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- [00:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Today on Ascend the Great Books podcast, Dr. Zena Hits joins us to discuss the Clouds by Aristophanes. The comedic play tells the story of the man Strepsides who, burdened by debts, decides to send his son to study at the thinkory with Socrates in order that his son may learn to overcome truth with lies and defeat his father's creditors. I am joined by the always wonderful Dr. Zena Hitz, and we discuss education, piety, and the playwright as teacher. The story is a funny commentary on philosophy, sophistry, and the moral state of Athens. And most of all, it gives us our first view of Socrates, who is a character in the play. For those who are unfamiliar, just a forewarning. Aristophanes humor is vulgar and crude. He has a lesson to teach us, but his humor is a little vulgar. And some of you I know listen to Ascend with your families. This might not be the best one to listen to in the car with the Littles. That aside, please join us today for a wonderful conversation on Aristophanes the Clowns with Dr. Zena Hitz. Welcome to Ascend the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I serve as the Chancellor and General Counsel of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. It is a beautiful morning here in Oklahoma as we recorded the Chancery. You can check us out on Twitter or YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. We appreciate all of our supporters. You can check us out@thegreatbookspodcast.com where we have lots of guides and articles and resources to help you understand the great books. Today we are discussing the Clouds by Aristophanes and we have a wonderful guest with us today. We have Dr. Zena Hits. She's a tutor at St. John's College, as well as the founder and president of the Catherine Project. Her popular writings focus on freedom, education, happiness, faith, hope, love, and the decline of institutions, while her more scholarly work focuses on classical philosophy, especially law, character, friendship, and the human good. Dr. Hitz, welcome to the podcast.
- [02:14]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Thanks so much, Deacon. It's good to be here.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
So tell me a little bit about the Katherine Project.
- [02:20]
Dr. Zena Hitz
The Kathryn Project was founded in 2020. It's a new, newish nonprofit. It's an open online school, essentially open to anyone. No credits, no degrees. Your only criteria for admission is willingness to learn. And what you do is you read great books and talk about them. So we conduct reading groups, tutorials. We have a new core curriculum we just launched for beginners, and what we'd like to help people do is to empower them to read these books, which is often daunting, and to take their own inquiries seriously and to bring that to conversation and to embark on the life of the mind in that way. So, yeah, it's been growing very quickly. I'm very proud of everything it's done. And everyone's welcome@catherineproject.org yeah, it's beautiful.
- [03:17]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
What do you think the role is of reading these books together? And so, for instance, like, one of the. The impetus in a lot of ways for Ascend was that, you know, I had a Sunday great books at my house that was meeting probably once a month, and we discussed books and etc. Reading Homer. And then I post about it on Twitter or X and people would comment like, oh, I'd love to read Homer. I'd love to do these things, but I don't have anyone to read it with. And so part of the impetus of this podcast was like, okay, how can we provide people almost like a small group setting to read these things with? And I think you're doing, obviously, something very similar. So what is the role of fraternity? What's the role of actually reading these.
- [03:54]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Books in groups every now and then? It's not unheard of for people in my circles to take up these books on their own. So there's a certain kind of person who will decide to read the great books. We'll start at the beginning, and we'll read all of them on their own with great fruitfulness. Most people I know, and I'm including myself, it's too daunting a task. It's a bit too much like going to the gym. And anyone who's tried to build a gym habit knows you need to go with someone. So the most basic role is just support. It's to help you to do something difficult that you want to do that's really fulfilling, that you'll be so glad you did. But it's hard to maintain that discipline just on your own. The other reason I. There are other reasons that I think are deeper, which is that the way I would define a great book is one which can teach someone at any level. So what happens when you have a group like we have at Catherine Project, or like we have at St. John's or like I'm sure your Sunday group is, you have a variety of people. Some of them went to college, some of them didn't. Some of them went to graduate school, some of them didn't. Some of them are, of course, the person leading might be something like a scholar who's spent A ton of time reading and thinking. And then you may have someone who's just trying it for the first time, and that person who's just trying it for the first time can see things about that book because it's a great book that the scholar will not have seen before. And there's something beautiful and profound about that. As the books bear repeated rereadings, they continue to open themselves up over the course of a lifetime. So it's not something you do once. And you can see that most clearly when you read it with a group. A group that's small enough, you know, to get to know each other and learn how to hear each other's voices and how to learn from each other, but one where there's also enough energy to keep the flame burning.
- [06:02]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's very good. Yeah. I seem to look at it as like iron sharpens iron. And one of the reasons I've really enjoyed reading it in a small group and also reading it with ascend in both counts is you're correct, you're reading it with people who are coming at it from different perspectives. And in a lot of ways, I tell people it's like you get the benefit of, of rereading it multiple times of one read through. So it's like, I'm going to read the Iliad right now. You know, I've. I've been working with our diaconate candidates. We just read the iliad together. There's 19 of them. And when I sit there, it's. It's like almost like you've read it 19 times because all these people are coming in with their perspectives and it's really, it's really fruitful. I don't think people understand how fruitful it is then to read it as a group.
- [06:46]
Dr. Zena Hitz
I think we have a bit of a. It's not that I don't believe there's such a thing as expertise. I do. There is such a thing as expertise. And experts can help us, but we overrate it a bit. We tend to think we can't read great books if we don't have an expert who tells us exactly what to think about them. That, I think is a really big mistake. Part of what makes a great book great is that you, in principle, you yourself, you, the full time caregiver, you, the stay at home mom, you, the person who never went to college, you, the delivery truck driver, you can pick up the book and you can learn from it and you could share an insight with someone else that they'd never heard before. Even Someone who'd read it for years.
- [07:25]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I like it. Reminds me, I think it was Pope St. Gregory who said that scripture was where the lamb could wade and the elephant could swim. Right. So that there's, like. There's these different, you know, levels. And. And I think that really rings true of the great books in general, particularly of narratives. I think narratives tend to really reach out and lend themselves to being grasped at multiple different levels, if that makes sense. Yeah. So, no, I. I really appreciate your comments on the fraternity. I think, of reading these groups together. Tell us a little bit, though, about. You've recently released a book, the Philosophers look at Religious Life.
- [08:01]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Yes.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
What is that about?
