33
But Aristophanes is no Socrates, his burlesque of Socrates makes it clear that his critical stance
does not culminate in indifference.
41
We could only confuse his perspective with that of the city
because his recognition that Socrates’ radical self-sufficiency is untenable leads to what is
essentially the same position as that of the city. Underlying Aristophanes’ comedy is an
understanding of man as in need of family and city, as a being requiring grounding and law.
Those things that appear ephemeral from the perspective of philosophy are no less important than
philosophy itself; if anything, their importance is to be found in the fact that they are a constant
and necessary aspect of man’s nature. Socrates’ way of life is an illusion, for it pretends toward
self-sufficiency when in reality it manifests itself as being radically dependent.
42
Precisely
because he does not concern himself with human things, he finds himself to be at their whims. It
should not surprise us when the concluding scenes of the Clouds show the utter destruction of
41
Comedy presupposes seriousness as a condition of its existence. Aristophanes’ comedy
has shown itself to be the perfect comedy, for it understands both the distance required from that
seriousness in order to be funny, as well as the essential role that this seriousness plays in
comedy, if not all of poetry. In this way, Aristophanes shows himself to be the perfect comic,
while Socrates is shown to be perfectly comic.
42
Mary Nichols says of Socrates’ incomplete self-sufficiency that, “The incident indicates
both that Socrates acts as if he were free of his bodily needs and that he is not as independent of
his body as he would like to be. Philosophy cannot free men from the demands of their bodies.”
Convention