The Wisest Comedy of Aristophanes [redux]

Education or corruption: how do you know?

All the books we are reading were written during much less liberal times – the authors had more to worry about than political correctness. Cancel culture was an existential threat. Consider the case of Socrates. As you will see when we eventually come to the Apology, he was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth, introducing new gods, and making the weaker argument the stronger – essentially, for being a really, really good professor of law. Here in the Clouds, we will get an idea of why he was charged … and of why he was convicted.

Many today regard Socrates as the first and greatest liberal educator – but what is the difference between education and corruption? How do you tell the difference between the corruptor and the educator? This is a fundamental question of direct relevance not only to our politics today, but also to our own lives as we would like to be educated, not corrupted. If you went to college, did the four years you spent there make you a better person? Why else were you there?

If for professional training, then why did you have to complete general education requirements? What is the difference between education and training? That there is a difference and that this difference is significant can be seen in the respective reactions of parents to their children receiving sexual education, on the one hand, and sexual training, on the other.

To answer this question you need to think about what is good, about what the most important things are to you and why. Every decision you make is tied to your opinion of the good, to your opinion concerning what is good for you. You don’t choose something because you think it is bad for you, you think it will be good. Sometimes, however, you are mistaken.

This is one of the things that distinguishes us from the animals, it is one of the reasons why we are more than simply social, why we are political. We are not driven by instinct to do what is good either for us individually, or us collectively. Bees and ants do not deliberate and decide, they just do. They are instinctively driven to do what is good for their community. Human beings on the other hand are self-conscious about the demands of the political community, demands which they may or may not wish to meet. For example, should every citizen be required to undertake a period of national service? If so, how long? One year, two years, four or six?

Every decision, whether individual or collective, to do or not do something involves a complex argument of why it is better to do or not to the thing in question. We give reasons; we rank these reasons; we rank the judgments evident in these rankings – politics is about these judgments: it is a question of who will rule, that is, whose judgment will be the rule. It is a question we fight over. It is a question that can be answered only by political philosophy.

As we take up the Clouds, these are the stakes: will we or will we not live a good life, and how do we know?