Pictures from an exhibition

If a museum of human perversity were ever to be built, the following tableaus would undoubtedly occupy pride of place in it:

Exhibit A: A screaming mob hunts down and corners a middle-aged gentleman. He is pinned against a fence and physically and verbally attacked. He is struck by fists, and various objects such as bottles and cups of coffee are hurled at him. His glasses are broken. The person in question happens to be the German consul in the city of Thessalonica and his crime is that he is on his way to participate in a Greek-German meeting organized by a local association to promote trade and sponsored by the mayor of that city. The stampeding herd is aroused to holy fury because a couple of days earlier another German official had made a statement to the effect that Greek local governement is overstaffed and inefficient. This is deemed an insult to the honor of the nation and its working class and open season is therefore declared on all Germanic-looking types who dare to walk the streets. After some time the police reluctantly intervene and lead the hapless diplomat away. That evening the whole country watches the incident played on its television screens. A junior government minister makes a tepid response to the outrage and the consul himself, wisely trying not to stir the fire, makes light of it. A couple of days later the police identify on the video three of the leading attackers and charges of causing disorder and grave assault are brought against them. Because they are arrested almost immediately after the event, their trial proceeds forthwith. And all three are acquitted. The judges decide that there was no mass violence, but only individual "indignation": individual "indignation" inspired by the right kind of political motives is thus officially declared as within the law even if it results in wanton violence against innocent persons. And the political motives of the attackers, needless to say, were as right as they could be: they were after all protesting against the "occupation of Greece by the 4th Reich" (namely against the frantic and clumsy efforts of the Europeans to save the country from its self-caused destruction even against its own will). The judges, further, wisely opined that the consul should not have decided to go to the meeting in the first place, because he thus provoked (!) the righteous fury of his would-be assassins. He was the real guilty party. So, next time you are in Greece before you foolishly decide to attend any function be sure to submit an application to the revolutionary police of your neighborhood to verify that the committe of public safety approves of it: for this is true "democracy" of the kind that you imperialists cannot even imagine. It has to be added that to his great credit the prosecutor in the case has appealed the despicable verdict of the court of first instance which has placed this country beyond the pale of civilization. The trial, I read today, will be repeated. I would like to hope that second time around a modicum of decency will prevail and the shame that has besmirched us all by the public lynching of foreign envoys will be mitigated. But -if I were to guess- this is not going to happen (I would gladly put on the hairshirt if I am found wrong). The courthouse will be besieged, as it was the first time, by enraged "unionists" trying to invade it in defence of their comrades' right to class struggle and the judges will at best impose some slap-on-the-wrist suspended sentence. If, contrary to expectation, they choose to act in accordance with their oath, they will be putting their physical safety in danger. Apart from this, though, it helps to keep in mind that the judges themselves are currently a shining example of a group shamelessly violating the law in order to protect the scandalous privileges of their profession against the foreign "ogres": the constitution expressly prohibits a strike by judges, but for the past couple of months they have been doing exactly that.

Exhibit B: in 2011 a new law regulating the public universities was passed by a three fifths majority in parliament. This law excluded the students and the admistrative staff (secretaries etc.) from the process of electing the academic authorities (president, rectors, deans etc.). Under the provisions that the law abolished (a bizarre arrangement unknown unknown in the rest of the world) anyone wishing to be elected to academic office had to negotiate with the student organizations of the various political parties (with those of the left, the hard left, the extreme left and the terrorist left at the forefront) as well as the unions of the admistrative staff. To gain their support one had to concede their demands, which as far as the "politicized" students were concerned amounted to two basic things: firstly giving free reign to these groups to do anything they wished within the university perimeter (including disrupting the educational process for months on end through occupations of buildings, regularly trashing them even when they magnanimously allowed classes to go on, occasionaly even putting them to the torch, as well as abusing and physically attacking teachers they did not like); and, secondly, abstaining from all educational regulations that make university studies worth the name, i.e. the requirement to attend classes, the insitution of pre-requisites, the requirement even to pass the final exams in a particular class in order to go forward -they had, and still have, the right to take the final exams for a given class an endless number of times!). The predictable result of this "democratic" arrangement was the disintegration of higher education in Greece. To right this situation the law of 2011 restricted the right of election to members of the faculty only. The body of teachers now elects a fifteen-member University Council, eight of them from the given insitution's teaching staff who then elect seven outside members among individuals of proven academic merit and distinction in Greece and abroad. The "revolutionary" stormtroopers predictably objected to this reform, with the specious argument that it abolished democracy (it did abolish their sick travesty of "democracy" by the jackboot). To prevent the application of the law their stick-wielding bravi occupied the polling stations on election day threatening to beat up anyone who dared approach. Finally voting had to be conducted electronically. But even then they did not flinch: at the University of Athens they occupied the building housing the main server of the school, causing damage to costly equipment. In this way they prevented, among other things, the functioning of four university hospitals. For two days we were without access to the internet. Needless to say the current president (elected under the previous regime and a vehement opponent of the new law) pleaded ignorance of any illegal acts being committed and refused to call in the authorities. It was only when the staff of the computer center found a way to circumvent the disabled university server, thus making it possible for the faculty to vote from home and not through their working stations at the university, that the election was held. The call for a boycot of the elections was ignored. 80% of those eligible participated, thus dealing a crushing blow to the lie that the "revolutionary" hooligans had been peddling for months, namely that the law was opposed by the teaching staff. At other institutions which also went through the same ordeal the levels of participation were between 80 and 90%. This is a ray of hope. The small beginning of a new beginning has been made. The external members of the University Councils that have been since elected include brilliant and distinguished members of the international academic community both Greek and non-Greek. But nothing has yet been settled.

