The social network: Sanction in the Characters

One major aspect has hitherto remained unaddressed, namely how the collective constructs and controls the actual sanctioning mechanisms that maintain its value regimes. While one can assume the general validity of the social sanctioning mech-anisms identified by Kenneth Dover, i.e. honour, shame, and the gods, our textual analysis has hitherto established only that the collective necessarily sanctions through the individual.³⁴² While the text does not generally discuss this process, making explicit analysis difficult, this apparent gap can be read as an elegant mechanism if we recall Luhmann’s argument that productive power has to avoid sanction at all costs: having sanctions be purely implicit and therein relegated beyond the diegesis makes the text far more socially productive and therefore powerful.³⁴³ Even if we accept this general observation, however, more can be said about the construction of sanction in the text, though it is largely implicit.

One possible way of approaching the matter is to consider the text’s documen-tation of the misuse of normative tools, assuming that this will provide some insight into the construction of these tools, which would then be valid in both the textual and the ‘real’ world it projects.

The only scholar who seems to have studied this aspect of the Characters is Paul Millett. Buttressing his argument with anthropological work, he unsur-prisingly argued that the most important corrective social tool in the Characters is shame, as well as its positive counterpart, social honour.³⁴⁴ As was observed above, these would be implemented through communication and meta-com-munication, i.e. gossip, and encoded in collectivised memory. The strongest case in point is the sketch of the Shameless Man (ἀναίσχυντος), who secures individual

342 Luhmann 1984, 270-282; Dover 1974, 217-272. The gods keep the individual in check even where collective agency cannot probe (258f.). In general, mechanisms of social sanction apply only to individuals who assign relatively high value to their social net-work (217).

343 Luhmann 1988², 23f.

344 Millett 2007, 58-68. An exception is the Man who has lost all sense (whom Jebb 1909² called ‘the Reckless Man’), since he comes into conflict with the law and spends time in prison: Theophr. Char. 6.6, 8. His case may be at the very end of the spectrum, but one must bear in mind that the legal sanctioning of deviant behaviour in the courts of law is similarly based, at least in part, on shaming the individual in the eyes of the collective.

economic advantages by exploiting the value of philia.³⁴⁵ His epithet implies that his defining trait is his immunity to the social corrective of shame that is supposed to prevent such behaviour – a suspicion confirmed by the fact that the Shameless Man invariably interacts with equals in the sanctioned fora of interaction. In general, the Characters thematise numerous scenarios in which individuals praise or decry the behaviour of others in ‘public’ situations, naturally always in deviant ways. The Toady, for instance, praises his ‘object’s’ attire, conduct, and assets.³⁴⁶ The Slanderer maliciously overapplies the social device of gossip: rather than reinforcing collective values, he knows no limit, abusing people’s looks, their wives and their conduct within the household, and even his own friends, relatives, and the dead.³⁴⁷

So far, identifying shame and honour as the key collective sanctioning mech-anisms seems plausible and their real power in this society is beyond doubt.³⁴⁸ But perhaps we can go a step further? Consider that the narrator of the Characters never details the concrete collective reactions to the deviant behaviour described – the non-focalised figures do not generally have agency. Paul Millett’s preferred corrective of collective assignment of honour and shame through communication and meta-communication is thus tangible only implicitly and in inversion, as are its consequences for the individual. The reason why this aspect has been omitted thus far is now that in the perspective adopted here, sanction can emerge as being tied into the social network configuration envisaged by the Characters. Reading the Characters as snapshots of micro- and meso-level social networks at play allows me to suggest that what is actually explicitly visible within the text is another – but more significant – aspect of the same dynamic, namely the effect of honour and shame on social contact and the connectivity of the social network. This in turn obviously depends on an underlying premise of the text, namely that social connectivity is valuable, as is implied by the web of observation and the maxim of collective cohesion we identified earlier.³⁴⁹

This being a textual analysis, two levels will need to be differentiated, the intradiegetic and the extradiegetic, before the results can be abstracted and inte-grated into a final conclusion, which will present the text itself as a society on a network model.³⁵⁰ At the intradiegetic level, a connectivity dynamic manifests

