[MGSA-L] Greece alone and broke, again

[Neni Panourgia]

> Hanson cites the Theban <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thebes,_Greece> 
> general and statesman Epaminondas 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epaminondas>, Winston Churchill 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill>, and the US generals 
> William Tecumseh Sherman 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman> and George 
> Patton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Patton> as his heroes. In 
> the field of military history 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history>, Hanson cites John 
> Keegan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keegan> as being 
> influential, and shares a mutual admiration with fellow classicist 
> Donald Kagan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Kagan> and the 
> historian Steven Ozment <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Ozment>.
>
> Hanson is perhaps best known for his 2001 book /Carnage and Culture/, 
> published in some nations (e.g. Australia) as /Why the West Has Won/, 
> in which he argued that the military dominance of Western Civilization 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture>, beginning with the 
> ancient Greeks, is the result of certain fundamental aspects of 
> Western culture <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture>, such as 
> consensual government and individualism. Hanson rejects racial 
> explanations for this military preeminence, and disagrees as well with 
> environmental or geographical explanations such as put forth by Jared 
> Diamond <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond> in /Guns, Germs 
> and Steel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel>/.^[18] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson#cite_note-17>
>
> According to Hanson, Western values 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_system> such as political freedom 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_freedom>, capitalism 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism>, individualism 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism>, democracy 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy>, scientific inquiry 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method>, rationalism 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism>, and open debate 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissent> form an especially lethal 
> combination when applied to warfare. Non-Western societies can win the 
> occasional victory when warring against a society with these Western 
> values, writes Hanson, but the "Western way of war" will prevail in 
> the long run. Hanson emphasizes that Western warfare is not 
> necessarily more (or less) moral than war as practiced by other 
> cultures; his argument is simply that the "Western way of war" is 
> unequalled in its devastation and decisiveness.
>
> /Carnage and Culture/ examines nine battles throughout history, each 
> of which is used to illustrate a particular aspect of Western culture 
> that Hanson believes contributes to the dominance of Western warfare. 
> The battles or campaigns recounted (with themes in parenthesis) are 
> the Battle of Salamis <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis> 
> (480 BC; free citizens), the Battle of Gaugamela 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaugamela> (331 BC; the 
> decisive battle of annihilation), the Battle of Cannae 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae> (216 BC; civic 
> militarism), the Battle of Tours 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours>/Poitiers 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poitiers> (732; infantry), the Battle of 
> Tenochtitlan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan> (1521; 
> technology and reason), the Battle of Lepanto 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto_%281571%29> (1571; 
> capitalism), the Battle of Rorke's Drift 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorke%27s_Drift> (1879; discipline), the 
> Battle of Midway <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway> 
> (1942; individualism), and the Tet Offensive 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive> (1968; dissent).
>
> Though /Carnage and Culture/ appeared before the September 11, 2001 
> attacks <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks>, its 
> message that the "Western way of war" will ultimately prevail made the 
> book a best-seller in the wake of those events. Immediately after 
> 9/11, /Carnage and Culture/ was re-issued with a new afterword by 
> Hanson in which he explicitly stated that the United States government 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government> would win its 
> "War on Terror <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror>" for the 
> reasons stated in the book.
>
> Hanson co-authored the book /Who Killed Homer 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer>?/ with John Heath. This book 
> explores the issue of how classical education 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classics> has declined in the US and 
> what might be done to restore it to its former place. This is 
> important, according to Hanson and Heath, because knowledge of the 
> classical Greeks and Romans is necessary to fully understand Western 
> culture. To begin a discussion along these lines the authors state, 
> "The answer to why the world is becoming Westernized goes all the way 
> back to the wisdom of the Greeks—reason enough why we must not abandon 
> the study of our heritage".^[19] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson#cite_note-18>
>
> Hanson and Heath blame the academic classicists themselves for the 
> decline, accusing them of becoming so infected with political 
> correctness <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness> and 
> postmodern <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern> thinking, not to 
> mention egoism and money-grubbing (grants, visiting professorships, 
> conference-hopping, promotion based on unreadable publications), that 
> they have lost sight of what Hanson and Heath feel the classics truly 
> represent. They say it this way, "the study of Greek in the last 
> twenty years became a profession, a tiny world--but a world of sorts 
> nonetheless--of jets, conferences, publicity, jargon, and perks".^[20] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson#cite_note-19>
>