Exhibit C: At the University of Thessalonica the outgoing president was elected under the old system and is also a rabid opponent of the new law. His administration, continuing the policy of previous ones, has been hiring on time contracts hundreds of cleaning staff through private agencies. When a pay dispute arose between the cleaning workers and their agencies the president encouraged the workers' unions to press their case by occupying the central administration building of the school and also to demand that they be hired by the university (i.e. the Greek state) as permanent public employees. This they proceeded to do about two months ago. At that time they also stopped refuse collection. You can imagine, possibly even smell however far you may be, the result. At this point the university is a sprawling, stinking garbage dump. The students health is directly threatened, classes have been mostly suspended, the school has practically ceased to exist. The organized detachments of "revolutionary" hoodlumry appeared immediately on the scene in support of the occupiers. Students and teachers tried to organize cleaning teams, but they were immediately attacked by the guardians of the revolution. They were spat upon, reviled, threatened, some of them had to actually go into hiding. Whatever garbage they had managed to collect and put away was taken out of the bags and strewn all over the place once again. At some point even the president himself had to intervene, appealing for an end of the occupation which he had instigated, and at long last asking for help from the police. The police did intervene and evict the occupiers of the administration building, but the president immediately made a heart-rending appeal that those arrested be set free. In any case the very next day the building was re-occupied and is still being held. The school is still suffocating under tons of rotting, oozing garbage, proudly under the control of the "revolution" and marauding armies of rats. This infinitely sad image of a dying university is a fitting symbol for a whole dead social system.

The most distressing part the story is that the activities described above have the full political and ideological backing of the main opposition party, the one claiming to be ready to form the next government.

All told, if the museum I mentioned at the beginning is ever to be built no prizes are given to anyone guessing what its location is likely to be.

As a Greek I feel the deepest shame to be in a place and time stamped by such deeds, which even to think, let alone write, about makes one filthy. As a human being I feel violated to the very core of my being.

Marx and science: afterthoughts

I wrote in the last post that Marx's definition of ideology as "false consciousness" makes sense only within the context of a logical opposition between (subjective) falsity and (objective) truth, the latter paradigmatically instantiated by the methods and theories of natural science. If this bifurcation is done away with, then the concept is voided of meaning.

Now, this thesis might be construed as endorsing Althusser's infamous claim that there is a "break" between the "ideological" ingredients of Marx's thought (typically associated with the earlier work) and the supposedly "hard science" of the later writings. But such an interpretation of my suggestions would be utterly misguided. The reason for this is that for all the obsessive repetition of the mantra of "science" in connection with Marx's theories, Althusser's use of the word "science" is, firstly, pure homonymy (in Aristotle's sense): i.e. the same sound (word-sign) is employed in order to denote something which has nothing to do with what is generally understood as scientific procedure.

Althusser does not (care to) understand what science is in the ordinary sense (in the sense that Marx himself understood it). Instead, he surreptitiously substitutes an understanding all of his own, which if spelled out in plain terms is straightaway convicted by its own presposterousness. According to this fanciful notion "science" amounts to the theories contained in certain selected works of Marx as interpreted by Althusser himself. "Truth", thus, resides in certain "canonical" texts as interpreted by the authoritative exegete. This is Talmudism pure and simple. The scripturae auctoritas is thus raised in opposition both to common sense empirical knowledge of facts as well as to all other interpretations (including Marxist interpretations) of his chosen texts (and the totality of Marx's oeuvre). Surely we can recognize here the gist of Augustine's epistemology, which was the staple of the schooling that our "scientific Marxist" received during his youthful stint at the seminary.

