I Told You So: The Satirist as Prophet and Curmudgeon

Satire forever soils your perception. Every age has its up-and-comings, its overnight geniuses and afternoon-long obsessions. The satirist has always tried to provide the antidote to such novelties—throwing random jeremiads from the street corner at those with their noses pointed toward heaven. The satirist wants to be the little boy in the fable who points out that the emperor is parading through town stark naked, while everyone else believes (or wants to believe) that the royal finery is too chic for commoners to understand. For all these reasons, satire has historically been ceded to the conservatives. At least by our modern political definitions, it is the liberal who finds novelty attractive; the conservative feels most at home with the status quo.

This is just as true for the ancient world as for ours. P.J. O’Rourke is only recasting Aristophanes’ mold. Evelyn Waugh can’t hope to be more of a curmudgeon than Juvenal or Marcus Varro. All share the same blood-line. And each satirist, modern or ancient, seems to share the same tragic fate; pop culture doesn’t mind the jeremiads. If it’s wrong to be tragically hip, it’s far worse to fall behind the times.

Satire, by definition, is more than mockery—it involves a degree of deception. Brian Connery and Kirk Combe describe the form as a “literary Trojan horse for which polite (or politic) artfulness produces a dissembling form, serving first to contain and conceal, and then to unleash the primitive passions of the satirist." [1] It creates a mask that is designed to reveal what is actually underneath. [2] And, although the blade of satire might be hidden inside a velvet sheath, there can be no doubt as to its ultimate purpose. As Peter Berger writes, “benevolent satire is an oxymoron.” [3]

In our day we might be tempted to think of right-wing personalities, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, as satirists. Yet, for the most part, these are pundits, not satirists, because there is no deception in the rhetoric. They are mockers, going straight for the devil rather than undermining him through other means. Northrop Frye—who defined satire as “militant irony,” [4] drew a metaphoric distinction between satire and outright mockery (what he broadly terms “tragedy”) from the very end of Dante’s Inferno:

Tragedy and tragic irony take us into a hell of narrowing circles and culminate in some such vision of the source of all evil in a personal form. Tragedy can take us no further, but if we persevere with the mythos of irony and satire, we shall pass a dead center and finally see the gentlemanly Prince of Darkness bottom side up. [5]

Aristophanes and Traditionalism

One side-effect of satire is cultural disorientation. By profession, the satirist sees the world and its characters differently than the rest of humanity. When modern satirist P.J. O’Rourke titles his book All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death we are meant to do a double-take. And when we open the cover and find that, yes, that’s exactly what the book is about, we are meant to question his sanity. But if the satirist is convincing enough, we are happy to join him in the asylum as a fellow idiosyncretist. There’s a certain self-satisfaction in seeing through the inanity of cultural or political fads.

Aristophanes’ (446 B.C. – c. 388 B.C.) take on Socrates in The Clouds evokes a similar feeling. His caricature of the philosopher in The Clouds is unrecognizable to us moderns, who view Socrates as one of the greatest philosophers of all time and one of the forefathers of Western civilization. We see Socrates through Plato’s worshipful eyes. In Plato’s Republic, we find the Socrates to which we are all accustomed: level-headed, wise, able to outwit his opponents on any matter. Socrates—with utmost humility—wanted only to search out truth and justice. It seems hard to believe a man such as appears in Plato’s Republic could be found guilty of crimes worthy of death, as Socrates was in 399 B.C.

Whether or not the Athenian jury was greatly influenced by Aristophanes, the playwright’s portrayal of Socrates was intended to be damaging to the philosopher’s public image. [6] When the protagonist, Strepsiades, first comes across Socrates in The Clouds, he finds him suspended in a basket contemplating the sun. Strepsiades comments that such a position is more suitable to slighting the gods than if he were back on earth. To this Socrates babbles a reply:

Impossible! I’d never come up with a single thing about celestial phenomena, if I did not suspend my mind up high, to mix my subtle thoughts with what’s like them— the air. If I turned my mind to lofty things, but stayed there on the ground, I’d never make the least discovery (226-233).

The portrait of Socrates’ school of Thinkery which Aristophanes paints for us is one of ridiculous intellectualism. The scene of Socrates postulating about which end a gnat expels gas is humorously similar to Jonathan Swift’s Laputa, where scientists spent their days trying to extract sunbeams from a cucumber. Clearly, Aristophanes finds the new methods of Socrates laughable. The new school of Socrates distracted its students from worthwhile concerns, instead drawing them into idle speculation.