On 6/25/2012 12:35 AM, June Samaras wrote:
> Doom and gloom - with a brief classical reference -  from Victor Davis Hanson
> ===================
> Greece alone and broke, again | | The Bulletin
>
> http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120624/NEWS0107/206240303/#.T-eY7aRl-WI.email
>
> Greece alone and broke, again
> Published: June 24. 2012 4:00AM PST
>
> The recent indecisive Greek elections could be summed up by two
> general themes: Greeks want to stay in, and expect help from, the
> eurozone. But they still do not want to take the necessary medicine to
> stop borrowing billions of euros from northern Europeans, who want a
> radical Greek reform of the tax code, deregulation of labor laws,
> fiscal discipline, massive cuts in bureaucracy, and greater
> transparency — all unlikely given Greek history and contemporary
> culture.
>
> So what lies in the future for Greece as it is slowly eased out of the
> eurozone and its civilization goes into reverse?
>
> In theory, with the ability to devalue the drachma and be freed of
> enormous debts, the Greeks could return to business as it was
> practiced in the 1970s. In those sleepy days before the massive
> transfers of northern European money, I lived in a Greece that was a
> Balkan backwater without advanced surgery, autobahns, suspension
> bridges, sleek subways or a modern airport. In that era of genteel
> poverty, Greek divorce, abortion, drug use and crime were rare. Now,
> all are commonplace. Rural Greece outside Athens was more Middle
> Eastern than European.
>
> Yet the problem with returning to the nostalgia of a world long gone
> is just not the creeping return of Third World-like poverty, but
> rather the psychological shock of Greeks losing the European lifestyle
> that is now considered an accustomed birthright. For Greeks not to
> live like those in Munich or Amsterdam would be far more cataclysmic
> in political terms than it would be had they never gotten hooked on
> Mercedeses, iPhones and lattes in the first place.
>
> Over the past three years, exasperated Greeks have rioted and
> blame-gamed rather than embraced self-critique and genuine efforts to
> open up and air out their fossilized economy. Greeks scapegoated the
> European Union, Germans, Americans, Wall Street, their own leaders,
> foreigners, immigrants — anything and anyone other than Greeks
> themselves, who clearly lived in a manner that was not commensurate
> with their productivity.
>
> So when the charade of the Greek euro ends and there are no more
> bogeymen to blame, expect even more political upheaval and furor, not
> calm introspection and reform. Do not rule out a return to some sort
> of autocracy, whether left-wing in the style of Hugo Chavez or, more
> likely, a nationalist Hellenic strongman in the mold of Vladimir
> Putin. After all, democracy does not mark the end of history, but more
> often is a cyclical respite for prosperous peoples who can afford the
> niceties of parliamentary government and liberal tolerance. Right now,
> Greece is neither a prosperous nor a tolerant place.
>
> The recriminations over the euro may also poison the notion of
> European citizenship itself. Even if Greece stays in the European
> Union, relations with fellow EU members will never be the same — sort
> of like the spendthrift brother-in-law who welches on family loans and
> at tense holiday dinners sulks off by himself. After all, would
> Germany ever loan Greece money again after being conned for billions
> of euros while being insulted for its largesse?
>
> History was never kind to the loud and proud but vulnerable Greeks,
> who have suffered centuries of invasions, occupations, civil wars,
> coups and famines. The year 2012 may be terrible, but familiarly
> terrible in the sense of 1922, 1941, 1946 and 1967 — or for that
> matter, 1460 or 338 B.C. The Greeks live in a tough region at the
> junction of Islam and Christianity, where Africa, Asia and Europe
> collide in the eastern Mediterranean. Tripoli, Cairo and Istanbul are
> far closer to Greek soil than are Paris, Berlin and London. Ottomanism
> — the historical bane of the isolated Greeks — is on the rise in
> Turkey, fanning ancient grievances over Cyprus, oil and gas rights in
> shared waters, and poorly demarcated air and sea boundaries.
>
> The European Union’s rapid-response military force is a joke. With
> looming cutbacks and a new orientation in the Pacific, a directionless
> and underfunded NATO soon may be too. Polls show that an indebted
> America is still unpopular in Greece; and Greece, to the extent it
> registers with Americans, is not a favorite of the United States.
>
> Without much foreign exchange, the modern Greek military will die on
> the vine. Will cash-strapped Greeks prefer keeping up their stockpile
> of imported smart bombs at the cost of doing without Siemens CT
> scanners or Bayer’s ciprofloxacin?
>
> Take away the veneer of European membership, and Greece is a tiny,
> broke, isolated and terribly vulnerable nation — once again. Given its
> neighborhood and its inner demons, the current insolvency is the very
> beginning, not the end, of Greece’s problems.
>
> — Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover
> Institution, Stanford University.
>
> ==========================
> June Samaras
> 2020 Old Station Rd
> Streetsville,Ontario
> Canada L5M 2V1
> Tel : 905-542-1877
> E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> List-Info: https://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/mgsa-l

-- 
________________________
Professor Neni Panourgiá

2012-2013
Visiting Associate Professor
Anthropology Department
Bard College
PO Box 5000
Annondale-on-Hudson, NY 12504

ICLS
Heyman Center for the Humanities,
Columbia University,
New York, NY 10027

Dangerous Citizens. The Greek Left and the Terror of the State
www.dangerouscitizens.columbia.edu

Ethnographica Moralia Experiments in Interpretive Anthropology
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823228874







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