Socrates answer they are the clouds of heaven great goddesses for the lazy to them we owe all thoughts speeches trickery roguery boasting lies and sagacity which I suppose is one of the ways that Aristophanes proves that Socrates is nothing but an immoral sophist Aristophanes has Socrates admitting that the gods have nothing to do with thunder and lightning but the thunder and lightning are caused by a vortex and Strepsiades kind of mistakes him he thinks that he's saying that the vortex is the name of a competing deity well Strepsiades you know get bores of this line of thought he steers his conversation with Socrates into the only topic that interests him he wants Socrates to teach him how he can defraud his creditors with fancy talking so this Socrates of Aristophanes invention he entertains this train of thought the Socrates of Plato would have thrown Strepsiades out immediately but this Socrates of Aristophanes invention lets him go on for a while and he entertains this train of thought and tries to teach him the art of fancy talking until he realizes that Strepsiades is incapable of learning anything at all at which time he throws Strepsiades out of his school but Strepsiades learned just enough of this fancy talking to talk his son Pheidippides into at least considering attending the school of Socrates so he can talk the family creditors out of their debts when Pheidippides and Strepsiades return to the school of Socrates we are entertained to a remarkable dialogue between two characters first character is just discourse and the second character is the unjust discourse where remarkably Aristophanes has unjust discourse winning the arguments now how can this be well we'll listen to the play these are the opening volleys just discourse i am going to destroy you mercilessly unjust discourse and then unjust discourse i'll pray let us see you do it just discourse by saying what is true but then unjust discourse replies i shall retort and shall very soon have the better of you first maintain that justice has no existence and he goes on ridiculous dialogue about justice which by the way is one of the main topics in Plato's later dialogue the republic in a nutshell just discourse argues that right living upholds the traditions of society now Aristophanes has just discourse providing a key observation that people often condone wickedness by gaslighting by calling that which is evil good by calling that which is good evil in the play of Aristophanes just discourse warns Pheidippides how unjust discourse is guilty of gaslighting if you just if you devote yourself to practicing my just precepts your chest will be stout your color glowing your shoulders broad your tongue short your hips muscular but your tool small what does he mean by the tool i wonder uh we can only guess but if you follow the fashions of the day you will be pallid and hue have narrow shoulders a narrow chest a long tongue small hips and a big thing oh yeah a big thing you will know how to spin forth long-winded arguments on law you will be persuaded also to regard as splendid everything that is shameful and is everything that is honorable now you would expect that unjust discourse would lose the argument except that the dialogue in Aristophanes incredibly and justifies adulterous behavior by saying that since Zeus does it adultery must be okay and many young men are unfortunately persuaded by the arguments of unjust discourse both today and in the ancient world so this dialogue by unjust discourse tells the young man why his advice is better than the just advice unjust discourse says this but you young man just consider a little of what this temperance means and the delights of which it deprives you young fellows women play dainty dishes wine boisterous laughter i mean my gosh why live a godly life you can't do any of those you can't have any fun if you do that and what is life worth without these then if you happen to commit one of these false inherent in human weaknesses some seduction or adultery or you are caught in the act you are lost if you cannot speak but follow my teaching the teaching of unjust discourse and you will be able to satisfy your passions to dance to laugh to blush at nothing and i'd like to point out in the modern world we're taught to satisfy our passions to not bottle up our passions that's the freudian conceit that if we bottle up our passions will somehow explode anyway unjust discourse goes on suppose you're caught in the act of adultery then up and tell the husband you are not guilty and recall to him the example of zeus who allowed himself to be conquered by love and by women you ain't but a mortal can you be stronger than a god so be like zeus have fun and so unjust discourses wins the argument i'd like to point out this is the classic arguments unbelievers use when they argue against the truth in the judeo-christian tradition that you should love your neighbors and love god the unbelievers point at the seemingly harsh passages in the old testament such as where joshua massacres the citizens of unbelieving cities when the israelis enter the promised land and the passage in the psalms that cries out how the brains of the babylonian babies should be dashed upon the rocks back in the ancient days the greek moral philosophers taught that the myths of the god should be read or allegorically to derive their underlying moral lessons rather than literally as examples to blindly follow likewise christians are taught in saint augustine and his work on christian doctrine that the lesson of the holy scriptures is always the theme is always that we should love god and love our neighbors ourselves and that the brutal passages that