The most egregious feature of the Althusserian account is a sustained polemic against "formal logic", common sense and empiricism: all three are terms of abuse. That science in any intellible sense cannot possibly subsist without the above elements is disdainfully left out of the discussion. To the extent that one can follow its abstruse verbiage Althusserism is, thus, a fanatic denunciation of science rather that its defense. It is not accidental, therefore, that "post modern Marxism" (a silly contradiction in terms, anyway) as spawned by Althusser's verbal abracadabra is saturated with a hatred of the scientific spirit and its core pre-requisites such as intersubjective testability, factual adequacy, falsifiability, epistemological equality with your dialectical opponent etc.

It is, however, instructive to note that their rejection of empiricism does not employ the standard criticisms of empiricist epistemology with which the philosophy of science is replete. Of these they are unaware. Their anti-empiricism is premised on purely political considerations: to be an empiricist means to be a political conservative, where "conservative" means not to be a Marxist (which is the only "scientific" world-view). The circularity of this is worse than puerile.

Furthermore, they do not get that their ignorant raving against empiricism actually undermines their own dogmata. For through pure epistemological empiricism one can very well reach the position that they want to espouse, namely that all theory is ideology pure and simple sustained only by political power. Experience is the world as perceived from the standpoint of a certain individual or collective subject: esse est percipi. Their claim that only Marxism is true is based upon the alleged fact that it expresses precisely the experience of the proletariat and that it will triumph when the power of that class is brought to bear upon social conditions. Thus, by discrediting empiricism you ipso fact saw off the branch that your proud Althuserism is sitting on. Since no other comprehensible epistemology is supplied, apart from unfathomable talk based on the notion that logic has no value (or in other words that anyone upholding the tertium non datur principle is a despicable counter-revolutionary who does not deserve to exist), then we must conclude that the Althusserian enterprise amounts to nothing more than a glorious exercise in self-nullification.

A significant sleight of hand in all this is the identification tout court of theory with practice. Philosophy is supposedly "philosophical practice". This shibboleth may mean a number of things, all of them wrong. It may imply that theoretical insight (ideological conviction) can make or create the world of reality in accordance with its visions. This is another age-old theological fallacy: facts that do not conform to the demands of ideological faith (or individuals that uphold these facts) do not exist -or do not deserve to exist. Only philosophy (more precisely, only the "true" philosophy possessed by "us") has the right to declare what the world is. There is no natural or human (social) world outside the webs of concepts spun by theory.

Alternatively, that dictum may mean that there is no self-contained world of ideas -apart from those ideas which the physical power of victorious social groups allows to exist because they serve their practical purposes (wealth and power). If there are ideas which cannot be pressed into the service of the political interests of the dominant groups (or individuals upholding these ideas), then they ought to be destroyed. Individuals and their idea(l)s have no inherent theoretic (and hence ontological) worth. They are mere "place-holders" in "structures". Only those idea(l)s have the right to exist that serve the "good" structure as the only "true" theory (the one held by "us") defines it. It all coheres in one appalling, groundless circle of empty talk.

So all in all, this stupefying conceit of the Theoretician-as-God has absolutely nothing to do with good old Marx and his rather common sense idea of science taken from the real scientific activity and achievement of his time. In Marx's idea of science empiricism is indeed the only epistemological means of getting at reality as it is in itself. In this view of science empiricism is indispensable, but science does not end with empiricism (which in and of itself is solipsistic and relativist, and only to be rescued from these traps by a theistic postulate in the manner of Berkeley and Descartes). Scientific empiricism is underpinned by a realist metaphysic, namely the belief that there is indeed an objective world separate from and ontologically independent from our theories, whose truth depends upon whether they allow us to make a connection with this self-contained sphere of objective Being. Now, how this is possible is a mightily vexed issue in the philosophy of real science -as opposed to that caricature of pseudo-science the Althusserians specialize in. It is also extremely problematic how one can apply this understanding of science to historical knowledge -as Marx too readily assumed. And this is of course the reason for Marx's endless vacillation between a positivist and a historicist model of knowledge. There is indeed a tortured confusion about these issues in the very heart of Marxian theory. But this confusion derived from too great a respect for natural science as practiced by real scientists. And it is an insult to call "Marxist" the obscurantist mysticism of our structuralist and post-structuralist friends with its rabid hatred, born of utter ignorance, of the scientific spirit.

