But, once the danger is gone and the enemy defeated, we revert to our "habits" and turn victories into humiliations, sometimes disastrous, defeats.
The great victory in the Persian Wars, we redeemed it with the civil Peloponnesian War, which marked the beginning of the end of the ancient world, of a world, who reached unattainable heights of civilization, philosophy, art and democracy…
The unrepeatable Revolution against centuries of subjugation, we tarnished it with a bloody civil war, which almost brought back Ottoman slavery…
We translated the unique in grandeur and intensity of resistance against the forces of fascism into another civil war, whose wounds still bleed..
And these bad days, these dark years, the bloody years of deprivation, of humiliation and despair, we still adhere to them… our traditions!
The enemy is not, simply, before the walls!
It is within the walls of the collective soul and listens to a name, interest!
The semantic content of the word "interest" is very important. Dictionaries define what interest means, anything one gains for one's own benefit.
Subjective, Well, basically, the interest… Why, subjective, generally, is also what is considered as a benefit, which can accept a multitude of offensive determinations, such as financial, political, partisan, moral, spiritual, religious, working, classy, family….
In this sense, the interest may be the same for many, but also different for everyone. It is what unites, but also that which divides, it is the litmus test by which social progress and cohesion are tested!
Why, as there is an interest for the individual, there is also an interest for the team, the community, society, the nation! So, we are faced with two parallel networks of interests, the size of the difference or identification of which determines the level of cultural development and moral development of a society.
The individual interest reveals human selfishness and is determined by purely utilitarian aims and purposes., that is why it is associated with periods, in which primitivism and individualism dominate, fear and mistrust, instincts and greed.
The social interest, on the contrary, it often requires painful personal sacrifices and is therefore associated with periods of moral and spiritual cultivation and true democracy.
This, Nevertheless, it also presupposes the existence of a moral conscience, which gives the individual the knowledge and power to evaluate and propose what serves the whole, before and above what serves the person.
It is required, Consequently, the existence of moral motivations in the correct hierarchy of interests, which precisely testifies to a perfect functioning of all those institutions that serve and promote education, religiosity and moral improvement of citizens, and with the primary institution of Education.
And it is a fact that in recent years Education is gradually being drained of any moral content and, instead of forming morally whole people, models passively moving machines, without ideals, without emotion, without shared visions…
A society is created, whose members entrench themselves selfishly and smugly in their individual microcosms, indifferent to social and political events, abstaining from procedures, who believe they are not directly concerned, living in the illusion that if the ship sinks, in which they ride, they will not be dragged to the bottom either…
Why, it is not only relations between people that have largely broken down! They have been undermined, from mutual mistrust and suspicion, and the relations of citizens with the State!
The events that we experience every day recently prove the lack of trust, which in turn comes from the absence of direct and honest dialogue.
Under such circumstances, however fair the protesting citizens may be, however fair the respective Governments may be, solutions will not exist or, if there are any, will not be applied!
Although we all know the right thing…
Plutarch delivers a fine story, quite enlightening, but also didactic:
In some Olympics, an old man was looking in vain for a seat. Many Greeks, from the various cities, who had gathered watched his failed efforts and mocked him for his age and futile search.
When, Nevertheless, arrived at the stadium area, where the Spartans sat, all who were sitting there stood up and offered him their seat.
Spontaneously, then, the other Greeks applauded them for their behavior.
Then, an old man said with a sigh: "Here's what's happening! All Greeks know the right thing, but only the Spartans practice it”!
We have imitated the ancient Athenians in many ways…
Maybe it's time to emulate the Spartans too!
† SYROUS & MYKONOU DOROTHEOS II
(Magazine "POLITICAL ISSUES", January 2016, τ. 87)