- [08:03]
Dr. Zena Hitz
It's part of a series called A Philosopher Looks at a Variety of Topics. So different philosophers wrote different books on a philosopher looks at sports or philosopher looks at finance. Philosopher looks at artificial intelligence. So the editor of the series asked me to write about the religious life because I had. I'd spent time in a religious community, three years in a religious community. And what I. So I could have taken that any number of ways. What I decided to do was to write about what. What seemed to me the fundamental philosophical problem that faces people entering a religious life, which is something like the meaning of total renunciation, the meaning of vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and the sense in which it looks, from a certain point of view, like a waste of a life and the sacrifice of everything a person would care about. And yet it is, by our faith, meant to be a means of happiness, not just being good, but being happy. So I wanted to kind of work out that paradox and explain my own struggles with it and the things I thought I had learned. And it looks at a variety of sources, you know, church fathers and theology and stories of the saints and movies and novels about the religious life. So I'm proud of it. I'll say something else about it. I think it was also an attempt for me to formulate Christian spirituality in a way that I think that sometimes, especially in our American context, we forget about. We tend to think of religion as being about morality. If you want spirituality, you go to Buddhism or you go to Eastern religions.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
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Dr. Zena Hitz
And I'm not denying the spirituality of those other religions, but Christianity has one, too. It's very profound. It's very deep. And I would like Christians and non Christians to have a sense of what that. What that looks like.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, because we. We've had some critiques here as we kind of talk about spirituality at the chancery. In the Diocese of Tulsa, where somewhere along the line we kind of put Christian spirituality in the realm of the experts. Right. So it's like, you don't, like, if you look at our typical formation, even for, like, clerics or just theology formation, et cetera, it's like you don't read St. John of the Cross, you don't read St. Teresa of Avila. Like, that's, that's something that's like, set aside for some kind of esoteric, like, experts. And we've really been trying to push back against that. That's even made me question, like, what is a great books list?
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Dr. Zena Hitz
Yeah.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
How do we come about that? And like, why. Why do we skip spirituality so much? And we've recently started a. We have a wonderful, wonderful scholar here locally, Father Elkin Gonzalez, who studied spirituality in Rome. And so we are trying to tap into his resources. And we actually just started a spiritual direction program here in the diocese to try and teach people how to be, how to be a director or how to be like, just even a companion. Like, could you read these books with people? But I think this is a real critique that we, somewhere down the line, we just decided, like, everyone just needs to know basically, moral formation, like, just don't do these things. Catholicism ends up being somehow a religion of just negatives, like, just don't, don't do series of things. But then this, like, spiritual flourishing of just like satiating in God and having happiness and, and, you know, these mystic experiences, you know, dare I say, even erotic experiences, like these things, like, became very alien to us somewhere down the road.
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Dr. Zena Hitz
I think it also, what I find heartbreaking, which is related to what you're describing, is I meet people, you know, educated people, middle class people. Most of the people I'm around because I'm a college professor, so I don't get out of my bubble much, but I do try. But anyway, most of people like that, they'll feel a longing that I would describe as a spiritual longing, a longing for God. And the way that's often interpreted as, oh, I've got to go study theology, it's not, oh, I. I need to look into some practices like serving the poor or types of prayer that are going to be embodied in my everyday life, that are going to change the way I live, whatever I happen to be doing with my life. And there's a sense that, yes, spirituality is, if you're interested in it, you better become an expert. Otherwise it's not for you. So it, I, I think I'm seeing a bit what you're talking about from the other end where it's like, oh, got to become an expert. And it's like, no, you don't. You don't have to become like, I don't think that Teresa of Avila thought of herself as an expert.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
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Dr. Zena Hitz
Herself as doing what was in front of her to do, which she gained by her relationship with Christ.
- [12:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. There's a certain, there's a certain demand that spiritual readings put on us. I remember being a. I'm a convert. I remember reading St. Francis Hale's introduction to the Devout Life for the first time and being somewhat torn because it's like, okay, I read like a few chapters and the chapters are only like two pages each. But he's like giving all of these recommendations of like, okay, wake up early, you need to read, you need to do this. And I'm like, wait, so do I. Do I just keep reading this book? Like, am I just gaining knowledge or do I have to actually start doing all these things? Right. Like, you kind of. It kind of puts a burden on you. And you see really quickly that I think part of the reason spirituality can be uncomfortable for us is because it kind of. It won't allow itself to be contained in simply an academic exercise. And so you're just like, oh, I've read this book. That's great. But the book gives you 300 things you should be doing. Are you doing any of this?
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Dr. Zena Hitz
Them?
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
And I've. I think that's really convicting because reading St. Francis L's or I just read the Four Centuries on Love by St. Maximus the Confessor, and it's the same way you read them. And he's like, yeah, you, you know, the appetitive part of the soul, you need to fast. The spirited part of the soul you need to give alms. The intellect, you need to, you know, pray. And you're like, okay, now I know this. Do I have to do it? Like, how's that work?
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Dr. Zena Hitz
So exactly. Yeah, no, it's. Practice is hard for us in our sort of consumer culture. We want to just acquire things in the quickest way possible.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
I agree.
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Dr. Zena Hitz
We don't want to change the way we live. But that, I think is human nature. It's one of the reasons why we have schools and seminaries and colleges and places like that to help us be better.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, very good. Well, this is a certain juxtaposition to try and segue from the heights of spiritual life into Aristophanes. I'm a first time reader of Aristophanes, so This was an interesting kind of juxtaposition, even coming off of, like, the Greek tragedies. So just maybe just a little bit of brass tacks for those who aren't familiar with him. So like the author, Aristophanes was born around 446 BC. He was a citizen of Athens. He's known as the father of comedy. He wrote over 40 plays, but only 11 have come down to us today. He was a contemporary of Socrates. His relationship to Socrates is a major question raised by the Clouds. His humor can be crude, but like the tragedians, his comedy has a purpose. I think Aristophanes saw himself as a teacher and his plays amongst the humor can carry a lesson. He died around 386 BC. Would you agree with that his plays have a pedagogical purpose and that he saw himself as a teacher like that. He's trying to teach the people something.
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Dr. Zena Hitz
I think definitely he is trying to teach them something. It's always with literature, bit hazardous to ask yourself what the moral is, what the teaching is, because it can be multivalent or it can speak differently to different audiences, parts of the audience even. But I do think it's serious. It's not just low entertainment.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Oh, yeah, no, there seems to be some. Definitely something he's trying to communicate. It seemed to. I read the Frogs, and in the Frogs, he seems to make it more clear that he views. He doesn't talk about himself, but he views the playwrights as teachers and like, they need to come and teach Athens something. Athens has lost something and it needs a lesson. So if we look at the Clouds, then as the play itself, again, just some brass tacks. So the Clouds was one of Aristophanes earlier plays being produced around 423 BC, almost 10 years into Peloponnesian War, which ended in 404 BC. It did not win first prize. And this seems to have upset Aristophanes. And so he rewrote the play, which includes critiques of the judges for not awarding it first prize. And so the reason I include this is because what we're reading today, the edition that we have, for lack of a better word, is the revised play that wasn't produced on stage, but circulated in Athens as something to be read, because there's this part in the play that's really interesting, that it breaks the fourth wall, where basically Aristophanes comes out and critiques the judges. It's a really kind of fascinating moment in the play.