345 Theophr. Char. 9.2-8.

346 Theophr. Char. 2.2-4, 10-12.

347 Theophr. Char. 28.3f.

348 See Dover 1974, 226-242; Cohen 1991.

349 See p. 126 above.

350 On these levels of narrative see Genette, Gérard. Die Erzählung. Munich 1998², esp.

163: “Jedes Ereignis, von dem in einer Erzählung erzählt wird, liegt auf der nächsthö-heren diegetischen Ebene zu der, auf der der hervorbringende narrative Akt dieser

most explicitly as denial of contact, visible in the sole occurrence of a collective reaction to deviant action in the Characters: in the Talker’s sketch his listeners turn and walk away, denying him the social surface necessary to assert his idiosyncratic world configuration, and reaffirming collective value-judgement through their agency.³⁵¹ The same dynamic is naturally more common in inversion, for instance when the Shameless Man moves out of range of communication after committing his transgressions against the butcher and the bath attendant, when the Illiberal Man slinks across the street to avoid a loan-seeking friend, or when the Arrogant Man denies access to his person.³⁵² In order to maintain its cohesion, however, the social network needs to be resilient and attempt to enforce control in ways that do not immediately affect connectivity, which of course needs to be pre-served for the exercise of collective agency.³⁵³

Accordingly, communication of distrust also works as a social corrective. The Dissembler illustrates this well, since his behaviour partly consists in misapplying a sanctioning interaction mode: on the one hand, he shies away from criticism, hides enmity, and ignores wrong-doing,³⁵⁴ on the other he uses language designed to exclude or enforce collective judgement, such as “I don’t believe it!” or “But that was not the account he gave me”, in the wrong contexts.³⁵⁵ Despite the limi-ted evidence offered by the text, these observations seem to suggest that the three contingency-reducing interaction mechanisms observed for the individual above, non-communication, faux communication, and excessive communication, may be similarly used by the collective as sanctioning mechanisms, though obviously

‘faux’ here applies solely to the deviant individual’s perception of what the col-lective sees as ‘truth’ and the ‘excess’ describes his perspective on the repeated,

Erzählung angesiedelt ist.” Applied to the Characters, the intradiegetic level refers to the anecdotes as a narrated world, whereas the extradiegetic level is occupied by the nar-rator offering the definitions, as well as his audience. Some sketches feature meta-diegetic narratives, e.g. the stories told by Coward and Rumour Monger (Theophr.

Char. 8; 25,4-6). Millett (2007, 58-68) conflates textual and real world, which obscures some of the peculiarity of the Characters’ social construct.

351 Theophr. Char. 7.3, 5f. The Chatterbox sketch also implicitly envisages a breach of contact and denial of connection (Theophr. Char. 3.2-4).

352 Theophr. Char. 9.4, 8; 22.9; 24.2-11.

353 One further interaction mode of social sanction is mockery (σκῶψις), explicitly evoked in its misapplication at Theophr. Char. 7.10, where the Talker is mocked by his own children. However, it never occurs in collective reaction.

354 Theophr. Char. 1.2f., 5.

355 Theophr. Char. 1.6: καὶ τὸ ὅλον δεινὸς τῷ τοιούτῳ τρόπῳ τοῦ λόγου χρῆσθαι· Οὐ πιστεύω· Οὐχ ὑπολαμβάνω· Ἐκπλήττομαι· καὶ· Λέγεις αὐτὸν ἕτερον γεγονέναι· Καὶ μὴν οὐ ταῦτα πρὸς ἐμὲ διεξῄει·

Παράδοξόν μοι τὸ πρᾶγμα· Ἄλλῳ τινὶ λέγε· Ὅπως δὲ σοὶ ἀπιστήσω ἢ ἐκείνου καταγνῶ, ἀποροῦμαι·

Ἀλλ’ ὅρα, μὴ σὺ θᾶττον πιστεύεις.

reinforcing communication of collective value-judgement that is brought to bear on him. Only continued individual nonconformity is then sanctioned by reducing the individual’s social surface and connectivity within the complex social network of the collective.

In inversion, the Characters thus document snapshots of a differentiated and robust continuum of sanctioning interaction, ranging from situational corrective communication to total exclusion from the social network of the value munity. Theophrastus therein observes the self-maintenance strategies of a com-plex social network, since the maxim of collective cohesion and configuration stability dictates that connectivity needs to be reparable. If all else fails, the end point of the gradient is exclusion, causing the individual’s social network to crum-ble away, as is visicrum-ble for instance in the fact that the Man who has lost all sense has no connective social interactions with equals whatsoever.³⁵⁶