make sense in the ancient warrior societies of the old testament that appear very unchristian to modern readers should likewise be read allegorically for example the passage i talked about in the psalms that bashes the brains of babylonian babies on the rocks the rabbis and the church fathers interpret these passages allegorically what they tell us is that we should battle the evil forces within our hearts bashing against the rocks modern biblical archaeology also supports this approach for example where joshua burns down and destroys many of the cities in ancient israel there's no archaeological evidence for this widespread destruction but the archaeology instead supports the alternate depiction of history in the book of judges so we must conclude that the exaggerated of stories in joshua are likely embellished campfire stories commonly found in the oral traditions the comedy of aristophanes closes with fidipedes with his training as a sophist progressing abandoning horse racing but he replaces this vice with the vice of constantly fighting and questioning his father and being generally disrespectful both to his father and to society then they both come to their senses and they both decide to burn down the school of and the dialogue in the end of the comedy when they burn down the school of socrates ah socrates you insulted the gods you studied the face of the moon chase them strike and beat them down forward they have richly deserved their fate above all by reason of their blasphemy there you go the line and aristophanes and encouraged the athenians to condemn them socrates to death likewise there's another piece of dialogue from the comedy that could have encouraged the citizens to condemn socrates to death and this is one of the lines that was assigned to the leader of the course but if a mortal dares to insult the goddesses of the clouds let him think of the ills we shall pour upon him for him neither wine or any harvest at all our terrible slains will mow down his young olive plants in his vines if he is making bricks it will rain and our round hailstones will break the tiles of his roof if he himself marries or any of his relations or friends marry we shall cause rain to fall the whole night long barely he would prefer to live in egypt than to have been given this iniquitous verdict but to end on a positive note there is some complimentary lines in aristophanes about what students should expect from a socratic education leader of the course says this to the prospective student of socrates oh mortal you who desire to instruct yourself in our great wisdom the athenians the greeks will envy you your good fortune then aristophanes gives us the picture of the good student only you must have the memory in order for study you must know how to stand the tests hold your own go forward without feeling fatigue caring but little for food abstaining from wine gymnastic exercises and other similar follies in fact you must believe as every man of intellect should that the greatest of all blessings is to live and think more clearly than the vulgar herd to shine in the contest of words so aristophanes starts that line with the description of what the stokes socrates of xenophon would have said about the socratic way of life live a simple life unconcerned about wealth concerned concerned only about living the exam in life studying what you need to study to be a good and moral citizen but aristophanes ends with a positive reference to a sophisticated education which does not sound too different from the practical education that's offered by our modern colleges as they prepare their students for a professional career so perhaps if aristophanes had not accused socrates so harshly of being a sophist maybe plato in his socratic dialogues would have also not condemned sophists so stridently and now talking about the sources of this video this is the main source this website from mit is the main source i use for the video the advantage of this source of course is that it's absolutely free the disadvantage is that you spend a little bit of money and get the printed source you'll get a helpful introduction and some footnotes that tells the backstory from any of the obscure historical and mythological references in the comedy of course you can find these with dr google dr google knows everything and this was the lecture i was referring to in the first part of the video this is one of my major sources the video by professor bartlett masters of greek thought plato socrates and aristotle and he has an excellent essay in here about the role that's of the play by aristophanes played in the trial and execution of socrates and it's mentioned in the platonic dialogue i also like these lectures because he is a lover of xenophon i mean he's one of the few lecturers that first talks about the writings of xenophon before he talks about the writings of plato so he's uh so he's a lecturer after my own heart i tend to always read xenophon before i read plato i prefer xenophon socrates to plato socrates because xenophon socrates is the stoic socrates who primarily likes to teach moral teachings that remind us of the stoics the socrates and plato is more interested in preparing his students for their life as a good citizen in other words he wants them to learn the concepts of justice and piety and also some moral teachings like what is love and his socrates tends to be a little bit more mystical than the socrates of xenophon so please click on the links below for the youtube videos on the platonic dialogue on the death of socrates the apology and the krita and also other interesting videos that will broaden your knowledge and improve your soul thank you