- [17:00]
Dr. Zena Hitz
That's right. Yeah. It's an amazing moment. And he Also seems to speak directly to Strepsides, who's the sort of the protagonist of the play. So I just noticed this. I reread it for the purposes of this conversation. You know, he says to Strepsides at one point, who's the main character? He says, you brought this on yourself. You know, it's. It's almost like an echo of something you might see in a tragedy, you know, an Oedipus, the king. You know, I did this. I am responsible. Only the flavor, of course, is very different.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Flavor is different. It's very like after. Because I. My original Great Books formation did not include really the poetics. We didn't read Homer either. We jumped straight into Plato. And so doing our year of Homer on Ascend was. Was really beneficial, very fruitful. I enjoyed it. And then reading into the tragedies, I just love them. Like, I just. It was wonderful coming into Aristophanes, man, it. It was a hit. I had. I really had to, like, stop and think and be like, wait, is he really making that joke? Because I came in raw, right? I came in really raw. I didn't want to look up a lot of stuff about it. And so, you know, so. But in general, though, like, why. Why should someone read this? Like, why. Why do we read Aristophanes the Clouds? Like, why should we spend the time to read this work?
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Dr. Zena Hitz
Well, I think that Aristophanes in general is interested in portraying, through this kind of ridiculous, sometimes slapstick, sometimes obscene comedy, certain truths. And you can see that not just in. You read the Frogs, which is about the death of the last tragedian. What will Athens do without tragedy? There's an earlier one that in a way is clear and more kind of classic comedy called the Knights, which is a parody of democracy. So there's an old man called the Demos who stands in for the Athenian people. And there are these two demagogues or politicians who are competing for his attention by being each one more debased than the other. And then along comes a third person who's more debased than anyone's ever been. And he, of course, wins over the Demos. And so it's one of these things where, okay, it's a joke. On the other hand, you see something about how democracy works, not just for the Athenians, but for us. So if you turn to the clouds, what's it about? It's about education. So Strepsides, the protagonist, wants his son. He's overloaded with debts caused by the. The overspending, the decadent lifestyle of his son. So he wants his son to go to a school where they're going to teach him to make the weaker argument appear the stronger and thereby get out of his debts using the law. So something like the. Some kind of equivalent of law school, only a little bit different than. I think we might think of it that way. But for him, it's all put together in this. This crazy Athenian context. So that the place where you might learn to win in the law courts is the place where you learn to speak well. It's a place where you learn how to cheat and lie and make words sound good. It's also a place where you're engaging in all this speculative inquiry. Like you're. You're measuring the size of the earth, you're figuring out what's underneath the earth, you're studying astronomy. Now, these are real practices undertaken by real Greek schools. They're treated very savagely and very hilariously. So when Strepsides first meets the school, they're measuring how far a flea jumps. They're trying to figure out whether a mosquito buzzes out of its mouth or out of its rear end. So there's. It's, it's silly in a way that you could imagine someone making fun of the trivialities of, of what our own educators do, scientists do. But the, the question about what an education is for and what. Whether it helps the community or hurts it is a very basic, fundamental question. And I think, like all the great books, you read them because you want to pursue these questions and think about them in terms of what's true, not just about used to be true 2,000 years ago.
- [21:34]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, very good. Yeah. I think that, you know, as you start off the play, you have Strepsides. And if I understand correctly, like, he used to have, he used to be rural, he had this, like, agrarian lifestyle. He marries this aristocratic girl, he moves to the city, and now he just has this decadent, wasteful son who's wasted all their money on horses. And so I was curious. And so, as you said, like, so now he's in debt. And so their brilliant idea at first is that they're going to send the sun to the thinkery, which is a hilarious name just by itself. To the Thinkery. And yeah, it's like, at first it's like a law school, like, oh, rhetoric, whatever. But then it's like explicit, where it's like, well, you go there to learn how to lie, to get out of things. So it makes it like, very explicitly, like, you just go there to learn how to lie and then no one can control you. Like you can get out of anything that you want, etc. What. Is there any. I was, when I was reading this, I was kind of struck by kind of the socioeconomic factors at the beginning, like, and so is there something going on here with the Peloponnesian war? Because we're 10, we're almost 10 years deep into the war and he's presenting like this move from like the rule to the cities. It's kind of weird that you have this like decadent life in the midst of wartime. Is there anything going on here at the beginning?
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Dr. Zena Hitz
I'm not sure. I haven't thought about the play in connection with the war specifically. It is definitely what happens at a time when Athens is wealthy because of its imperial success. So, you know, I think in the way this is. I don't know whether this is real history or just the way that writers at this time imagine their past. Right. It's often indifference. But you can even tell in the play. There's this section towards the end that's very funny. There's an argument between the just speech and the unjust speech. And the just speech is an old man who's complaining about how when he was young, people used to walk in good order to school, even when it was snowing. And it sounds exactly like every old man that you've ever heard. Every old person in that argument. The unjust, the just speech is someone who's nostalgic for the Athens that beat back the Persians. So the Athens that was scrappy and virtuous and not decadent, not overrun with wealth. So Athens at the time he's writing is one that's wealthy. So it's one where someone from the sticks like Strepsides can meet an aristocratic woman and work his way up in the world, so to speak. And as all happens in any fast growing culture like that, I mean, it's in a way a very American story. He gets in over his head and doesn't know how to reconcile his, his taste for the high life with the basic kind of rural economy that he grew up with. So he's stuck and he has debts that are way over his head. Social ambition and debt are actually huge themes also in 19th century novels. The time of the Industrial Revolution, you know, some kid from the sticks wants to marry a rich woman and, you know, then the story's off from there. You've got Balzac and Trollope and all these great 19th century novels exploring what happens when people Who. When there's a lot of wealth that's available by a kind of chance, and it changes your character, it changes the way you think about yourself.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yes. One thing about the great books is when you read them, you realize that humans are the same. Yes, we're the same. Like, I sometimes you bump into people that like, why would I ever read Homer Aristophanes? Like, I have nothing in common with those people. And it's like, well, I understand that you have Google and an iPhone, but like actually the same human nature. And when you read these, you're like, oh, yeah, I know someone like that. Like, this is the same human problem that we see in today. So, no, I appreciate you kind of tethering those together. What are we to make of this? This oven, the stove? Like there's like this, you know, outside the Think Free, there's like this. There's like the stove. And Strepsides says at one point, like, oh, it's like a model of the universe and we're like the charcoal. And at the end, it's like the fire from the stove that he uses to destroy the thinkory. Like, what, what is. What is going on with this oven, stove, whatever. The kiln thing.