Now that we have considered the dynamics visible within the narrative, the extradiegetic function of the text itself needs to be discussed. Despite the lack of information about this aspect of the Characters, it seems reasonable to assume that in essence the implied reader, the audience, is guided into functioning as the sanctioning authority of the text, aided by the text’s subtle humour that occludes its value judgements. After all, without the typological definitions, the Characters consist of a covert, authorial narrator talking about others in an unfocalised, third-person ‘narrative’. The typological marker (e.g. ὁ δὲ εἴρων τοιοῦτός τις κτλ.)³⁵⁷ that invariably introduces the humorously exaggerated narrative induces the reader or listener to expect negative behaviour. The fundamental prerequisite of the Chara-cters is the reader’s knowledge of the society portrayed, since the wit of the text hinges on this social understanding – so on an existing sense of place – to generate positive and, if necessary, negative laughter.³⁵⁸ If we imagine a group audience for the text in its original setting,³⁵⁹ the communal laughter generates community

356 Theophr. Char. 6.

357 Theophr. Char. 1.2.

358 On the wit of the Characters cf. also Lane Fox 1996, 141f. On the double character of laughter in Greek society see Halliwell 2008, 25-38. For an ethological perspective on smiling and laughter see Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenäus. Die Biologie des menschlichen Verhaltens:

Grundriß der Humanethologie. Vierkirchen-Pasenbach 2004⁵, 648f., who observes its uni-versal reassuring impact.

359 Diggle 2004, 14-16 and Lane Fox 1996, 141 consider this plausible given his popularity and lively lecture style as attested by Diog. Laert. 5.37; Plut. Mor. 78d; Athen. 1.21a-b.

among a sub-group of those individuals portrayed in the Characters, wealthy edu-cated citizens.³⁶⁰ Since the Characters portray underspecified deviant actions with-out offering any explicit moralising judgement, the result is an extremely subtle constructive strategy, a portrayal that never explicitly abstracts an ideal normality but nevertheless smoothly communicates implicit value judgements. The subtlety of the Characters therefore reflects the core need to maintain cohesion within this group. The impact of this dynamic on network configuration should not be underestimated: Agathokles, for instance, is said by Diodorus to have mockingly imitated (εἰκάζειν) some of his fellow citizens to evoke communal laughter, which explicitly functioned as a tool of power.³⁶¹

Given the prior knowledge required to decode the Characters’ humour as well as the original context of the Peripatetic school, the question as to the function of paideia in the text obviously needs to be adressed here. Might not (philo-sophical) education be what the text envisages as remedying the social deviation portrayed, rather than the sanctioning mechanisms discussed above? A partial answer to this question was already given above, when I rejected the argument that the implicit ideal of the text involves paideia on the grounds that the standards of paideia actually referenced in inversion seem relatively standard rather than specifically philosophical: there are no references to philosophical training and philosophers occur only once alongside other groups.³⁶² References to education are conventional, i.e. to privately motivated and financed physical exercise and the memorisation of useful literary passages, e.g. of Homer, a condensed civic ideal that is not particularly specific to the late fourth century and agrees with the patrios politeia construction identified here as the text’s imaginary model.³⁶³ While it may thus seem plausible to view the form of social sophistication that the philosophers saw as the result of a philosophical education as a remedy for the deviant behaviour portrayed in the Characters, the text itself does little to encourage such an interpretation. I do not deny that the laughing Peripatetic community may

360 Compare Asper, Markus. “Group Laughter and Comic Affirmation: Aristophanes’

Birds and the Political Function of Old Comedy”, in: Hyperboreus 11 (2005), 5-29, esp.

23f. who highlights the significance of communal (i.e. “socio-positive”) laughter for political cohesion in the context of Old Comedy. With Durkheim (see above p. 187, n. 23) one should note that the laughter performatively glosses over the inevitable differences of understanding, creating a community despite the differences in identity configuration within the audience and between audience and narrator.

361 Diod. 20.63.2f.

362 See above p. 115. Philosophers occur alongside sophists, fencing masters, and musi-cians as clients interested in a private odeion at Theophr. Char. 5.10.

363 Theophr. Char. 5.7, 10;7.4; 9.5; 14.10; 22.6; 26.2; 27.2f., 6, 13; 30.14. On traditional paideia see Marrou, Henri I. Geschichte der Erziehung im klassischen Altertum. Freiburg 1957, here 155-157, 171-186, 237-240.

well have imagined itself, at least in the moment of performance, as being too cultured to display such behaviour, reinforcing its superiority through paideia.

However, the scenarios are so varied and underspecified that they can apply to anyone, making them not primarily philosophically elitist in their impetus.