Central to all the laughs which Aristophanes’ draws at the expense of Socrates is the sharp critique of how the philosopher was corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens (who were more easily drawn to novelty). From the very beginning of The Clouds, Strepsiades’ son is interested in Socrates’ new debating methods primarily because they will be helpful in arguing himself out of debt. After all, the Socratic method does put a sharp rhetorical weapon into hands which might be less than prudent. Aristophanes sees the younger generation using Socrates’ teachings to undermine many of the foundations of Athenian society.

Maurice Croiset wrote:

[Aristophanes] hated the very name of philosophy, and thought it detestable. He thought that it not only cast a gloom over happy and energetic Athens, but also perverted it. Through it the young people grew morose and pale, studied a thousand useless things, instead of gaily taking part in active life. Through it, furthermore, they learned to doubt or to abjure the traditional principles of life, and became babblers and dialecticians. It seemed to him that the very safeguards of domestic and public morality were being lost, little by little, in this disquieting transformation. [7]

This is a judgment only a conservative would make. The disputes of 5th century Greece are far enough removed from us that it’s easy to forget that Socrates was a progressive, to use a modern term. His ideas, although cloaked in abstraction, were revolutionary. After Socrates drank the hemlock, Greece would never quite be the same. The old world of the gods, in killing Socrates, had created a martyr. The world had shifted now. It was now not Zeus, but Reason. The world of nous, of the Mind, had captured the curiosity of the intellectuals. It was the newness—the abandonment of the old manners and societal codes—that concerned Aristophanes so deeply.

In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche would write, "in Socrates we see a turning point and vortex of so-called world history." [8] For Nietzsche, the old paganism of myth and passion was overtaken by Socratic scientism. With the new scientism came a regime in which ancient morals were not welcome: “The instinct of Aristophanes (which grasped issues so surely) was certainly right when he linked together Socrates himself … [with] the characteristics of a degenerate culture.” [9] Even if Nietzsche interprets Socrates’ progressivism for his own means, he does identify in him the same undercurrent of arid intellectualism and impiety which Aristophanes makes the target of his satire.

The gods’ power was waning, at least in the minds of the people. To the Greek of Aristophanes’ day, science and ethics seemed more intriguing than preparing oblations to Zeus. A few generations prior, the philosopher Anaxagoras had ridiculed the idea that the heavenly bodies were divine persons, but were instead material things. He was an unabashed agnostic. To Aristophanes and the other Athenian conservatives, Socrates’ interest in science and his relegating the gods to the sidelines was an indicator that he was spiteful toward the gods. The very end of The Clouds shows Strepsiades burning down the philosophers’ school while encouraging people to beat the followers of Socrates: "Chase, pelt, smite them, for many reasons, but especially because you know that they offended against the gods!" (1519-1520).

Pragmatism, traditionalism, and piety distinguish the conservative satirist. In Aristophanes and Socrates, Leo Strauss sees archetypes of conservatism and progressivism, identifying "Aristophanes, who justly presented Socrates as 'the first and foremost sophist' by looking at him in the light of ‘the good old time’ of the Marathon fighters, or as one of the symptoms of 'a degenerate culture.'" [10] It is hard not to recognize these attitudes in much of modern right-wing literature (even if most pundits today fail to rise from simple mockery into the realm of satire).

In Maurice Croiset’s work, Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens, the author acknowledges the philosophical and moral standpoint of Aristophanes only to denounce its lack of foresight:

Of course there is no use in demonstrating here what element of exaggeration there were in [Aristophanes’] views, and, above all, how they erred in failing to take into account the most apparent demands of the changes which were taking place at that period.

From a certain angle, Croiset must be correct. Socrates’ philosophy had already taken root. The transition in the ancient world from polytheism, fickle fates, and traditional codes of honor into the abstractions and rationalisms of later philosophers was likely inevitable. Yet, on the other hand, as Croiset himself acknowledges,

It would be very thoughtless not to recognize the amount of correct observation and of truth that [Aristophanes’ views] contained. Aristophanes felt that he was witnessing a profound crisis. His mind was neither broad enough nor deliberate enough to inquire whether it was inevitable. He did see that it was dangerous for Athens, that it would probably result in impairing her virtue, in the broadest sense of the word; and no one can hardly say that he was mistaken. [11]

In this last judgment, Croiset, Strauss, and Nietzsche all agree: there was a moral and intellectual revolution in 399 B.C. The “problem of Socrates,” as Nietzsche put it—the particularly Western pursuit of knowledge—has continued to typify Western civilization to the present day. And whether we side with Aristophanes or with Socrates, it’s clear that the satirist saw how the philosopher would affect the future of his culture. Extending even beyond ancient Greece, Socrates’ intellectualism would eventually breathe to life the Greenwich Village bohemian who writes beat-poetry at the coffee-house while living off a stipend from his grandfather.