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Dr. Zena Hitz
Yeah, you're asking great questions. Great. These books have so many details that I've read this play a number of times. I've written a bit about it. But the stove, I think is just what you said on the literal level. It's a model of the kind of. This school which is a source of all sophisticated knowledge. Not just knowledge of how to cheat and how to lie and how to get out of your debts, but also how the world works. Like the basics of what we would now call physics or science or biology or astronomy. They're all in this place. So they have a model of the world that's based on the non existence of the gods. Right. So they're like many contemporary scientists, right. Or people who become enchanted with science. They think that science disproves the existence of divinities. So you have what you call a naturalistic view of the world where it's. It's basically just like an oven, you know, it's just like something we already understand ourselves and there's nothing beyond it than that. There's nothing magical about it, there's nothing enchanted about it, there's nothing divine about it. And it's that what happens over the course of the play? I don't. Are we allowed to talk about that or are there no spoilers? You have no spoilers rule. Okay, so the. What happens eventually is that Pheidippides, his son, so Strepsides goes to the academy. Oh, sorry, now we have to go back. So he tries to send his son, his son refuses, he goes himself, he's kicked out for being too stupid. And then his son is finally inspired to go and he hears that there they don't worship the gods. That somehow brings him in. So then he comes again. He comes out and they get out of their debts. Actually Strips does, oddly enough, inspired by his son's success at the school, he makes up a bunch of garbage arguments to disprove that his debts. And then his son starts to beat him. And suddenly, then Strepsides, the father realizes that in giving up his religion, he's given up something that's too important. And he sets the school on fire. That's the last scene of the play. So he. It's. It has to do with, I mean, one of the undercurrents of the play is, you know, what does it mean to deny the traditional gods? What happens when you deny the traditional gods and what kinds of people do it? And you get on the one hand these nerdy weirdos who are interested in theory who deny it. And then on the other hand you get people who are in a lot of debt and the only way to get out of it is to lie and to cheat. And the only way to lie and to cheat is to deny the existence of the gods. So there's a much more blatantly self interested reason that Strepsides kind of is really attracted by and then can't handle the full consequences.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I'm interested in kind of like the infrastructure behind what you're talking about, where there seems to be. Because I think we can miss it as modern readers. I don't think you miss it coming off the tragedies, but the relationship between piety and political stability. So like, if you come in with a modern lens, I don't think you see it because we don't. We. What is piety for us? Like that's a nothing. That's not even a virtue, I don't think anymore. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with living together. And so. But here I was really struck by and kind of dovetailing on what you were talking about. I was really struck because when you read the tragedies, right, we read Antigone or in the Theban plays, but particularly in Antigone, you read the Oresteia, like piety in the way it structures Society, right, that the gods, the polis and the family all can align. And sometimes they get disjointed. And so you see, like in the Oresteia, with Orestes, like, there. There becomes this tension between doing what's right and Athena has to come in and fix it. But piety plays a big part, obviously, in Antigone, right? They're. They're debating, like, what do the gods actually want? Do we bury him? Do we not? You know, et cetera? And so it made sense to me then when we come into the clouds, that when we see in the thinkery, there's, like a line that Strepsides said that really caught my attention when he's first kind of in there and he sees the fly or the fleas. And like you said, they're doing these funny experiments and they have little boots on the. How long can the fleas jump? And all these things he says, well, I was just trying to read a quote, and I'm trying see if we're gonna censor ourself on the podcast. But he says. He says, oh, thrice blessed mortals, what bowel wisdom, which is a funny phrase. He says, why the man who has mastered the ass of the gnat could win an acquittal from any court. And it's a really funny line, right? Like, it's like, you're, like, reading it. You're like, wait, what? And at first, like, you're just like, okay, Stripsides is an idiot. Like, I just, like. And you want to move on. But I. It caught my attention because, like, is there actually a tethering there between this kind of natural science which denies the gods, and then the capacity to win in court? And it seems like. Which is what I think you were commenting on too, is that one of the themes here is that these guys that are transitioning towards the natural sciences, which Socrates seems to be presented in this play as doing, they. They become impious, or impious because it's coupled with denying of the gods. But if you deny the gods, there's nothing to keep you from lying. Like you said, like. So there's nothing to keep you from lying to your creditors when they show up. There's nothing to keep you from lying in court, but then it deconstructs society, where at the end, right, the irony, right, is that strip Societies wants to use this against his creditors, but then his son, what is it, Pheidippides, uses it against his own father, and the family structure breaks down. And so there's this infrastructure of the play That I don't think we're familiar with, in which piety towards the gods is seen as giving, like, stability to the polis.
- [32:26]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Yeah, I, you know, I don't know. I agree with. That's definitely how the one way of thinking about how the play holds together. I don't know. I've never known quite what to think about it. So on the one hand, it seems like belief in the gods is standing in for something else. It's standing in for sticking to the moral code that's keeping the whole society together, which is not necessarily what you or I associate with piety. Like, I don't know, like if, if I don't go to, if I skip mass some Sunday, you know, miss my obligation. Have I undermined society? No, probably not, because I don't live in a Catholic society. If I did, I might, but I don't. I live in a pluralistic society. I live in the United States. So it's, it's, it's appealing to a type of community that we don't really have, one that's really small and united by a single set of beliefs in a single culture and where everything feels interconnected such that if you deny one piece of it, the whole structure starts to fall apart. So, yeah, I think societies that said, even though it is a different universe in certain ways than the one we live in, different kind of political community, one that's held together by a specific set of beliefs, as opposed to, I don't know, we would have to have a whole other podcast of what holds the United States together, if anything.
- [34:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. Well, I think in certain ways this.
- [34:01]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Is Constitution or something. But I, you know, it's, it, it's, it's not going to be belief in a God necessarily. So. But that said, Strepsides is very understandable. I mean, this is, it seems to me I can totally recognize this in myself and in others. You want to break a rule just once, just to do one thing. All you want to do is get out of your debts, not because to keep your family. Right. Streptides loves his family. He can't bear to defy his wife or son. That's how he's gotten into all this debt. So he's trying to preserve his family by getting out of debt. That's the only reason why he wants to lie and cheat. And yet it turns out that once the stability is gone, he, it's all hell breaks loose and he no longer bond with his family. So. And that wasn't what he wanted. What he wanted above anything was to keep his family together. What ends up happening is that the principle he brings in to try to save his family ends up destroying it. So that, I think, is very, very human and very relatable. That is you, you know, you, you never want the full consequences of that one piece of wrongdoing. You always think it might be, maybe you could be limited just to, you know, you're just going to do this once and it works out that way.