3.7.2.1 Space

While we have now established the sanctioning mechanisms themselves, they are supplemented by another mechanism, namely their spatial embedding. Closely connected to this construction of collective mechanisms of sanction is the regime of control that ensures the enforceability of said mechanisms by stabilising their prerequisite, the social web of observation and evaluation. It was observed above that the Characters predominantly show interaction in a sphere of action charac-terised by the multi-lateral extension of distributed selves beyond their normative cores.³⁶⁴ This is the result of a control regime that constructs the spaces adequate to social interaction among male adult citizens of a certain status.³⁶⁵ This cognitive control of space is related to the collective’s monopoly of truth – and in turn the collectivity of all control regimes is ensured and perpetuated precisely by ensuring control over the interactive fora. Individual action within these fora thus auto-matically associates behavioural constraints, the efficacy of which is visible nicely when the Penny-pincher goes shopping without buying anything, showing him-self as participating in public social activity despite being unwilling to actually spend any money.³⁶⁶

The Characters accordingly reproduce and thereby maintain specific fora of social action, focusing on the agora, the street, the ekklesia, the law court, the theatre, the bath house, the gymnasium, and the odeion.³⁶⁷ Non-participation in these spaces is occluded, marginalised, made unthinkable: as we have seen, there is no ἰδιώτης in the Characters and even the Country Bumpkin participates in the collective political institutions.³⁶⁸ The household itself can also become a semi-transparent theatre of action in some scenarios of its complex construction, since

364 See above p. 125.

365 On this see Cohen 1991, 72-74, 230f., where the emphasis is on keeping the positively connoted male public space free of taint to ensure the working of ‘politics of repu-tation’.

366 Theophr. Char. 10.12.

367 On the actual maintenance of the agora by the collective as a space of social action see also IG II² 380, esp. 26-28 (=Syll.³ 313), which documents the institutionalised main-tenance of the roads and the agora in the Piraeus for the year 320/19.

368 Theophr. Char. 4.3.

the Characters allow for individual semantic control within this sphere, but sanc-tion both its absence and the exercise of control in deviasanc-tion from control regime.

As such, control of the oikos by the kyrios is almost paradoxically part of the control regime, which is in turn associated by the oikos setting. All the spaces created by the text are underspecified, cognitive spaces constructed not by reference to specific spatial features, but simply reference identities in the audi-ence’s minds.³⁶⁹ The text’s treatment of space thereby beautifully corresponds to the under-specification of the regime of collective control developed within it, but nevertheless anchors it by reproducing which spaces are socially populated by the web of observation. This reinforces the association between action and space, and ensures audience and thus sanctionability.

The best example of such spatial enforcement is provided by the Oligarch (ὀλιγαρχικὸς) who wishes to withdraw from the ‘public’ sphere to conduct political discussion, hampering the web of observation and withdrawing from the social network. He thereby dismantles the spatial control regime in itself, seeking its dissolution by questioning its validity.³⁷⁰ Accordingly, the creation of spatial control regimes by individuals is criticised whenever they exert semantic control over their valuation: the odeion-scene now assigned to the Obsequious Man is the most explicit example in that personally owning an odeion is already deviant, but publically emphasising one’s ownership is the pinnacle of deviation.³⁷¹ Construc-ting and controlling the interaction fora within the architectural space of the city thus appears as a crucial component of societal control as a whole.³⁷²

369 See the spaces discussed above on p. 126.

370 Theophr. Char. 26.2f., 5f. A similar instrumentalisation of the collective is also found in the Characters’ worst case scenario, the Man who has lost all sense (Theophr. Char.

6.7).

371 Theophr. Char. 5.9f. Cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.9f. which thematises the same discourse about private and public ownership of space; public baths and sacrifices are here ob-viously decried as ochlocratic.

372 On spatial context see e.g. the contributions in Zanker und Wörrle 1995; Oliver, Graham J. “Space and the Visualization of Power in the Greek Polis. The Award of Portrait Statues in Decrees from Athens”, in: Peter Schultz and Ralf von den Hoff (eds.). Early Hellenistic Portraiture. Image, Style, Context. Cambridge 2007, 181-204. The architecturally structured city combines with the cognitive network to form an identity-level network structure with interactive hubs, such as the agora, which simultaneously serve as hubs of normative control. These dynamic processes are simultaneously reinforced and facilitated by the built environment that manifests and reinforces the value cosmos because it is itself the product of collective action.