The cultural quagmire

It has been fun over the last few weeks teaching my graduate students a few things about medieval Greek political and intellectual history. They had never heard of Procopius' Historia Arcana for instance -they are graduate students of political science mind you, some of them holding diplomas from departments of philology. They were equally ignorant of the circumstances of Photius' assumption of the patriarchal office in the 9th century or of the exegetical controversies surrounding Constantine VII Porphyrogennitus' De thematibus. I don't blame them and I must say that their response has been rather encouraging: many of them are open to looking at these things through different glasses. But the obstacles are formidable.

Throughout their schooling they have been taught that "Byzantium" (the Eastern Roman Empire) was an ethnically, culturally and politically Greek state in the "national" sense that the official ideology of the 19th century defined it -minus the considerable subtlety that even the national historiography of the time (e.g. Paparrigopoulos) displayed. To the average modern Greek person Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian were great Greek leaders, in exactly the same way that Pericles, Alexander, the last Palaeologue, Kosmas the Aetolian, Kolokotronis and Venizelos were. If you ask them to explain the "greatness" of Justinian the embarrased silence is well nigh universal -with the possible exception of some garbled noises referring to his military conquests in the west and the building of Hagia Sophia.

In this ludicrous tale the military dimension in is always pre-eminent. For the chief idea underpinning it is that once "we" were κοσμοκράτορες: "we had" the whole world which was then wrested from us by succesive onslaughts of the "bad guys", i.e. the Romans, the Franks, the Turks, all the way to the present with the role of the ravenous wolf feasting on the entrails of God's chosen race currently played by the "troika" in collusion with the inevitable Americans. On this reading the history of the world over the last two millenia has been stamped by a gigantic anti-Greek conspiracy. Of Roman law and its despotic slant, of Justinian's oppressive and anti-Hellenic religious policies and the ruinous internal consequences of his military and edificatory megalomania not the slightest awareness.

So it is always very enjoyable for me to read to them from ch. 8 of the Historia Arcana the passages describing the dullness (ὄνος νωθρός), meanness and rapaciousness of this ruler that rained material and spiritual destitution on his subjects thus preparing the eventual dismemberment of his realm. But of course it is a veritable riot to cite from ch. 9 the sexual exploits of his consort Theodora. One has to tread very thin ice here in trying to avoid becoming pornographic.

The serious challenge, however, in all this is still to explain the "greatness", i.e. the overarching historical significance, of this emperor in particular, as well as the crucial value for European civilization in general of the Hellenic language and culture saturating the apex of East Roman society -all the while eschewing nationalist trash. I am saying this because among academic circles (especially the faction of the "Lacanian left" which has controlled manu militari Greek academia over the last couple of decades) the anti-national spirit has been indeed pronounced. But this stance has been underpinned by the arcana of post-structuralist balderdash. Their entanglement in a web of pure theory (that only they themselves understand) derives from and in turn enhances a monstrous ignorance of actual history, camouflaged by their elevation of "history itself" to the chief theoretical category. The aim of this project has been to demolish, along with the nationalist myth, the notion of Europeanism, of civilization, of rationality itself, culminating with a strident denunciation of the very concept of meaning in life and in discourse.

If you do it this way, then myth, arbitrarily constructed world-views, mystical flights of fancy, the spasms of emotionality and even biological animality itself are ensconced in the very heart of intellectual and political endeavor. This is not the defeat of nationalist ideology, but its triumph.

Under this view everything (all theories, values, ideals) are mere self-validating ideologies. And in this case nationalism (along with Nazism, Stalinism, Polpot-ism, Ayn Rand and Tea Party lunacy) becomes a legitimate choice. The post-structuralist current of thought usually styles itself as "Marxist". But in Marx ideology (as false consciousness) is defined as the opposite of scientific meaning and truth: the concept has validity only in the frame of this antithesis. If you abolish this contrast, then all consciousness is false (or true) at the same time -i.e. we are now talking nonsense. Then each individual or group is at complete liberty to define as axiomatically true its own ideology and to blast as false all the others. The procedure is completely arbitrary and beyond all logical, moral or social control. The only means of adjudicating among all these theoretic Machtsprueche is the possession of raw power.