- [35:20]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, it doesn't. And I think you see this too in our own public moral debates, if that's even what they are. But, like, one thing I've been reflecting on over the last, like, decade is that people do not understand moral precedent. So they just don't. They don't understand that if there's like, there's, here's this thing, like, strep side. He's like, I just need to get rid of my debts. They don't understand, like, you can't narrow it to the specific issue. What you're talking about is a moral standard. And if you overcome the moral standard to do this thing, it's also going to allow everyone to overcome the moral standard to do everything else. Because you've, you've said the standard no longer holds. And for some reason this dynamic is really complicated for us to, like, grasp. And so we always, I always want to jump off a roof every time we have some kind of like, modern moral political debate in the public square. Because we're always focused on very particulars. Well, do we want to do this or not? But we don't really think about, well, if we allow this or prohibit this or do whatever, it sets a standard or it destroys a standard. And do we think about that? And that's always just like, oh, no, that's the, you know, if you were, if, if people were advising strip cities, you know, if he was worried about, you know, the destruction of the family and would his son turn against him? They say, oh, no, that's a, that's the slippery slope. Like, don't worry, don't worry about that. Like, you're going to be fine. Just do your thing. And it's a slippery slope. And I just, I don't know, it's a, that's another side note, but I agree with you. This, this idea of precedent and this understand that we like to get away with the thing that we want to get away with and everyone else has to hold to the moral standard. Again, human nature is the same.
- [36:41]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Right?
- [36:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It's still here.
- [36:43]
Dr. Zena Hitz
So just one more example. If you'd like, in a previous lifetime, so to speak. I taught Intro to Philosophy and Intro to Ethics to undergraduates, public universities before I went back to St. John's to the great books. So. And I always found it very useful to teach this very famous philosopher called Peter, Peter Singer. Very, very impious in Catholic philosopher. So Peter Singer is, is what's called a utilitarian. He's a vegetarian because he thinks animals feel pain. He thinks you should give away all your extra goods to the poor because your luxuries aren't benefiting your, you as much as they would be, as much as money to eat would benefit someone else. And he also thinks that infanticide is totally justified up to, up to the age of consciousness. So this set of views fall from very strict principles. And I used to like to teach with it because you could put undergraduates on the hook and say, well look, you want this result and you want this, you want to be a vegetarian, you like the vegetarianism, but you don't like infanticide. But this whole thing hangs together and you have to think about what your principles are. But it's a big stretch. We're not used to thinking that way.
- [37:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, we're not. We're very atomized in the way that we approach morality, which usually is. Because it's not actually logical. It's, it's emotional. Yeah, I want to do this thing. Don't bother me with like principles and precedent and moral standards. Like that's just obnoxious. Who is Socrates in this play? So this is something that I just, I realize, like this is probably not a knot that we're going to untie, but I just, it, it's surprising to me and maybe, maybe some of the tensions here is like when you read Socrates, like he's one, this is a Socrates that's still very much engaged in like the natural science aspect, which I understand is probably more towards the beginning of, of his career. But also he's, he's very much presented as a sophist. Like he, he doesn't side, I mean, if I'm, if I'm reading it correctly, he doesn't really side with like the old logic. Because you talked about earlier. There's the old logic and the new logic, this philosophy versus sophistry. He very much gets pegged on the sophistry side. And so I was curious. Is Socrates here, the historical Socrates? Is the Socrates here a stand in for Aristophanes on just like all these guys that are trying to do this. Who is Socrates in this play.
- [39:13]
Dr. Zena Hitz
So I think that that's really the question that has always drawn people to this play and that always will. And it's a very, very hard, as you've already suggested, very hard question to answer. I mean, the following things are true, right? That he's pictured in this play as undermining belief in the traditional gods and as making young people worse. And those two charges are what he was charged with by the Athenians, you know, some years after the play, and was tried, convicted and executed. So. And in Plato's Apology, which is one of the other great texts of Socrates, Socrates mentions Aristophanes. He said, oh, no, no, don't believe me. That. That stuff that you read about me, that you've heard about me from Aristophanes, it's not true. So. So we don't. So. So there's a suggestion, given that these plays weren't just like movies you could opt into or opt out of, right? There were things everyone saw. So the spectacle of Socrates in the clouds affected the way that the Athenians saw him, in such a way that it caused his death. Now, did it affect it or was it a more or less realistic depiction of what Socrates actually did? We'll never know, because Plato, his student, pretty clearly saw his job in writing his dialogues as the restoration of the reputation of Socrates, as an extended defense of Socrates. And we don't know ever where Socrates leaves off in Plato and where Plato begins. I myself think he's trying his best to be as faithful to his teacher as he can be, but that's not obvious, and lots of people disagree with that. So who Socrates is, is he the fellow that we see in Plato who's principled, who's courageous, who's devoted to his community, who fights in war, who defies tyrants, and who questions everything? You know, is he that person or is he this person in Aristophanes, this buffoon who is interested in useless cosmological knowledge and in teaching young people how to cheat and get ahead? It's a very profound question how these things could even be connected. And I think it connects again to the more universal question is about education. What do we think education can do? Because if you think about it, you think about our current situation now, why do people send their kids to college? Or why do kids want to go to college? Well, because they want them to succeed, they want them to be powerful, they want them to be leaders, they want them to be wealthy, they want them to be influential, they want them to be able to be rulers. Rather than people who are ruled or oppressed or downtrodden. That sounds like stripsites to me. But there are definitely people within the higher education community that are happy to cooperate with that and that generate. That are happy to meet that demand or happy to seem to be. To meet it. On the other hand, we still have floating around much more lofty and idealistic ideas of education. You know, that education builds people who can be critical citizens, like people who love their countries and so will speak the truth to them, or people who have a kind of integrity and a sense of what really matters in the world, or people who study the truth no matter the cost. We still have those ideals. They're still floating around. So I think that. And how these old authors did it, I have no idea. I just. I'm in awe. But they confronted the same kinds of problems that. And articulated in a way, the same kind of problems that we're facing now and made some kind of attempt to diagnose them. Although I agree, it's very hard to tell. Who. Who is this guy? I don't know. Why is he called Socrates? I don't know. We'll never know the answer to that question.