However, for all the prophetic ability of Aristophanes, the jeremiads he threw at Socrates would not stick. All he could do was snicker into his hand while the rest of the world followed Socrates down a new road.

Varro and Moralism

While the tone and targets of satire from different cultures may vary, the motivation behind all satire seems fairly constant. Rome had many of its own satirists, so many in fact that Quintilian claimed that satire was essentially a Roman genre. [12] Although this is too broad a topic to address now, it makes sense that Rome—which was always preoccupied with maintaining its historical glory and traditions [13]— would find such use for satire.

Of particular distinction among Roman satirists are the Menippeans. This school is identified with prose satires which stylistically jump quickly between various points of view and broad caricatures. Various mental attitudes, what the ancients might have termed “humors,” were portrayed: the intellectual idiot, the miser, the braggart, the Don Juan, and the fraud.

Marcus Terentius Varro (116 B.C. – 27 B.C.), the best-known of the Menippeans, had a light touch; his satiric blade was often employed only after the reader is doubled over in laughter. As Edwin Ramage wrote:

The satirist intended these writings to serve as a means of presenting much needed moral enlightenment in an attractive and palatable way. To accomplish this, Varro deserting the stern and serious approach of the philosophers and the personal invective of verse satire as Lucilius had written it and sugar-coated the moral truths that he was presenting with a light-hearted, witty approach that at times verged on sheer exuberance. [14]

In one of his satires, The Sexageranian, Varro’s protagonist falls asleep for fifty years, awaking to find that much has changed: “When he had first fallen asleep he was as smooth-headed as Socrates. Now he had become a baldpated, hoary bristled hedgehog—with a snout, too.” [15] In his old city, he finds that “where they used to have elections then, now there is a market place….In those [older] days modest men lived in Rome moderately and without taint; now we are in upheaval.” The underlying problem of the modern society is manifold, but the protagonist does identify “the foreigners—Ungodliness, Falsehood, and Lewdness” as primary culprits.

Eventually the people in the present day weary of the old man, who is always insisting that the “good old days” were better. They proceed to throw the old man off a bridge—an ironic twist since there apparently was an annual religious ritual at that time in which an elder of the town was indeed thrown off the bridge. [16] Call it Roman slapstick.

The caricature of the old man must in many ways mirror that of Varro himself. He was revered for being a great representative of Roman antiquity, to whom even St. Augustine defers as the “most learned of the Romans.” [17] To Varro, the glory of Rome was its history, its gods, and the piety of its citizens. Michael Coffey pins down the heart of Varro’s satire as such:

In his comments on religious matter Varro in his satires shows the reverence for traditional Roman belief and observance that may be expected of Rome’s greatest antiquarian…. He enjoins the good citizen to carry out the customs of Roman cults as duly ordained and he portrays with revulsion the orgiastic religions imported from the Orient. [18]

Varro, like Aristophanes, saw contemporary society falling away from traditional piety and reverence of antiquity. And, much like Strepsiades, the color and flair of modern life—primarily its entertainment-- was attractive to the Roman youth. In order to expose this, One of the more common devices of argumentation that Varro uses is what might be called the then-now dichotomy, in which the good old days of the past are contrasted with the less healthy contemporary situation…. “Then,” for example, women lived a simple life and tended to their housework, but “now” they refuse even to accept the womanly role of childbearing. [19]

Varro believes that the only escape from the laxness of morals is a return to the simplicity of historic Rome. By venerating the gods, and the Eternal City of the gods, the demons of contemporary culture can be exorcised. [20] Yet Rome largely ignored Varro’s advice. One can only listen to a curmudgeon for so long before it becomes necessary to throw him off the bridge.

Satire and Futility

For all the pains taken by satirists, very few actually seem to achieve any great measure of success. Aristophanes’ ancient world faded away, mourned only by Nietzsche and a few others who appropriated the playwright’s views of Socrates for their own. Varro’s Rome, also, survived him only a short while before incest, insanity, and wide-spread immorality undermined its thousand year reign. Caligula was no Cincinnatus.