And thus the militaristic spirit, the most deleterious ingredient of nationalism, becomes the condition of existence and "historical success" for all ideologies. The adulation of violence, open or disguised, has been the bitterest fruit of this malignant line of thought. It is no accident, then, that our "Lacanian leftists" have been the most dogged proponents of political violence. Behind their fake anti-nationalism they have been weaving a gauze of "historical" legitimacy around the most apalling acts of arson, vandalism and even murder that have plagued Greece for the past three years.

In a country that has barely been touched by modernity, post-modernism is in academic vogue. It feeds into and is cheered on by a repulsive cast of rotten media types and populist dunces faking the politician, all stirring up the most virulent version of the traditional nationalist lie: that of the "immaculate people" expiring in the clutches of their western enemies. If this knot is not untied then all "rescues" of Greece by means of European loans etc. are exercises in futility.

Mirage

Nothing was decided by the elections. In fact the ominous trends prevailing before were reasserted, even if slightly decelerated. If the "radical" left had come first, then Greece would be exiting the Eurozone at this very moment. As it is the inevitable will occur probably around the end of the year.

The supposedly "European" parties that won and formed the tripartite government ran a decisively non-European, if not outright anti-European, campaign. They peddled the barefaced lie that the agreements with the EU concerning deficit reduction and structural reforms were somehow non-operative and subject to complete renegotiation. The Hollande victory in France was the chief circumstance cited in support of this analysis, despite the fact that Hollande himself and everyone else in Europe, whether follower or opponent of the Merkel line, repeatedly declared in crystal clear terms that Greece was under obligation to honor those agreements.

So the position of the collective victors was actually tantamount to that of the "radical" left, minus the shrill tone of voice. After the election they drew up a common programmatic statement that flies in the face of all the commitments undertaken to secure the second bail-out and debt forgiveness of October last. The disgust of European officials was quite plain, but our politicians were busy doing the only thing they are expert at, namely jostling for posts in the new government.

When the governement was actually formed it was composed largely of old-line politicos who had excelled in the crony politics that ruined the country. There was a mix-up with the crucial post of finance minister. The person who was finally selected is indeed a competent and reform-minded individual, a member of the team that guided Greece into the Euro a decade ago. But he is just a lone individual whose presence at this point seems a mere sop to Europe. Given the delusional mood prevalent in the three ruling parties, namely that with Merkel's alleged "defeat" in the latest Brussels summit it is now opportune to renege on Greece's legal commitments with a view to going back to the old regime of kleptocratic corruption paid for out of the pockets of European taxpayers, it is doubtful how much the new minister can accomplish.

So with their lying electoral campaign and government manifesto the current rulers have painted themselves into a corner. They have promised the people to keep the country in the Eurozone without in fact sumbitting to the discipline of sound and honest public finance which has been demonized as a diabolical German invention. They will of course soon run up against the hard facts and be obliged to eat their silly words. If, then, they decide to go for real reform (privatizations, reduction of the bureaucracy and encouragement of private investment), they will lose the support of a public they themselves have educated to consider these things as fiendish "neo-liberal" impositions from abroad. They will also face the crippling sabotage of the entire civil service whose rapacious unions have been a chief cause of the Greek state's ruin. If, alternatively, they decide on confrontation with Europe in order to maintain their internal position, the country will go instantly bankrupt and they themselves will be engulfed by the public rage that this folly will engender.

In either case the beneficiary will be the "radical" left, accusing them as lackeys of the imperialists in the first case or as ineffective leaders of the "fighting nation" in the second. Why do I keep putting radical in inverted commas when I refer to the leftist opposition? Because that party in fact fulfills the very definition of a reactionary political force. Their "ideal" is a nebulous anarcho-soviet utopia, the rags and rubbish of twentieth century history woven together into a comic nullity, while in practical terms they advocate the return to the filthy regime of debauchery by the party elites, the regime that died in 2010.

Still, they can rest assured that he people currently in charge are working for them. They did not win on June 17, but they will certainly win big next time around -unless something cataclysmically good happens. Their triumph will of course be short lived, for they will be managing smoking ruins. They themselves will go under in no time and then their natural and inevitable successors will be the neo-nazis, with whom they share anyway sizable chunks of their totalitarian, anti-European, conspiracy-theory laden ideology.