- [43:26]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, because when I was first introduced to this, or at least when I had heard of the clouds or really heard of Aristophanes, I had heard that the clouds were a warning to Socrates, that, hey, that Aristophanes wasn't lampooning him, that Aristophanes was trying to warn him of, like, hey, this is how you're being viewed. And I will tell you, when I read the play, it was really hard for me to come away with that perspective because it's such a heavy critique. And then, as you've already mentioned, the critiques that are in here are almost echoed, particularly in the apology. It's not just that he corrupted the youth and, you know, he introduces strange gods. We haven't even talked about what the clouds are yet. I don't even know what to do with them. So. But also, like, remember there's that phrase in the apology where I'm. I'm going to butcher it. But he talks about, like, you know, he investigates these things, like above the earth and in the earth and under the earth. And that's happening here. There's this whole funny scene where his students, well, first off, Socrates is up in this basket, like, doing, you know, God knows what up there trying to figure things out, and his students are down looking at the earth. So it. It's like everything that's in Aristophanes play and how he critiques Socrates, like, this is funny, it's a comedy. But then in the apology, when they're deciding whether or not to execute him, like, and you mentioned the play is mentioned. Well, not explicitly, but it's referenced, right? Not by name, but it's referenced. And so like, then it leads to the question, well, if you really think Aristophanes was trying to warn him, did he do a good job or did he just push Socrates off the cliff because he affected public opinion so much, was Socrates ever able to come back from that? I mean, it's, and I realize this is a nest that's not really able to be untangled, but on its face, to seeing this as a warning to Socrates, it's hard for me to see it.
- [45:19]
Dr. Zena Hitz
I, I, I'll say this, this is what I've thought for some time, I could change my mind. I, I reserve legislation to be. But this is what I think is going on. So one sign that Aristophanes is not critiquing Socrates, but in some way allies himself with it, is that the clouds, the gods that are worshiped in the thinkory where Socrates is king, the clouds are also evidently comedians, comic poets, and the chorus leader, who is a chorus of clouds, is Aristophanes. So there's something really weird going on there. There's some kind of alliance that I'll never understand between the gods of the philosophers and the comedians. And that to me already sends off some kind of warning sign that something's going on that, that is beyond what it looks like, which is him just lamping. Sorry. Here's the other thing though, that in a way was, is even more powerful to me because I don't fully understand what's going on with that. When I read the play now, I think it's about Strepsides, not about Socrates. And I think Strepsides is the target and his family, not Socrates. And Socrates, in a way is just being used to show something up about Strepsides. Now who's Strepsides? Strepsides is in the audience. He is a ordinary Athenian, as far as I can understand, lots and lots of Athenians are like Strepsites. So one way of thinking about what happened is everyone saw this comedy in which they themselves were really being lampooned and they deflected and looked at the other person as being lampooned. And just like Strepsides blamed, you know, instead of taking responsibility and saying, oh, you know what, I really screwed up, I shouldn't have gotten in all that debt and I shouldn't have sent my son to this school where he was going to learn new gods. That's not what happens. Right. He goes after Socrates. So in a way, what Aristophanes does is predict the future. Where in the future, what's going to happen. The Athenians are not going to recognize how in over their heads they are with their empire and with their greed and with their attempts to grow wealthy. They're never going to face up to who they really are. They're going to blame someone else and it's going to be Socrates, as it turns out, among other people. So I, I, that's how I'm tempted to think about the play. Although I could change my mind. And there's a lot of details in there that are very hard to understand.
- [48:04]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I like that. I like that a lot. And then it's interesting too about the clouds, which are kind of a mystery in of themselves. But what really caught my attention was is that then the clouds, like you said, are these kind of quote unquote gods that are worshipped by the thinker because they don't worship Zeus, they don't worship the Pantheon, they have these clouds that are kind of personified. But then Socrates and the clouds don't align like that. Towards the end of the play, the clouds critique Socrates and that Strepsides is this idiot and he's been taught sophistry and that clouds seem to be deferring back to the old logic. And so I lost, like I was like, somewhere there's an allegory here or something, or they're all analogs for something. And I lost track I think towards the end because I wasn't expecting any kind of discrepancy between Socrates and his gods in the thinkory. But they don't seem to align, I don't think.
- [48:55]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Yeah, that's a really great question. I think to work that we would have to go back and look, follow the, follow the clouds and try to figure out who the clouds are. So that's like once again we discover the great books. You need, you got to keep rereading. They never completely give up their goods. You've never exhausted it. But I think the fact that the clouds is also the chorus and that Aristophanes is the head of the chorus, there's something going on there and that might be brought out. Even if the clouds turn against Socrates in the end, I don't think about it.
- [49:30]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, because like you want a knee jerk reaction, at least I did like, I wanted the knee jerk reaction be like, oh, these, this is like a parody of the ideas, like of the forms that's like what you think they're going to be. But they don't, they don't seem to do that at least, or at least maybe with something that makes them complicated. Maybe this is just Aristophanes in general. Things don't seem to be like a one for one analog of something. Right. Like it's not, it's not an allegory. This isn't just like Aslan, the Jesus lion who's going to die. Like, it's not like it's. The problem is like it seems like scene by scene there's certain analogs playing off each other, but then they can shift on what they mean. And like it's, it's similar. Like when I read the frogs, I was like, what, what is happening with the actual frogs? Why are these frogs making this noise and singing? This reminded me of like the old Little Mermaid. Like, why, why, like why? What are these frogs doing? And there's not really like a great explanation. Just like, oh, they're just, they're croaking and they make the sound and the sound annoys Dionysius. So I don't know, it's, it's the clouds. I wanted to turn them into the ideas and I don't think that worked.
- [50:37]
Dr. Zena Hitz
I wonder, here's one thought I had about them which might chuck to help they clouds cover things up. So there, there's some kind of image for deceptive speech. And so in some way that might be the connection between poetry, comedy, poetry, because they also, like poets also use deceptive speech. Right? There's not really, you know, so that must be part of the, part of the. What makes the play so difficult and so fascinating is that question about the uses of speech to deceive. And yet somehow in comedy, in tragedy, in Homer, you have this deceptive speech that also conveys a truth. And to what extent does someone like Socrates have a claim to that kind of deception? It's a really hard question.
