The Politics of Socratic Humor by John Lombardini

Author:John Lombardini
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780520291034
Publisher: University of California Press

THE POLITICS OF EUTRAPELIA

While the discussion of eutrapelia has, up to this point, focused on the activities of joking and laughter that Aristotle associates with its practice, eutrapelia is also connected with a more generalized disposition that enables individuals to engage in such gelastic practices in excellent ways. This disposition can best be uncovered by attending to the ways in which eutrapelia and its opposite, dustrapelia, are used by authors other than Aristotle; the use of eutrapelia, moreover, indicates its connection with a type of democratic versatility.

Eutrapelia is commonly translated as “wittiness,” and the adjective describing the individual possessing this virtue—eutrapelos—as “witty.”57 “Wittiness,” however, does not capture the broader range of meaning with which the word is connected. An individual who is eutrapelos is literally “one who turns easily”; the word conveys a sense of versatility and flexibility that is apparent in its larger, though limited, use in the classical period.58 Attending to its use in Thucydides and Plato—and the use of its antonym, dustrapelos, in Sophocles—will help to elucidate the place of such versatility within classical Greek political thought, and to situate Aristotle’s conception of eutrapelia within this intellectual context.

In Thucydides, Pericles uses eutrapelos to epitomize the character of the Athenians: “In sum, I hold that the whole city is an education for Greece, and it seems to me that every man among us, exhibits his body to be self-sufficient, with the most versatile grace, for most kinds of conducts” (2.41.1).59 This versatility/adaptability is a thick current running through Pericles’ encomium of the city of Athens and its citizens: it is evident, for example, in the unique Athenian ability to combine opposing character traits. Indeed, the Athenians defy simple categorization: they are lovers of beauty and lovers of wisdom, but without succumbing to the softness or idleness such extravagance and indulgence might breed; their penchant for deliberation, far from inhibiting swift, decisive, and courageous action, serves as its prerequisite. This versatility has forged a city and citizen body that is innovative and unique, one that does not imitate the practices of others (mimoumenoi heterous) but serves as a model (paradeigma) for them (2.37.1).

The importance of versatility to the Athenian character is perhaps most prominent, however, in Pericles’ analysis of Athenian courage. In his comparison of Athenian and Spartan courage, Pericles contrasts the arduous training of the Spartans with the relaxed lifestyle of the Athenians, contending not only that the Athenians are just as courageous as the Spartans, but that theirs is the true courage: Spartan courage is based in ignorance, whereas “the ones who are rightly judged to be strongest with respect to spirit are those who both recognize most clearly that which is fearful and that which is pleasurable and yet do not turn away from danger on account of these things” (2.40.3). As Ryan Balot has argued, Pericles’ conception of democratic courage demands that individual citizens possess rational understanding of ultimate values, practical knowledge of what to do in particular situations, and a character that disposes them to act bravely.

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