One final thought: personalities count. For all the European facade put up by the current ruling team (which has not even started ruling yet, due to various medical accidents!), the leaders of the tripartite bloc have been instrumental in whipping up the anti-European, populist and nationalist frenzy that has vitiated public life here for the past generation. The new prime minister has distinguished himself as a leader of the nationalist primitivism, especially in respect of Macedonia, that errupted after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Also from 2009 to 2011 he was a rabid opponent of the first bailout pact with Europe, thus empowering the fascist-nationalist wing of his own party and indirectly the neo-nazis. The leader of the rump Pasok party is also a prominent populist, a virtuoso practitioner of crony politics, whose first ingenious act after he became finance minister in June 2011 was to throw out the foreign negotiators demanding what he is also demanding now, namely the annulment of all standing agreements. This led to the near bankruptsy of the country then. As for the third leader, in charge of a "moderate" left party, he is simply a old-style leftist unable to shake off the benighted collectivism of his ilk, except that he expresses all this in a mild manner.

We all hope certainly to be pleasantly surprised, especially by the new finance minister if and when he takes up his office and he begins to put his ideas into effect. But it is a hopelessly tall order.

Foolishness and Shame

In today's Greece the worst case scenaria always materialize, and I was silly to forget this capital truth on the eve of last Sunday's election which put the tombstone on the country's prospects as a member of the European family of nations. As I have repeatedly argued and explained here and elsewhere its European identity was a big lie anyway, and lies do not last. But I allowed myself to be carried away by the vain hope that the the majority of the people would rationally assess nothing more than their personal material interest before casting their ballots.

In the event they did nothing of the kind and instead they followed loud-mouthed charlatans who offered them the pie-in-the-sky of a return to the parasitic bliss of former times through the unilateral renunciation of the economic discipline agreed with the European Union. They also convinced them that the Europeans and the rest of the world would meekly bow to this reversal and would continue to shell out the billions needed to fund the thousands of fake pensions and other outrageous privileges awarded in the past to the clientele of our political parties. The repeated warnings from abroad that reneging on the obligations formally undertaken by the Greek state would result in the cessation of the foreign subventions and hence the sudden financial death of the country were denounced as "blackmail" by foreign enemies -the very same "enemies" who borrow on the international markets at 5 and 6 percent in order to lend Greece at 3,5.

The result was a mindless insurrection of "national pride", a choice for outright penury, destitution and starvation. It appeared to them preferable, instead of forfeiting a quarter, let's say, of your income for five years with a prospect of a gradual recovery afterwards, to lose all of it for good. Instead of submitting to painful cautery they elected to kill the doctor. They will soon enough taste the bitter fruit of their self-destructive choice -not later than the end of the year I reckon. But of course the calamity will by then be irreversible. The country has already lost all the international sympathy it could count on throughout this ordeal. It has presented itself in the ugliest light, what with a political elite consisting of ignorant and delusional demagogues and a public opinion thoroughly corrupted by decades of vulgar brain-washing by the brutish (and shamelessly thieving) media moguls and manniquins. It will be abandoned to its miserable fate, not least because that fate will have been self-chosen.

It is a sad, but rather remarkable, fact requiring thorough investigation by experts in psychosocial pathology that the competence for elemental rational thinking has vanished in this society over the last generation or so. The demise of education, as I have repeatedly argued, is the prime cause of this human disaster: the school as a hive of critical thought was the first target and victim of the party mafias that have ruled this country for so long, hiding their merciless plunder of the commonweal under "socialist" and "communist" slogans. Now we have come to the end of the road. The emperor is wearing no clothes and his body is unbearably ugly. This is not the end of the post-junta period (μεταπολίτευση) as many people say, but rather the despicable triumph of its worst features and tendencies.

So much for the stupidity in the latest developments. But there is also the shame. And this is the powerful presence of the neo-nazis in the new parliament. Of course one hears a lot of hypocritical cries of consternation about this, but they come mostly from people whose mentality and political behavior is identical, apart from the external trimmings, with those of the humanoid apes of Golden Dawn. The legitimization of lawlessness, political hatred, violence and -not least- antisemitism is widespread among various groups and through them among the populace at large. It was just a matter of time that its neo-nazi variant would profit from this general climate. Still, this is a new abhorrent peak in our political evolution that we have reached. The parliamentary presence of the neo-nazis has thus obliterated the last vestiges of this country's image as a nation of civility and civilization. From now on the course is pre-determined. We are tumbling into an abyss of social misery and civil strife, while the authors of this descent to hell are full of glee at their triumph. The only thing that people of good will around the world can offer us now is prayer.

Past midnight

If I did not have a personal stake in the matter, involving the very future of my children, I would suggest the following solution to the present impasse in Greece's relation to the Eurozone.