- [51:39]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I like that point too because I guess to use this word intentionally, the clouds are very nebulous. They change. Right. It actually, actually there's like a line in there, it makes it very explicit, like they can become whatever it is that you want to be, which also seems to run counter to them being the ideas, because the ideas would be completely contrary to that. They're immutable, they're eternal. And it's just, yeah. Trying to track and Then. And then how they follow Socrates throughout the play. This is where I started to question, like I like your idea that the focus of the play is actually a critique of, of the Strepsides in society. And then in this way then Socrates might become more of a collective analog for certain movements because sometimes it just doesn't seem to track well with him. But Aristophanes is somewhat. Really fun to read, somewhat notoriously difficult to figure out. On that note, maybe something I should have done as a preliminary when I read this in my Sunday Great Books group. We did not even make it through. So usually I open with some kind of just here's the narrative. Like here's just what happened. We did not even make it through that without blood on the floor conversation about like, well, that never happened or what, what, what are you talking about? Never did. And what I realized was, is, and I'm new to this, so please critique me, is the translations of Aristophanes are all over the place. And what I realized, what two, two things that caught my attention because what was coming up is like, obviously there's a somewhat hilarious slash, crude scene in which Strepsides is trying to be a good student of Socrates. And I'm reading the Aerosmith translation and Aerosmith plays off the puns. Like he, he tries to keep the puns in English so you can see what's going on. And so obviously there's this like he tells Strepsides to Lucrabate to think and he responds back that he needs to lubricate. And obviously then it leads into like a very crude scene of him underneath the blankets and, and Socrates. Have you done anything yet? And he's like, no, stop yelling at me. And it's like, like this, really? And I'm like reading it, I'm like, wait, is this, is this really a masturbation joke in the middle of like.
- [53:43]
Dr. Zena Hitz
The answer is yes. Yeah, but.
- [53:44]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay, the answer is yeah, but what's funny is, is that other guys translations, there was no, there was no possible way to pick that up. Like they didn't. They want. We noticed two things. One, some of them didn't even try to keep the puns. And if you didn't keep the puns, then you had no idea what was going on. So to the older ones, the older translations think like, you know, the great books of the Western world, like the 1950s ones, they seem to almost run interference and not translate the crudeness, as crude as it actually is.
- [54:15]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Yeah.
- [54:16]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And so this was, I mean, I'm not sure if you have, like, a recommended translation, but I read Aerosmith, and I thought he kept it pretty. I thought you could tell when the jokes were made, the puns were made, et cetera. But I was really shocked, more so than any other play that we've had, that we could not even track each other on the literal. If you weren't keeping the puns.
- [54:36]
Dr. Zena Hitz
No, I think that's right. It is very challenging. And it's also, translating comedy is harder because some people are choosing to get. Some people are downplaying the comedy because, of course, it's supposed to be substantive. And some people want the comedy not to be so slapstick and so disgusting and not to be about masturbation or whatever. So my. My favorite translations are there's. There's actually. I think he actually did two translations. Summerstein. So they're in the Penguin classic. I think they're a little bit less literal. And then there's a bilingual edition, but it's very literal. But it's. It's not. There's no. There's no simple answer to this question. It's just really hard to translate and really hard to understand what's going on. Yeah, it's one of the few cases where I normally like to have a group read a bunch of different translations, because then you're always reminded that you're reading translation. This is a case where I'd almost rather just read one so that I thought was good so that we knew what was going on.
- [55:41]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. In retrospect, if I could do Aristophanes over again in a small group, I would have had everyone read the Aerosmith one that I read, because then some of the guys almost disengaged from the conversation for the rest of the evening because they're like, okay, well, I don't know if my impressions are correct because, like, my translation didn't keep with the jokes. And so their understanding of, like, what happened on the literal level. Right. It's like reading scripture. Like, if you don't understand the literal, you're not going to understand the other layers underneath it. Everything pivots literal. So I just want to mention that for those who might want to read it in a small group or might want to pick it up for the first time, I think the translation on Aristophanes actually matters a lot.
- [56:17]
Dr. Zena Hitz
That's great. I agree with that.
- [56:18]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay. Yeah. Very good. So the clouds, you know, they remain a mystery. Can we just have, like, what's the sketch? You've already alluded to it. I talked to it as well. But like, what is, what's the real sketch here between the old logic and the new logic, between philosophy and sophistry? Like, what is Aristophanes trying to do? And they're almost. Maybe this is my own mistake, but I would have thought that that sophistry was the older one and that lot like, you know, in that the new philosophy, Socrates, logic would be the newer thing. But then it's also, I don't want to say it's conflated, but he's. Because of the natural sciences, I think he's bringing in the Presocratics which are very natural based. And now you have the Sophists. And so this is one of the things too where I was trying to track. Like again, are we talking about Socrates or is he a stand in? Like, what is the actual distinction between the old logic and the new logic?
- [57:11]
Dr. Zena Hitz
So here again there's a translation issue. So it's just log us or unjust log us. This is a great word for Christians.
- [57:22]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
We all know it.
- [57:24]
Dr. Zena Hitz
But if you. In classical Greek, the meaning is all over the map. So does it mean speech? Does it mean argument? Does it mean as you're saying, logic? Because it can also mean like mode of reasoning. The slogan about the Sophists is that they make the weaker argument appear the stronger or they make the unjust argument appear to be the just argument. They make what's unjust look just. They make what's a bad argument look good. So I don't think it's, I don't think it's meant to map on to philosophy and sophistry necessarily. I think that it's more like the old school morality and the new school morality, which is sort of what reflects better. I think the dialogue, because you have the old man saying, like when I was young, people respected their fathers and they, you know, and it was uphill both schools to school and we never complain and then the unjust speech just will do play any trick to get him to look stupid. So I don't think that's right. It's, you know, I'll just say this for. Just because I think it's relevant, knowing what the history of the practice of philosophy is, whether it's natural science, whether it's what Socrates practices in the dialogues, what, what who the sophists were and what they actually did and what they actually cared about and whether they were. Whether Plato's critique of them is fair or not. These questions are, are extremely difficult to answer. We don't have sources outside of these books and a few others. So you're kind of left on your own. There's no, there's no further record that you can go to and say, oh, now I see the way it really happened was this. You have all of these witnesses that say things that don't fit together, and you have to try to reconstruct it. So there have been many, many different ways of reconstructing this kind of history. And some people take the Platonic witness really seriously. And so it's like there's Presocratics and they were interested in natural science. And then Socrates turns around and the Sophists are people who are trying to make money. They're just dishonest people. But I think it's probably more complicated than that. But going into the sources is challenging. And there's no obvious answer. History always involves a judgment based on evidence. It's never as objective as we think it's going to be.
