A positive counterproposal

Every discussion about the future – and there are many now as we approach the beginning of the “new season” in September – runs into a wall. By conducting an informal poll or by listening to the views of others, you can reach two simple and almost universal conclusions. The first is that society is mired and the second is that there seems to be no prospect of this changing by way of an immediate or realistic jump-start. It is what you might call awareness of constrictive conditions. The government’s efforts to monopolize the agenda (even with the issue of how symbols should be used) impinges on the main opposi- tion party’s effectiveness in describing its plan for an exit from the crisis in simple words that are easy to understand, in a way that can rally people and convince them to rise up. However realistic one may be, however one may desire the prevalence of the self-evident, the effort to get out the message about a “positive counterproposal” remains problematic. Why this is the case after more than two years of disastrous governance has to do with a multitude of parameters. But let us accept for now that the major cause is the divisive tactics employed by the government at all levels. In any other circumstances, the law on tertiary education, for example, would have at least sparked anti-government protests. That the streets were calm as the bill was approved in Parliament with it only being resisted by opposition politicians reveals, once again, the huge difficulty that society has in understanding the fundamental ways in which the modern world works. The self-referencing, closed country that is evangelized in the government’s primitive political thought may win some support in the small domestic sphere. However, it is becoming an addiction to cultivate the image of Greece as a strange, special country with many “special circumstances” that always proves to be an exception. The only special circumstances that Greece can claim is the great tolerance it shows for anachronistic views and self-destructive practices that contribute to its regression. A part of society is ready to stand on its feet: Even under the current unfavorable conditions, there is some movement. But what looms over the country isn’t a positive counterproposal, but self-destructive fatalism. It’s depressing for Greek society year after year to welcome new batches of 18-yearolds without being able to inspire them, even a little bit.