Modern Greece built on myth

[xchrom]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20111112a1.html

ATHENS — Greece is the cradle of democracy, but as the world has seen recently, a financial crisis is no time to put important questions to the people. Prime Minister George Papandreou's proposed referendum on the country's loan deal with the European Union, called off quickly after intense international opposition, illustrated that perfectly.

Plato and Aristotle would have approved of dropping the referendum. They didn't like democracy of the direct kind. Neither trusted the people that much.

Sinking deeper into the gravest economic crisis in its postwar history, Greece is no nearer to finding an exit from its woes. A toxic mix of anxiety and fear hangs in the air in Athens. The ordeal shows that living up to lofty idealism is never easy. Modern Greeks know that well for we are, in many ways, the imperfect reflection of an ideal that the West imagined for itself.

When the Greek crisis began two years ago, the cover of a popular German magazine showed an image of Aphrodite of Milo gesturing crudely with the headline: "The fraudster in the euro family." In the article, modern Greeks were described as indolent sloths, cheats and liars, masters of corruption, unworthy descendents of their glorious Hellenic past.


i THINK this is the author of the piece here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zarkadakis

In 1982, he migrated to London, England, where he studied systems engineering at City University. At the age of 24 he received his PhD in Artificial Intelligence. Since then he has worked for the European Commission in Brussels, as an IT consultant for a number of US companies, and as a scientific researcher.

In 1999 he launched in Greece the monthly popular science magazine Focus (originally published in Italy by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore since 1992) and in 2004 he wrote a very popular television program for the communication of science called “Εύρηκα! - Evrika!” (produced and hosted by Antonis Kafetzopoulos<1>). He was also very active in organizing the first Cafés Scientifiques in Greece; an attempt to improve the dialogue between scientists and lay citizens. He remained Editor-in-chief of Focus till the end of 2006. Then he became the publisher of Avgo Books, an imprint of Oceanida Publications that is specializing in popular science books and the organization of science and art events for a wider audience.
Noetics

In 2001 he published an academic paper called “Noetics: A proposal for a theoretical approach to consciousness”, and a popular science book called “The Mystery of the Mind: how the brain evokes consciousness” explaining the status of the contemporary cognitive and philosophical studies of consciousness.

In this paper, he suggested the use of the term Noetics in an explicitly non-metaphysical context, as the name of a hypothetical unified science of the Mind. Based on David Chalmers' philosophical work “The Puzzle of Consciouss Experience”, he proposed several speculative laws of such a theory. In both the paper and the book, Zarkadakis favors a multilevel description of mental phenomena. He admits the existence of the following levels of description: 1) a quantum level (Roger Penrose, David Chalmers, Andreas Mershin, and Stuart Hameroff are cited as the original proposers of this approach); 2) a self-organization level (the book endorses the paradigm of Neural Darwinism); 3) a phenomenological level (the study of qualia); and 4) a sociobiological level (the study of memes). (Confer the similar in this respect Tree of Knowledge System proposed by Gregg Henriques.)
Literary work

His first published work was the novel “The Secrets of the Lands Without”, published in 1994 by Alexandria Publications, which was also released on the World Wide Web (often called "the first Greek novel on the Internet"). The second edition of the novel was published by Kedros Publications in 1996. "End of the East" (a novel), was published in 1996 by Kedros Publications and was runner-up for the prestigious Greek State Literary Prize. His third novel "Archipelago Republic" was published in 1999 also by Kedros. His fourth novel “The Passage” was published in late 2004 by Kastaniotis Publications and in Italy in 2007 by Croccetti with the title “Il Grande Gelo”. Other literary works of George Zarkadakis include a collection of short stories “The day America Disappeared” (Kedros Publications, 2002) and a poetry collection “The Koans of the Day” (Kedros Publications, 2006). He has written several plays, three of which have been staged in Athens: “The Fixer” in 2002, “Y” in 2005 and “Baby” in 2007.

[bemildred]

1. Fascinating. nt

[Turbineguy]

2. Excellent.

Thanks.

[snagglepuss]

3. Absolutely fascinating and his paper about consciousness is now on the

top of my must read list.

I was in Greece a number of years ago and the neo-classical structures he refers to such as the palace stuck out like a sore thumb. They seemed absurd and Zarkadakis is spot on when he describes them as precursors to Disneyland. Finding out that Germans designed these buildings to fulfill their romantic picture of Greece is truly illuminating.

Thanks so much for posting.

[xchrom]

4. yeah -- this article kind of turns on a light.

you forget how recently greece was under the influence of others -- germany, turkey, etc...