[Skybird]

That was something I gave as a reply in an earlier thread, and did again here. It is due to the fact that some weeks ago there were Greek poltiicians raising complains and criticism of the ge rman by explicitly pointing out what a great history Greece has, and that this pride resulting is something that forbids the german arguments and demands. I agree that it had a great past culture, and that it had massively influenced Europe. My own thinking is basing fundamentally on philosphical and intellectual traditions and principles whose roots were founded by Greek philosophers.

Bad news is: they all are dead. Since millenia. Can'T ask them anything today anymore. Can't give them a public office.

History is just this: history. The facts were formed back then - today's people have no merits in having participated in their creation, for it happened nbefore today's people's times. And living with one'S head stuck in the far away past, never is a good thing. Because the present does not go away.

What there is in merits and resources today is what decides Greece's fate in the present. For the gold medal at the olympic games at the times of Rome you cannot buy Greek relief today anymore. Plato'S fame does not earn present Greece any respectability today anymore. And ancient ruins are just this: ruins of something long since gone.


Also, the history of Greece is not that shiny in completeness at all. I read historians commenting like that the past of Greece is the best hint so far why Greece does not function as a state in the present, and in the forseeable future. I mean its administration is hopelessly dysfunctional, there are no registers, not even legal taxes can be collectd and overwtched in final totals, npobody knows what is happening, and the bureaucracy is hopelessly blown up in size. It just does not function, and nthat'S why things are today like they are. It has no tradition of being a functioning state.

If you understand German, I can try to find an according essay again from maybe half a year ago, from a German newspaper I think. But I need to find it first, and have clue by whom it was and where I had found it. Also, the ancient era of Greece also showed how democracy in the Greek city states went wrong time and again, corruption taking over and messing things up. Critical historians would replace the label of Greece as "cradle of democracy" with "cradle of corruption and dysfunctional state administration". The problems Greece has today, have a tradition that reaches back centuries and centuries and centuries. The EU suffers from extremley heavy wishful thinking here.

Which is another reason why I am very pessimistic about Greece.