At this point in time the country is a lost cause. In all its basic structures and functions the state has just rotted away -as the horrific events of last Sunday showed with irrevocable finality. The average citizen is at the mercy of any and every criminal who might decide to strike against his/her life and livelihood.

This criminality may or may not be politically motivated, but it doesn't make any difference anymore. The average criminal has by now absorbed the lesson that if you plead a left-wing political motive this is tantamount to putting on the fabled ring of Gyges: you are straightaway rendered invisible. Common crime (and I am talking about heavily armed gangs) and political extremism are two contiguous worlds in fruitful mutual exchange and understanding. As Athens was going up in flames numerous "indignant" protesters surrounded the fire engines and prevented them from reaching the burning buildings. Similarly others egged on the masked hoodlums and cheered them when they petrol-bombed stores. They did not represent the majority of the demonstrators. But they were the dominant element in the demonstrations, the ideologically and politically hegemonic group. The Stalinist left stuck to their time-honored hypocrisy: it was the police, the CIA etc. who were behind the arsonists. Then they piled on their mendacious rhetoric about the "foreigners" trying to subjugate Greece, the "4th Reich" taking over etc. They were assisted in this Neanderthal propaganda by such individuals as an internationally known composer, who during the past decade has mutated into the chief spokesman for empty-headed nationalism and antisemitism. Yesterday, the president of the republic himself joined the idiotic chorus of anti-German taunts, whose immediate effect is to seal the country's doom as a member of the European family of nations.

All these are symptoms of a radical collapse of all moral and social bonds. Under a pretext of left radicalism a social regime was built in Greece since the fall of the colonels, whose chief characteristic has been the rapacity of politically connected groups and individuals. The commonweal has been bled dry by these militant "leftists" in an orgy of anti-social egotism. This extreme right-wing reality, i.e. the absolute prevalence of selfish interest at the expense of the common good, was camouflaged by anti-imperialist and frankly Stalinist cant stoked by a healthy dose of gross nationalist declamation. The young generation has been molded by this dominant mentality. systematically inculcated in the schools and trumpeted by the media. All social processes and functions were thus subjected to these ideological purposes. Judges, if we can call them that, refused, for instance, to impound the bank accounts of known and self-admitted bank robbers (accounts containing he proceeds from the robberies) when the latter declared that they were "anarchists" expropriating the oppressive system. Cabinet ministers were often witnesses for the defense in the trial of terrorists (including a late internationally known actress). These are of course things that a normal person coming from planet civilization finds impossible to even contemplate, let alone believe: and yet this is the poisoned air we have been breathing all these years.

The situation is not reversible. There is not a single institution left intact and still able to play its role as the defender of the public interest. This does not mean that the people as a whole has lost its mind and its conscience. There is a silent majority disgusted and appalled by all this. They are not represented by the demonstrations, because the demonstrations are by those defending the scandalous privileges of the corrupt minorities under the ancien regime. The majority is cowed and helpless. If anyone stands up for reason and decency (to say for instance that our collapse is not the fault of the Germans, but of those who have ruled us for a generation and also those who voted for them), he/she is going to be fiercely slandered and persecuted. So, there is no hope. The measures that Parliament approved last Sunday amidst the orgy of brutality will not be implemented, because the entire state apparatus will sabotage them. By doing this they will, of course, be digging their own graves, but in their brutishness they are simply past simple logic even if it counsels what is in their material interest.

And so I come to my (horrible) solution. Greek society has been taken over by a suicidal impulse, which should be allowed to take its course. In the long run (i.e. when we are all dead) this is going to prove salutary, i.e a creative destruction. For, experiencing the real consequences of their collective folly (i.e. economic destitution and isolation from the rest of the world) they will be forced to abandon the delusions that are currently preventing them from thinking and feeling. In concrete terms, Greece must be allowed to default and return to the drachma. It will thus rapidly regress to the condition of Enver Hoxha's Albania. It will proudly become the North Korea of Europe that its dominant intellectuals are lusting for. The population will starve and vegetate in slavery under the leadership of the "revolutionaries" of Sunday last. But only thus will the public mind here will (in the long run, I repeat) be disabused of the lies that it has been systematically burdened with for a generation, its hatred of Europe and of the West, its hatred of freedom and of individuality. Right now they are still laboring under the illusion that had the Stalinists won the civil war back in the forties, the country would have become paradise on earth. I know: only a demented person would believe this; but it was this collective dementia that was inculcated as "the truth" by the ruling elites. So let them try it, so that they might eventually by purged by bitter experience of this insanity.

