Re: Classical Greece and the Truth about the Modern!! (My God ! Are all of you that daft ? Learn to read some more sources before you make others believe that all Greeks are as ignorant as you all are !)


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Posted by patriwths on May 10, 2002 at 16:07:50:

In Reply to: Re: Classical Greece and the Truth about the Modern!! (My God ! Are all of you that daft ? Learn to read some more sources before you make others believe that all Greeks are as ignorant as you all are !) posted by Themistokles on May 09, 2002 at 20:51:35:


First, regarding the factoid that greeks read much less than westerners, do you really
think that such a simplistic statistic means so much? One must before anything else consider what is being read.. Do you think the tens of millions of pointless low-quality fiction paperbacks sold in the west every
year really enhance the awareness of their readers? Do you really think that westerners know more about whats going on in the world than greeks, on average? I dont think so.
I will tell you, as one who lives in america, the people here are by and large very ignorant. Europe doesn't
impress me as being that much better off, though they are a bit better informed. The fact that we have such a variety in the media (which you seem to completely ignore, and
your comments about h kathimerinh, one newspaper out of hundreds, makes me think you would prefer the american style of journalism, with 3 or 4 companies producing almost all the newspapers in the country, with nothing but propaganda, spin-jobs, and crap on every page.. right? when i am in greece i read three papers, not one.) is one of the greatest things
about the greek press. Now, to go on about reading books. Greeks are , thank god, a social people. While millions of people in the west might spend their lives in isolation in front of a tv
or reading some pulp novel, greeks interact, we circulate with one another and have a community. Sure, many of us read a lot too. I read a lot. Very little fiction though, so i probably don't make much of a dent on the statistics of typical recreational reading.
Now second, about demagogues, we greeks have always been our own worst enemy, from the very beginning. people are always struggling to have their voice heard and some of them even try to do something more than just say their piece, some try to act on it too. Just because they dont all agree with you doesnt make them uncouth demagogues and you 'the establishment'...
finally, this attitude i see very often in greeks of fawning imitation of everything western, which comes hand in hand with this worship of 'progress', whatever progress happens to be defined as (typically it means mechanization of society and destruction of traditional ways of life or anything natural), is very saddening and disappointing. This attitude is one of the elements of our modern-day downfall. When we are , consciously or unconsciously, ashamed to live the greek way of life (except in superficial ways) and must take on foriegn lifestyles, we have lost the fight. Stop being ashamed to be greek! stop having to be apologetic about it! stop feeling so superior because you dress western, eat western, watch western tv and drink western drinks, drive western cars and work a western style punch a clock job! be greek! reject the foriegn influences that have infected what remains of our national consciousness! learn the foriegners' game, but only to defeat them at it! never bring that game home to greece!


: I"m afraid that anyone reading any of these posts will come away believing what many educated Greeks know to be true: namely, that the price that our Greek (in Greece) society's refusal to read a books and newspapers (as well as other academic sources) is the mass ignorance of our population of much that is valuable to our own long term survival. In fact, the May 8th edition of www.ekathimerini.com (the English edition of Greece's most influential newspaper (its target audience has a far higher level of education and disposable income than any other print source in all of Greece)) reported the European Union's latest statistics that Greeks (in Greece) read the least number of books and newspapers in all of Europe (except for the Portuguese) (at 16% and 14%, respectively).

: Apart from the horrific masacre on the English language that most of the posters in this section are reknowned for (grammar and spelling), the real horror is to be found in the complete misinterpretation of the complex, yet very tumultuous history that our race has endured.

: The real culprits in our history have ALWAYS been the demogogues (such as the anti-Orthodox posters here) who, for their own power, attack the establishment - alleging that it is so corrupt - without ever offering a substantive alternative to real issues; in other words, knowing that they can never get into power, they boost their own popularity by inciting hatred of others who do have power by targetting their incredible (and incredulous) simplifications and falsehoods on those who most readily respond to these 'facts'. Yes, the target audience has always the same throughout our history: those who know the least, thinking they know the most.

: As one of our ancestors once said:

: "The only thing worse than someone who is completely ignorant is someone who is half ignorant:" (Put into simpler terms, "Beware of the half-truth for you do not know which half you have been told").

: By the way, there is no such thing as a "Greek Church" (rather, it is the Orthodox Church; please read Christ's admonition that "There is neither Greek nor Jew, woman or man, free person or slave, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26-29); and you call yourselves Orthodox ? How shameful !

: May our Lord have mercy on us all and may we pray for some humility.

: With all my sincere wishes for wisdom (for us all),

: Themistokles (an Orthodox Christian of Hellenic ancestry).


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