This actually isn't so funny, and it is really close to the truth. By
Socrates' (
Plato's) own account of his doings in the
Apology, this isn't so extremely far from what he did.
According to him, he was told by the
Oracle at Delphi that he was the wisest. Wondering what was up with this, Socrates proceeded to go about to question the wisest of
Greece, and particularly of
Athens, on the subject of their specialization: he asked the
poets of
poetry, the
mucisians of
music, the "
holy" of
piety in a quest to find out how true the Oracle's words were. His examinations, at least not the portions he discussed, did not involve going up to random people on the street and asking about
virtue, but it did involve going up to people who thought they were
wise in some subject and inquiring of it. Said inquiries generally entailed starting off with Socrates very nicely, very humbly asking said expert of his area of expertise, and it escalated from there, with Socrates questioning and questioning until it was plain that the "expert" was, in truth, a fool.
Now, while all of this questioning was going on in the streets and stuff, young aristocrats like Plato would follow Socrates around and watch, and they would get a major kick out of it. I mean, think about it: wouldn't you get some major kicks from seeing your
jerk physics professor getting shown that he, in truth, really knows (or, rather, understands) very little? Certainly this was why Socrates seemed so
subversive to the people of Athens, and certainly this was why he was accussed of
corrupting the youth: he was questioning the elders, and he was publically humiliating them before the youths. He was showing them that their elders really aren't as brilliant as they claimed, and he was compelling the youth to similiarly question.