In the medium term such a suicide by Greece will also be extremely beneficial for the rest of Europe. They will be rid of an obstreperous entity that does not share their ideals, institutions and goals. And thus their chances to overcome the current crisis will be drastically increased. More and more governments and institutions in Europe have already been coming (unfortunately for us)to such a conclusion. But, if a country does not want to be saved from ruin; and if the more they try to save it the more it hates those that are still willing to come to its aid, I cannot see any outcome other than its self-inflicted death.

I do not want this outcome. I, in fact, dread it. It will destroy the future of our children. I pray that we may still escape from this impending hell. Not least because this solution is unjust. It is unjust towards the hard-working and -despite everything- right thinking majority of the Greek people who have been subjected to the humiliation of being ruled by incompetent beasts and fools. It is true that this healthy core was seduced by the demagogy of their ruthless leaders. But all peoples are prone to succumb to demagogues as history shows. They do not deserve to be extinguished for this mistake, endemic especially in democracies. My reason tells me that we are past the point of no return. My heart still urges me to hope.

Dixi et salvavi animam meam.

A conference in Athens

The European society for the history of political thought just held its second international conference in Athens. This was a signal event. With the world coming crashing down around us, not a sound was to be heard in the lecture hall. Or, to put it in another way, the sounds were transmuted into the ringing silence of intense thought concerning that dissolving reality. And this signifies a hope that something can be after all be salvaged from the ruins.

It has to be noted that all the Greek participants exhibited a high level of sophisticated reflection on a par with the best of their foreign colleagues. And this is meant not as a silly "national" boast, but as a token of the great tragedy that is the trashing of this country by its ruling elites.

The topic of the conference was citizenship and rulership in the light of ancient Athenian insights and practices. And in the course of the discussion it became so strikingly evident that the European historical and intellectual experience revolves around the matrix of concepts erected by classical thought. What struck me in a particular way was the invocation even by the Polish Schlachta (that self-destructive feudal elite) of Aristotle's definition of the citizen from the Politics in order to justify its trampling upon the rights and well-being of the mass of society. If to be a citizen means to participate in the exercise of authority, then they and they alone -having usurped and monopolized that participation through arbitrary means- were allegedly entitled to that honorific and profitable title. So, they even entitled their oppressive rule a "res publica", a "politeia". This is of course to use Aristotle's concepts against Aristotle's purposes, in order to legitimize a concrete historical situation.

So history from this angle could be viewed not as the realization, but rather as the deformation and even nullification of abstract discourse, about justice, equality etc. This was also exemplified during the radical phase of the French Revolution, when the Parisian mob surrounds the Convention and demands the expulsion (amounting to a sentence of death) of the Girondin deputies, all the while appealing to the ideal of "democracy". Thus, an assembly elected by democratic means (as democratic as you could get in those times) is strangled and eventually drowned in its own blood by a section of "the people" claiming that only it is entitled to represent the general will. The idea of democracy here is violated in the opposite direction as compared to the Polish situation, but the principle of action is exactly the same: whoever wields raw power effectively elevates himself to the status of "true" humanity, condemning the rest of humans not fitting into his self-idealization to abject and pitiless death.

In this context, we must concede that Plato was exactly right when he claimed in the Laws that the root of all evil is the blind and unquestioning love of self that darkens people's minds turning them into inhuman monsters. This after all was the great issue of tragic poetry. Whether you can cure this situation by eradicating all self-feeling in the human breast (as Plato and later Rousseau would propose under the spell of Lacaedemon)is another question. Aristotle opposed this type of psychological surgery, and he was again exactly right. But, certainly, the problem with his approach is how to set up the criteria of differentiation between legitimate and illegitimate modes of self-feeling (between amour de soi and amour-propre as Rousseau termed them).

And so it seems that whatever course you adopt in actual life (whether you take the theological as it were route of chastising and mortifying the flesh through ascetic discipline or whether you adopt the way of pragmatic ἐπιείκεια giving leeway to the self-seeking urges) you end up paying a huge in all cases price. The decision cannot be made a priori, and no theory offers the guidelines for such a thing. It can only be taken by appraising the material and moral conditions of each case, albeit guided all the while by an idea of justice, namely a concern for the the flourishing of the community and the individual within it. An idea of justice, though, that you cannot be certain won't be defeated by the truculence of the real and its refusal to be guided by the ideal. This is the tragedy of social life (Tragedie im Sittlichen) that Hegel was able to discern -even though he too fell victim (like so many great minds) to the delusion that he could "overcome" it.