- [59:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, I appreciate you saying that, just because even just as it played out, it didn't seem, from someone who's probably inclined towards, you know, the Platonic, you know, narrative of things, it didn't seem to line up well at times with that understanding. But I like it as the moral because as I like your old main impression, because one of those things too is very practical for the fact that they're in a war. Because the old logic, you know, the old speech, the just speech, it's like, I prepared men for Marathon. We, we pushed back the Persians. There's, there's like this really. There's this really immediate. And there's a really funny part where he goes through the parts of the body. So he's like, well, if you, if you agreed and obeyed the, you know, the old logic, the philosophy, whatever, you want to kind of contextualize this old moral formation, you know, well, you, you were strong in this and he actually, you know, your tongue was like this. And he gives all kinds of body parts actually about what your body parts are. Were like if you obeyed the old world formation. And the new guys are. They're effeminate and they're weak. And this is a big critique in the middle of a war. That's right, because Marathon obviously is the, you know, the famous battle where they, the Greeks pushed back the Persians and now the Greeks are in their own kind of world war. So, no, I like, I like maybe parsing it out more as like, different moral formations in Athens that might not map on to what we think of, like, the Platonic, the Platonic development of the, of the pre Socratics, Socrates and Sophists. Because it doesn't seem to map on that very well.
- [61:30]
Dr. Zena Hitz
No, and I, I think that again, the, the deep question which matters for us is, okay, this is a society. So Aristophanes is writing, as you said before the end of the war. The war destroys the Athenian empire, it destroys the Athenian army. And so it's an enormous act of overreach and self destruction at a certain point. And this we know, this is Thucydides followed by Xenophon. This is more further on in the world of the great books where we read about this in more detail. But for like the question is, right, if you're at this moment, you see that everything's going downhill, you see that your culture used to be better. Does the, does the just speech or does the old logic is that really, is being nostalgic really going to cut the mustard? Is it really going to restore the country back to what it was or the culture back to what it was? Or is it just this kind of self indulgent thing where you say, oh, you know, when I was young it was better. And I think that's, you know, I don't think that the, I don't think it's obvious what the solution is to Aristophanes. What's the way of assuming he does actually believe in some kind of flourishing for his community? What's the way that you get that back?
- [62:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [62:55]
Dr. Zena Hitz
And the same is true for us, I think, because we're in a, I think a similar situation. Most people think things are going downhill. Well, what's the solution? Is it just to be nostalgic and try to recover something that we think our parents had or that we had when we were younger? Or is some other kind of intervention necessary? And what would it be? I think it's, I think that's the level where I find the play most profound is. Yeah. Thinking about ways in which wealth and empire can corrupt our communities and make them weaker. And what do we do about it? How does education help us? How does education help us? Because it doesn't seem to. In the clouds. It doesn't go well. So.
- [63:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, it seems to. I mean, one of the things that I really, I appreciate that perspective on it and I like, I like pointing at the, the main purpose of the play or at least one of the main themes being education. Right. Because I, maybe, because maybe the sole focus on Socrates in the play, which is what everyone seems to focus on. You know, I'm interested In the fact that that, that might be not a misdirection, but it might be a distraction from the actual, you know, moral. Because I'm, I'm curious though, because obviously the new, or the almost a new thinkory, like the podcast, actually, I like those guys. But the, the thinkory, right, obviously isn't good. It's not going to do it, right? I mean, it's creating. It takes strip cities, it takes fide, and you know, one's too dumb to learn lessons anyway, and the other one basically becomes incredibly impious and deconstructs the family unit and things actually get worse. But it's curious though, because like, your, your critique of like, well, does that just mean then we just need the old way. Yeah, well, how is the old way supposed to turn things around when their students are strepsieties and phydipities?
- [64:45]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Yeah, exactly.
- [64:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I mean, that's the horror of this. I mean, because like, you can, you can play it out today. It's like, well, you know, if we had more great books colleges, if we had more things like this, then we would do this. But you, the, the irony of education, right, is that some point the student, somehow you have to have the student realize that they need to be educated. But to come to that realization, they have to be educated to some degree. And so like, you can't just like pop up all these institutions without some type of citizenry that's willing to engage them. And like, you know, if you have a different thinkery that teaches the old ways, like a strepside, he's really going to go sign himself up.
- [65:19]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Well, and it's, it's the role of parents. I mean, that's one of the things that really blew my mind when I read it more in light of the current higher education situation. Situation. It's the parents, you know, it's, it's parents who make these decisions for their children and who their, their concerns are. What are, what really drive the educational institutions for better or for worse. So it's, it's. Even before you get to the children, it's that it's the parent generation and their children. I mean, in a way, of course, the play is also quite sympathetic to parents because the children, how did they get this way? You know, Stripsides clearly doesn't know what to do. He just has no understanding of how his son has become this completely useless, shallow character who only cares about horse racing and he doesn't know what to do. So it's, it's. Anyway, it's a wonderful play I'm really happy to get her a chance to talk about it.
- [66:14]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, I like that a lot. I like the focus on the parents as the primary educators. They're the primordial educators of the children. And like, if the family structure falls apart, if it's decadent at the beginning of the play, it's just decadent. If it's decadent and incompetent, or at worst, at the end of the play, it falls apart, then what. What good are these institutions that are dedicated to proper knowledge if that's the type of children that are coming up? I mean, like, the type of work, like, it's just. It's not an easy button. You can't just, like, start a new school and things are going to get better. Like, you've got to have, like a family unit that raises a child with some type of disposition towards this.
- [66:55]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Well. And you can't imagine Strepsides dragging his family back to the country right where he came from. Go back to. To olive farming or whatever it was he grew up doing or. Or shepherding His. His son. His wife and son have no interest or taste for that. So. So that. It's in that way. I think it is like the tragedies. It's often. It's a. We're asked to face a problem and we're not given a solution. And I find that always. I mean, I love that myself. I'm not into solutions, but it is. It's a challenge.
- [67:29]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
It is a challenge. No. Very good. I actually really like that as a kind of an overarching theme. Anything else? As we kind of look at the. The play as a whole, any kind of theme or anything that we've. We've missed.
- [67:42]
Dr. Zena Hitz
I'm sure there's a lot we've missed, but I. It's. We've covered a lot of ground, I think. So I'm delighted. Yeah.
- [67:49]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, very good. I've highly appreciated the conversation and highly appreciated the insights that I think you've brought to us and help us navigate Aristophanes, the clouds. As much as it allows us to navigate it, I think. Where. Where's the best place for people to find you, your thoughts, your work?
- [68:05]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Um, I am. I have a website, xenahits.net it's not particularly up to date, but I try to. I also have a Twitter account. So, yeah, it's. I have a couple of books and a handful of essays and Dr. Google can point to them if you're interested.
- [68:25]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay, very good. Well, Dr. Hits, we really appreciate it.
- [68:29]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking to you.
- [68:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
All right, everyone, next week we will be taking up Aristophanes, the frogs with Tish Oxenrider. So you can find us on Twitter, YouTube, thegreatbookspodcast.com and we will see you next week. Thank you.
- [68:43]
Dr. Zena Hitz
Thank you.