Reactionary Conservative Fear of Change
Aristophanes may have been one of the most famous artistic figures in the history of ancient Greece, but politically and socially he was a steadfast supporter of the conservative cause. The dismissal of the new radical new philosophical ideas challenging the status quo being spouted by this Socrates would never have felt more contemporary than during the 1960’s. The Socrates being the brunt of bringing new ideas into the midst of established conventional ideas very much brings to mind the image of hippie philosophers and Establishment voices raised against them that invariably sought immediately transform their physical appearance rationally constructed component of the fundamental logic to their opposition. One of the most striking things about The Clouds is just how effective this ploy turns out to be as part of Aristophanes’ attack upon the latest new thing he fundamentally opposed to due to threat it represented to the way things had always been.
An Attack on Theoretical Reasoning
The very title of the play provides a clue on where the author comes down on the debate over the value of simple logic based on practical reasoning versus more abstract conclusions applicable only to theoretical conditions. Clouds are the perfect metaphor for the fear of the pragmatist that what seems strong enough from a distance to support an ideal can suddenly be revealed as completely formless up close.
The Power of Satire as Propaganda
What we know of one philosopher’s name that nearly everybody seems to recognize is all secondhand. Despite an influence on the written word that has continued unabated for several millennia now, Socrates himself left behind not one single written word about himself. The vision each person gets at the mention of the name Socrates is mostly the work of his student Plato whose dialogues have crafted and shaped what almost certainly has to be every bit as biased in favor of the philosopher as the one created by Aristophanes is biased against him. Which one is closer to the truth? It is a question that cannot be answered, but one truth is irrefutable: twenty-five years later the satirical undermining of Socrates by Aristophanes was one of the pieces of evidences used against the defendant who would ultimately receive a death sentence. While history has judged the Platonic version of Socrates as the more likely, knowledge of that legacy would surely have been only cold comfort to Socrates had he known it. Humor and comedy are often dismissed in comparison to more serious genres like tragedy and historical fiction. But as Socrates could probably tell you--since he's clearly not going to write it down for you--not only is comedy not pretty; comedy kills.