Ultimately, it seems that a moral base is needed not only to write satire, but also to understand it. As P.J. O’Rourke put it, “Satire is technically comic writing with a moral point of view, and I think that it is hard to do because not many people have the confidence in their moral point of view anymore.” [21] Much like the nature of conservatism itself—satire is primarily concerned with preservation. In an article on Evelyn Waugh, F.H. Buckley directly ties satire with political conservatism:

With Quintillian, the conservative might almost say, Satura tota nostra est: Satire is all our own. The most acidic satires have come from the pens of conservative writers: Juvenal, Butler, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, Chesterton, Belloc, Mordecai Richler, Florence King, Tom Wolfe, P.J. O’Rourke, and Mark Steyn. A Walter Olson or Dave Barry simply reports on a piece of fatuous liberalism and exclaims, “I’m not making this up!” [22]

The list is impressive. Yet, at the same time, this is also a list of political failures. These conservative modern satirists, much like Aristophanes and Varro, have been associated with a string of political defeats. Swift’s satires did nothing to help his native Irishmen, and the English found his Modest Proposal so distasteful that he lost his literary patronage. His railings against the Enlightenment in Gulliver’s Travels fared no better. Ben Jonson wrote an entire play about the failure of his satire called The Poetaster. [23] Chesterton and Belloc were both associated with various conservative causes—most famously, distributionism—all of which are now forgotten.

As O’Rourke said, a moral center is a prerequisite for satire. The question is therefore whether an audience, or culture, which lacks just that moral center, will actually pay much attention to the satirist. The answer seems to be that history is not kind to the conservative or the satirist. Heckling and jeering and making sidelong glances amount to little more than entertaining inside jokes to those who share the same moral standpoint. A satirical show like South Park [24] might do very well pointing out the inanities of our politically correct culture. But a negative, cynical philosophy cannot last. Satire destructs very well, but is not capable of providing any alternative in its wake.

Yet, even if the crowds fail to respond, the satirical spirit can’t just stand by while the emperor parades through town in nothing but his Edenic glory. The pride of popular culture needs to be mocked. Even if Socrates wins the day, his abstractions are too obvious a target to be missed. Perhaps no immediate change will be effected by the satirist; but then, neither were the biblical prophets terribly happy with the results of their preaching. The true satirist, it seems, isn’t playing to win. He is left snickering into his hand while the rest of the world leaves him behind.

And yet, progressivism will inevitably reach a dead-end. The wisdom of Socrates finds its end in a group of prattling, babbling old men atop Mars Hill. The impiety of Rome eventually meets its match on Milvian Bridge. And when the moral center is reclaimed once more, the satirist hopes to have a grand time saying, I told you so.

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Footnotes:

[1] Brian A. Connery and Kirk Combe, "Theorizing Satire: A Retrospective and Introduction," in Theorizing Satire: Essays in Literary Criticism, (New York: St. Martin's, 1995), 2.

[2] Ibid., 7.

[3] Peter Berger, Redeeming Laughter (New York: Walter De Gruyter, 1997), 157.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 158.

[6] Or, as Frye might put it, dissembling.

[7] Maurice Croiset, Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens (London: MacMillan and Co, 1909), 99.

[8] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Sec. 15.

[9] Nietzsche, Sec. 17.

[10] Leo Strauss, Socrates and Aristophanes (New York: Basic Books, 1966), 8.

[11] Croiset, 99.

[12] Michael Coffey, Roman Satire (London: Methuen and Co, 1976), 3.

[13] One need only think of the author Livy, who performs in the study of history what Varro and Juvenal did in the genre of satire.

[14] Edwin Ramage, Roman Satirists and Their Satire (Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press, 1974), 63.

[15] Ibid., 59.

[16] Ibid., 60.

[17] Augustine, City of God, XIX: 22.

[18] Coffey, 160.

[19] Ramage, 61.

[20] Ibid., 62.

[21] Cigar Aficionado, November/December 1998.

[22] Crisis Magazine, January 2003.

[23] See specifically his Apologetic Dialogue.

[24] While hated by “traditional values” conservatives, the creators of South Park area avowed conservatives. Pundit Andrew Sullivan has even coined the term “South Park Conservatives” to classify the more secular, cynical traditionalists who don’t wish to identify with the Christian right.

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Bibliography

Berger, Peter. Redeeming Laughter. New York: Walter De Gruyter, 1997.

Coffey, Michael. Roman Satire. London: Methuen and Co, 1976.

Croiset, Maurice. Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens. London: MacMillan and Co, 1909.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy, 1871.

O’Regan, Daphne. Rhetoric, Comedy, and the Violence of Language in Aristophanes’ Clouds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Ramage, Edwin. Roman Satirists and Their Satire. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press, 1974.

Strauss, Leo. Socrates and Aristophanes. New York: Basic Books, 1966.