Greece: No Country for Great Men

I have a French friend who did the same thing (moved to Silicon Valley) for the same reason. He's rich now, but more importantly to him, he is able to use his creativity to its maximum potential. And he lives in a part of the world where the wine is good.

One of my friends is a second generation Orthodox Greek fellow and Homer scholar, and I have a number of other acquaintances in the Greek community here. Their stories of internal affairs in their ostensibly conservative but very ambitious community are not markedly different in style or motivations, conflict, and outrages from anything reported from Greece.

My friend claims the flip side of traditional Greek hospitality and intelligence- which are wonderful things- are a remarkable narcissism and arrogant superiority of a flavor that is almost sui generis. He says the negotiations between the pagan Greeks and their gods portrayed in Greek myth and literature are full of unvarnished negotiations of this duality. He thinks its origin lies in the social fragmentation of Greeks into small and essentially poor population islands, either literally islands or towns and villages disconnected by just the the right or wrong amount of ocean and mountains. Which led to traditions of great selfreliance and autonomy and generosity in small groups (though also strict role definitions and subordination within them) but also intense jealousy and competitiveness and mutual suspicion.

Maybe that's "liberalism" that's being played out in Greece. Or maybe it is mostly traditional ways and character/attitudes manifested in somewhat chaotic and contemporary forms, with some more material wealth involved.

Cleo: I agree with you. The Greek writer is slagging off his own country - that doesn't give anyone else the right to slag it off.

There's a fine line to tread here - I don't mind US commenters talking about England. When it's the Muslim problem, it's a global issue that I'll wager will affect the USA soon. That stuff recently about the drinking-and-fighting culture among urban young people, I thought was fair comment, but I have to admit to a twinge of "well, hasn't the USA got its fair share of social problems, too" (religion doesn't seem to be a panacea). Mind you, I was recently told by one of the commenters that I had no right to comment on the USA - talk about double standards?!

Besides, Greece is actually somewhere that's doing some things right. It's a fairly poor country, with a pc-GDP a fraction that of the USA, yet it's giving everyone a decent basic standard of living. The emigration of Greeks to the USA is standard brain-drain stuff that applies to any poorish country - loads of Greeks go and living in Germany, too. I've only been there on a few holidays, but it's a country that seems to have a lot going for it - the social pathology of much of urban Europe and USA is not as obvious, and, with a heavily tourism-oriented economy, they seem to avoid the vileness of the Spanish resorts (and Spain's much richer than Greece, too). The agriculture seems prosperous. You see four-generational families all out together of an evening.

"Under the tutelage of progressive ideas there are privileges without duties, advantages without merit, crime without punishment and hard work with no reward."

This is the center of the post, and one of the few points I can agree with the author. Maybe it's the Buddhism in me, but I don't see how priviledges (what we would porbably call "rights" in the US) can come without duty. You don't get something for nothing. Same with crime and punishment - whether the punishment is from society (a legal punishment) or from within (the guilt of knowing one has done wrong, etc.) or from karmic interactions there is always a punishment for a crime. Similarly, to attain enlightenment is often hard work, but it is beyond any simple reward.

Ifthats what the author sees in Greece, then by all means it's not good for Greece. I tend to think that reality is too complex to be proven only with anecdotal evidence (though it can help in some ways).

Hello!!! i just read the above.
I'm Georgia from Greece.
I've been living in Greece since i was born and it is my country.

I will speak only with numbers , please correct me if i'm wrong.

I got my first job before i get my university degree and i was paid
650* euro per month (for the first 2 months) and 700* euro per month after the 3rd month. I lived by myself and my rent was 300 euro for a very small apartment (bedroom,toilet,kitchen).When i went to the supermarket breadi had 1 euro (this is just an example).
I had to count every euro i got in order to keep up.
I went to work at 9:00 in the morning and leave 7:00-8:00 noon
I was never paid for the extra hours.
My second job was exactly the same (same money , same hours)

This is the typical life of a young person in Greece. All my friends and people i knew from the university have the story to tell you.
My grandma worked all her life, her pension is 400 euro per month
My father is a car mechanic and after 22 years of work in a company got 1500* euro per month. My mother worked also in the private sections changing jobs for many years and with difficulty found a job because she had two kids.
In one of my jobs there was a woman who was working there for 10 years
and she got pregnant. She had 6 months after the baby was born to stay with the baby. When she returned to work after 6 months she was fired.
And the worst is that she couldn't speak because her husband was working there also.

About health when you work in the private sector you have IKA, which allows you to go to public doctors and hospitals
The number of capable doctors willing to make a right diagnosis or perform a surgery needed without taking any 'extra money' was very small.

In order to get paid what you deserve when you work you must 'know' someone (uncle, father, cousin etc) so he gets you to work or go to the public sector.

* = money with no ika insurance

I read carefully the text above and all the comments and i will agree that the situation in Greece is severe but i will stand at the last words :Someone would expect that decades of policies intended to foster social cohesion would produce a society of benevolent people. Instead we have narrow-minded, cynical, egotists gyrating in alternate states of self-satisfaction and self-hatred.

I don't want to sound hostile but these egoists protest for their rights, go out in the streets, hire lawyers and press charges against authorities that are unfair to them.And i'm proud to say that my mother is one of them.But i didn't hear any suggestion from the author.
All i heard was the classic whining that everything is wrong but what to do? We have others to blame.I didn't hear any solution , any proposition of what must be done or even an effort from the writer to change things.No! Just whining. Well to me you are just another egoist.

I judge my country, i'm not saying everything is ok and i would like others to judge it as well but help solving the problem also. Not just write something , sitting in my chair saying everything is wrong.